Detective work and food fraud
How did horse meat remain undetected in the food chain for long enough to reach supermarket shelves? Ian Farrell investigates
In the UK we don't like the thought of eating horse meat, but it turns out that's exactly what many of us have been doing, even though we weren't aware of it at the time. Equally, recent tests have shown that those who don't eat pork for cultural reasons may also have been ingesting something they didn't want to. While neither of these examples of food fraud is hazardous to health, adulteration of food and drink can be dangerous: methanol in counterfeit vodka can cause damage to the brain and eyesight, while the addition of melamine to baby milk in China in 2001 caused scores of infant deaths before it was discovered.
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