An Urban's Rural View

Anyone who has served in the military or eaten at a school or hospital cafeteria understands the concept of "mystery meat," a comestible that's neither vegetable nor mineral but whose animal provenance is unclear.

Well, they're having a mystery-meat scandal of sorts in Europe these days. And it seems we Americans may be having a mystery-fish scandal.

Europe is aflutter with reports that some of its ground beef is actually ground horse. Just the other day the Swedish furniture purveyor IKEA was forced to take its famed Swedish meatballs off the cafeteria menu in European stores after Czech inspectors tested a batch and discovered Dobbin, or at least traces of Dobbin.

Here in the U.S., a study by Oceana says a third of the fish sold in the U.S. is something other than what it pretends to be (http://tiny.cc/…). Between 2010 and 2012 Oceana, a non-profit advocacy group, did DNA tests on 1,215 seafood samples from 674 retail outlets in 21 states and found 33% were mislabeled. Fully 87% of the snapper and 59% of the tuna were other fish masquerading as snapper and tuna.

It's a sobering thought: In the vast majority of instances, those who consumed the European ground beef and American snapper were blissfully unaware they were eating impostors.

Sobering, but not exactly surprising. More than we like to admit, we are all at the mercy of those who label our food. Could professional meat and fish taste testers, even, tell the difference between the real and the fake? I recall reading many years ago of a "blind" wine tasting where supposed wine experts couldn't distinguish red wine from white.

What all this suggests is that consumers will eventually demand a true traceability system, extending from field (or fishing boat) to fork. In the meantime, we at least have USDA meat inspectors. Oh, wait a minute. They're about to be furloughed, aren't they?