HOW FOOD FRAUD CAN GET INTO YOUR KITCHEN

There are protections in place to safeguard the U.S. food supply, but as with sham designer purses and knock off watches, there are billions of dollars to be made with counterfeit cuisine.

Those counterfeit foods include milk, some cheeses and even expensive wine.

In June 2016, there was a massive seizure of counterfeit honey in the Chicago suburbs. Homeland Security Investigations and Customs and Border Protections seized 60 tons of fake honey, which is now stored in a government warehouse on the Texas/Mexico border. It was the largest food fraud investigation in U.S. history.

"It's a crime in which a lot of people have made a lot of money smuggling it into the United States," Special Agent Matthew Gauder, Homeland Security Investigations - Chicago.

The illegal honey was from China, some tainted with antibiotics prohibited in food. The lost revenue for taxpayers tallies in the hundreds of millions.

"Honey is not that innocent food we all like to think it is," Gauder said.

"It could be 10 percent of the entire U.S. food supply is fraudulent one way or another," said John Spink, Ph.D., director of the Food Fraud Initiative at Michigan State University.

Spink said the range of fraudsters is wide. Figuring out who's to blame can be difficult, but necessary.

"It's a crime of opportunity it's a crime that is complex so definitely organized crime is involved, but also some of those larger groups are affiliated with other types of crimes such as terrorism," he said.

Many food producers are now under assault by well-organized counterfeiters, costing the taxpayers billions and risking consumer health.

"We've cleaned up the industry a lot, but the schemes keep evolving," Gauder said.

The schemes continue to become more sophisticated, even the paperwork for purity is being faked.

"Something that is concerning for me as an investigator and for you as a consumer is that in recent shipments, including a seizure I made a few months ago, we're seeing fake and altered laboratory reports," he said.

Some popular targets according to USP, a scientific nonprofit, are olive oil diluted with cheaper inedible oils, spices such as paprika and chili powder mixed with cheaper materials or industrial dyes, honey mislabeled and spiked with corn syrup and possibly antibiotics, and seafood switched out for cheaper species.

"There's a good chance, Chuck, that if you order red snapper at a restaurant you are really getting tilapia. If you order tuna or cod, you are probably getting escolar," Gauder said.

Escolar is a fish that can cause stomach problems.

Food crime can also involve substitution and tampering with dangerous chemicals and ingredients that could make consumers sick. Finding the frauds can be difficult. It's a constant battle for investigators across the globe.

A massive Interpol-Europol operation recently claimed to have netted counterfeit sugar contaminated with fertilizer, and Italian olives painted with copper sulfate to enhance color.

Chicago restaurateur David Flom of Chicago Cut Steakhouse and Ocean Cut Seafood is aware of the swindlers.

"It happens a significant amount in our industry, no question about it," he said.

Flom said reputable restaurants now have safeguards in place to guarantee what's on the menu is the real deal. That includes making personal visits to suppliers.

"It's very important who you partner with or who your marriages are within the food business, and that they are very strong. And so we spend a lot of time doing that and researching that," Flom said.

The penalties associated with being caught are small compared to drug trafficking.

"Organized criminals to include the Italian mafia have figured that out. These are crimes that are relatively low risk that come with a high reward," Gauder said.

The FDA said it continually monitors food producers for safety. The Grocery Manufacturers of America told the I-Team that product safety and integrity and maintaining consumer confidence are the most important goals of the industry.

Best practice is for consumers to buy less-processed food, buy local and skip foods priced too good to be true.

The Quick and Delicious Dinner Fix

Think about the best meal you've ever had. Maybe it was a hearty beef stew or a juicy roast. What makes these dishes so satisfying is a combination of deep flavors and tenderness that most think can only be achieved by all-day cooking. That's why a lot of us save those time-sucker meals for the holidays, when we have time to spare. But delicious dining doesn't have to take hours on end. Some of the best meals can also be made quickly, when you take a few helpful shortcuts. HelloFresh, the meal-delivery service that sends health-conscious meals to your home, has created quick (even for non-chef) solutions that don't skimp on flavor. Here's how.

A lot of people are turning to meal-delivery services because they take the hassle out of deciding what to eat for dinner every night. But the problem with most is that they still can take quite a bit of time to prepare. While most HelloFresh meals take 30 mins to make, I noticed HelloFresh introduced a Rapid Meal, which had a cook time of only 20 minutes. From the description, