The Atlantic

The Surprisingly Subtle Art of Food Fraud

The long history of faked foods includes horse-meat hamburgers, oil-and dust-peppercorns, and corn-syrup honey.
Source: Luke MacGregor / Reuters

Hamburgers that turn out to be horse, not beef. Honey sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. Old, gray olives dipped in copper-sulfate solution to make them look fresh and green. Fraudulent foods such as these make up as much as 5 to 10 percent as we put on our detective hats to investigate food fraud’s long history and the cutting-edge science behind food forensics today—as well as what you can do to make sure what’s on your plate is what you think it is.

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