HONG KONG, SAR, PRC, 22 DECEMBER 2009—About one-sixth of food products are mislabeled. This is according to two New York City high school students who explored their homes using the latest high-tech DNA analysis technique.
The results of their analysis show that cow’s milk and meat is used in "sheep's milk" cheese, and "venison" dog treats. They also discovered about 95 animal species in their homes—these were present in a variety of objects including refrigerators, furniture pieces and so on.
Brenda Tan and Matt Cost of Trinity School on Manhattan also discovered plenty of apparent consumer fraud in progress. They were astonished to see that the labels of 11 of 66 food products purchased at local markets misrepresented their actual contents.
Dangerous fraudulent labeling
Mislabeling is dangerous but this is not new. Last year, two other students from the same institution found that one-quarter of fish they purchased at markets and restaurants in Manhattan were mislabeled.
Many more instances of mislabeling have been discovered by Tan and Cost during the new barcoding study but they have decided not to publicly identify the products or retailers involved.
Noting that mislabeling is an unethical business practice, and that customers should get what they pay for, Tan and Cost said that unfortunately there were some sellers who typically substituted something less expensive or desirable for what is actually declared on their product labels, in order to make higher profits.
Ethics aside, there are public hazards, such as health risks, that could stem from this practice. For instance, it could harm people who have allergies to certain ingredients that may be present but not listed on the labels of the food products they consume. The students referenced the cases of puffer fish poisoning in the US.
New species discovered
During their research, Tan and Cost came across an invasive species of insect in a box of grapefruit from Texas. Results from DNA barcoding suggest that they could be a new species or subspecies of the common New York cockroach.
“DNA is amazingly resilient to damage through all the processing to which it is subjected, said Matt. “We got usable DNA from 151 of 217 of the items tested–including dried soup mix, dog biscuits, beef jerky, butter, a feather lying on the sidewalk, a dried bit of horse manure from Central Park, even a feather duster.”
The government should take steps to protect the consumers, said the students, who recommended that the authorities use early versions of species identification tools for the purpose. DNA barcoding technology helps in the identification of species. Users can use this technology to quickly, cheaply, easily and accurately identify species, they said.
