Secrets of supermarket meat and fish: Testing the food you buy (CBC Marketplace)

tonight on marketplace it's a guessing game here how would anybody know a shopping trip you won't want to miss we put the food you eat every day to the test what do you mean by profiteering people who are engaging in food fraud question what you buy and buy into when it comes to filling the cart this was living inside of me we're about to reveal food secrets that just may change the way you eat for good now you're really freaking me out ready to go shopping sure Ram we're picking up a few groceries grab all those you teaming up with Maria Leone Oh scarboni okay she's a mom marketplace viewer and writes a lifestyle blog okay drive a call from Maria tries hard to make healthy choices but that sometimes easier said than done we've taken popular items you buy every week to the lab and uncovered food secrets we're about to share first item on Maria's grocery list fish this all looks like it special a Maria looks for wild salmon cuz she's heard it's better than farm well I think I'm probably gonna buy like wild salmon or a wild soul but once you remove the skin and fillet a fish let's check out some of the labels here and see a real mistake it can be pretty hard to tell what's what this is Atlantic salmon I am guessing that that's probably farmed so how much can you trust those labels to find out we put fish from the grocery store to the test over a hundred and fifty pieces prep them in the marketplace kitchen then sent him to the University of Guelph here are some of the samples that we received from you biologist Robert Hannah helped develop a method to genetically identify fish he can tell us if the fish we paid for is really the fish we got and what defined consumers are definitely being ripped off out of the 153 samples tested more than one-fifth were mislabeled ranging from some labeling technicalities to the wrong fish altogether with the cod you tested it we thought it was Cod what did it turn out to be well we found both haddock and Pollock being substituted for cod in the market and the price difference fillet of cod goes for about $7.99 a pound but get this Pollack only $4.99 and if you buy your fish with sustainability in mind the label just says shark steak and it actually turned out to be sandbar shark what's the problem with that well the problem is that the sandbar shark is a threatened species that is not supposed to be in our food chain here in Canada turns out it's not on the list have approved fish to sell in Canada I would say rather weak legislation that doesn't punish people who substitute one fillet for another have driven profiteering in this area what do you mean by profiteering well people who are engaging in food fraud what do you think about the fact that you could be buying something and paying for something that you're not actually getting that's terrible I I want to be able to trust in the label and know what I'm buying as for Maria's choice to buy wild salmon our results exposed problems there too one of our tests was labeled as Pacific salmon and when you tested it you found it was what well we found it farmed Atlantic salmon and in some cases and unarmed yeah not wild Pacific salmon not wild no they're an Atlantic salmon is often substituted in for wild Pacific salmon so our first food secret revealed the fish you buy may not be the fish you get you're making a choice and yet it turns out that that choice may not be accurate right I'm trying to make a healthier choice and if I'm I'm thinking I'm buying it but I'm really not yeah that's that's gonna really upset me that's why other countries are using DNA testing to prevent fish fraud but in Canada we're not doing enough says Hanner it is disappointing that the that it was developed here in Canada and hasn't become part of our policy first we asked Health Canada for an interview to ask what's being done to fix all this mislabeling all we get is a statement saying the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is developing a plan to verify that fish in the marketplace is appropriately labeled so you gotta grab some fish yep I'm gonna get this wild salmon okay let's hope that's what it is next up on Maria's shopping trip beef we sure eat a lot of it about a pound a week each okay what kind of beef do you like by the husband really likes steak so I checked by t-bone or strip sirloin how did your husband like it cooked just on the grill hey how about look yeah these are good but it's what Maria can't see that we're about to shine a light on in our next food secret for that my co-host Tom Harrington where's the beef in the box teams up with food safety expert Rick Holley at the University of Manitoba everything it's gonna do oh absolutely this will just be fine fine for a piece of equipment used in processing a lot of the beef we eat something called a mechanical tenderizer okay we're in business needles inside this machine are used to penetrate deep into the meat make our steaks and roasts more tender but this microbiologist says that process also increases the chances of making us sick so how risky is it we're going to massage the meat are we yes we are look at this we started by slathering the beef with a special orange dye so the orange gel here is essentially replicating ecoli sitting on the surface of the meat right exactly so in the dark this gel will show up anywhere it's spread all right let us feed the beast the needle marks soon disappear but we'll still be able to see any Jill that gets pushed inside turn lights out please oh look at that so we're in there in two centimeters three centimeters scary enough seeing gel pushed into the meat and when we repeated the test using really coli ten percent made it deep inside is that enough to make somebody say I would have to say it probably would be in our test we also discovered you have to cook your steak to at least medium well to kill any e.coli inside you think people cook their steaks long enough to kill ecoli let's say in that amount inside a steak I don't and that's our next food secret your beef may be mechanically tenderized and needs to be cooked to at least 71 degrees sure not common knowledge Canadian consumers continued to be our top priority which is why Federal Minister of Agriculture Jerry Ritz promised to introduce labels for tenderized beef back at the grocery store Marie and I look for any sign of labels so if you see anything here that says tenderized nothing there just the price the weight it's a guessing game here how would anybody know no labels to be found and when we check more than 20 grocery stores across the country we only find one with the right label at a Toronto fresh go there's a good chance that something here has gone through that process and you have no idea it's annoying because I want to know what I'm eating and I'm just like there's always something coming up that you know makes me question the food industry Health Canada won't talk on camera about this one either instead they email health canada plans to begin consulting with Canadians in the coming months and that new labeling requirements should be in this created in 2014 so since most tenderized beef has no labels we designed one of our own what do you think if we just stuck that right there this meat has been mechanically tenderized and you should cook it to a minimum of 71 degrees was it hard to come up with but