August 9, 2016
Interview with Larry Olmstead author of  Real Food/Fake Food  www.realfoodfakefood.com/
Mike Carruthers: Seafood fraud is a real thing and it’s a big thing.
Larry Olmstead: When you buy red snapper at a restaurant or at retail, you don’t get it 94% of the time. So like I don’t even know as I’ve ever had red snapper even though I’ve ordered it.
Larry Olmstead author of the book Real Food /Fake Food …
The most common substitute for red snapper is tile-fish which is high enough in mercury to be on the FDA’s do not eat list for pregnant women and sensitive diners. So this is another example where it’s not just economic fraud you’re getting something you probably wouldn’t want to eat if you knew.
There are some new rules going into effect soon that should help clean up some of this problem. But this has been going on a long time.
The most publicized seafood scandal in the country was this Florida grouper scandal of 2006 when a lot of restaurants were serving/selling a farmed Cambodian catfish that cost them a quarter as much as grouper and passing it off as grouper. And the Florida state economics crime unit actually charged 17 restaurants – that’s pretty rare.
Most of this goes unnoticed and unpunished and it’s not just seafood.
Some of the most adulterated foods are staples like honey. Honey is a single – what they call a single ingredient food. You buy a jar of honey it’s supposed to be just honey. But it’s very easy to cut it with high fructose corn syrup or beet sugar. People aren’t going to notice and you’re going to make money.
Larry Olmstead
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