你以为你吃进肚里的都是真食品？Too young！ Too naive！

Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don’t Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It is an investigative overview of the food industry’s often intentional efforts to mislead consumers about the origin and identity of the products that they eat. Author Larry Olmsted highlights the most outrageous examples of food frauds perpetrated upon the American people and offers recommendations for ways that consumers can reclaim their grocery bags and fill their dinner plates with foods they can trust. 

Fake foods are ubiquitous, but most Americans fail to realize that they are being duped. While it may seem harmless to consume a type of cheese that is not, in fact, from a specific region in Italy, as often occurs with the consumption of ersatz Parmesan cheese, the implications of this fraud are far-reaching. First, consumers are paying a premium for products that purport to be more luxurious or exclusive than they are, while the US government does little to nothing to protect its citizens’ pocketbooks. More importantly, when food products misrepresent themselves to the consumer, a person’s health can be put at risk. Most Americans do not realize that not all words on food packaging have meanings that are regulated by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) or Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As a result, a consumer might be duped into purchasing a product labeled as “natural” with the belief that it’s healthier. In reality, the FDA does not regulate this term and the consumer is purchasing a product that presents itself to be something it likely is not.

Food fraud is not a victimless crime. In addition to putting the consumers’ health at risk and charging them for something that is not authentic, it also harms the people who have devoted their lives to cultivating authentic foods. When an American company manufactures a cheap sparkling wine and calls it “champagne,” it is exploiting the centuries of work put into creating the sterling reputation of real champagne produced exclusively in a specific region in France. As a result, consumers might come to devalue the genuine article based on their experience with lesser products trading on its good name. This, however, is perfectly legal in the United States.

Consumers who seek to avoid food fraud should learn how best to identify the products they consume. Products often faked include cheese, olive oil, and seafood. While restaurants will generally be the worst perpetrators of food fraud, savvy consumers can protect themselves by becoming educated at the grocery store and purchasing foods that rare whole whenever possible, as it is much harder to misidentify a whole lobster, for example, than a fish product that’s been chopped up and stirred into a soup.