Canadians it seems we'll have to wait when we come back ami what's for dinner tonight the safest way to make your family's favorite meal and a popular lunch meat comes clean or does it that does surprise me actually we're cruising the grocery store revealing secrets behind some of the familiar foods you put in your cart helping us out marketplace viewer Maria Leone owes Carboni next on her list chicken do you guys eat a lot of chicken at home oh we do I try to mix it up chicken is the most popular meat in Canada so farmers want to grow them big fast I often wonder with larger ones what they're feeding the chickens to make them grow so big so fast well you're concerned about what they might be getting as they're being raised right and when we reveal our next food secret she may be even more concerned all that but first there we go back to Maria's mommy what's for dinner tonight Maria's extra careful when she preps chicken because she knows bugs like Salmonella can make you sick but she doesn't know just how sick at mcmaster Hospital in Hamilton we meet up with a guy who found that out the hard way I'm a pretty healthy guy I'm in good shape I exercise and I do all the sort of the right things and this hit me hit me really hard Jerry Wright was sick from food poisoning for months IV antibiotics weren't working I guess about 24 hours after I was at the hospital they called me up to tell me or guess what you have Salmonella growing in your bloodstream and this is why you're so sick turns out he'd been infected with a strain of Salmonella resistant to antibiotics a superbug how serious is that well you can die from sepsis so why are bugs like this becoming resistant because farmers give the same antibiotics we use to animals like chickens to prevent disease and to make them grow bigger faster the problem is the more drugs used the more resistant the bacteria on chickens get turning them in to superbugs to find out how often these superbugs end up on grocery store chicken Parker please put that to the test - chicken leg bought a hundred samples of chicken and took them to the lab for analysis what we found 2/3 had at least one super bug get sick from one of them some antibiotics may not work miss chief Jerry Wright says our test results should be a real wake-up call and he would know not only did he get sick from one of these bugs he's also the head of infectious disease research at McMaster University this was in your bloodstream this was living inside of me yes stronger antibiotics help right pull through but he worries we're running out of options it's the bugs against the drugs and the bugs are winning and worse news recent studies show the number of some superbugs on chicken is on the rise so take note of our next food secret your chicken may be contaminated with superbugs honestly I thought our food industry was a lot better here I was watching you prepare your chicken today how confident are you that you didn't get cross-contamination anywhere um I usually been pretty good with that I think anyways so what will she think of our next test when we asked two volunteers to do the same thing Maria just did cook some chicken I'm going to grab some chicken here but this time under the watchful eye of UBC food microbiologist Kevin Allen who first covered the chicken in that special gel to see what get contaminated there we go okay the volunteers got cooking so thinking that will maybe bake these we'll do a little stir-fry baking the chicken will kill any superbugs but we turned off the lights to see if contamination from the raw chicken had spread first Allen checked the frying pan it's actually quite intense then the bowl the tea towel and their hands we can see some of the contamination contamination from the chicken showed up even though our volunteer washed her hands three times it's it still life my parents still contagious for months so how confident are you now that you know it would be okay if we turned out the light no no I would I would have to clean and scrub everything up again because these germs spread so easily we want to know what Health Canada is doing to fight the rise of superbugs they tell us they're actively working to promote antimicrobial stewardship and the chicken farmers of Canada they say they're working to control monitor and reduce antimicrobial use in chicken farming coming up why you'll want to take a closer look at your sandwich meat swine behind that we're putting some of the most popular foods we eat to the test revealing food secrets some might prefer you might not know the final item to pick up deli meat probably buy something the natural selections when Maria gives her family cold cuts she opts for what she thinks is a healthier choice they believes natural selections brand turkey with natural ingredients no preservatives added no preservatives sounds good to her she wants to avoid nitrites a common preservative and no wonder nitrites may be one reason deli meats been linked to cancer important to Maria because what she buys here okay I'm going to make you guys some turkey sandwiches for tomorrow okay goes in here children's lunches here at first glance the deli meat Maria bought appears to be preservative free but look closer beyond those naturally occurring preservatives and nitrates in the ingredients yep see that simple sounding ingredient cultured celery extract it's actually a nitrite by another name but the people get that not most of these shoppers my assumption is but they would be try to suggest that this is better for you I looked in the cultural celery extract and I figured okay it's dehydrated celery not too bad I think it's misleading and that's our final food secret all packaged deli meats have preservatives you're a savvy shopper you read labels and even this wasn't clear to you yeah it definitely went under the radar for me you feel deceived yeah I do my belief tells us they provide information so that consumers can purchase food that is right for them but changes may be coming we learn the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is reviewing the use of certain claims on deli meats made with the cultured celery ingredient so until things change some Survival Guide tips for your next grocery trip watch out for tricky labels making chicken cook thoroughly and wash up well to avoid the spread of bugs and ask if the thief you're buying has been tenderized if so cook it at least medium well chicken our food secrets leave our marketplace shopper armed for her next grocery shop but frustrated I mean I shouldn't have to worry so much about you know what I'm feeding my family hey it should be a lot simpler than it is today

Channel: CBC News

Views: 2,414,284

Rating: 4.7192869 out of 5

Keywords: Steak (Food), Chicken (Animal), Chicken Meat (Food), Fish (Animal), fish, deli meat, Nitrate (Chemical Compound), health, food, cooking, safety, cross-contamination, bacteria, superbugs, e.coli, fraud, marketing, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (TV Network), Marketplace (Award-Winning Work), cbc marketplace, marketplace cbc, marketplace, consumer

Id: iLmVCgoakDE

Length: 18min 6sec (1086 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 08 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/thefirm1990]

the video was shot in 2014 so I was wondering if anyone has any insight about whether there have been any regulatory changes to combat any of the mislabeling.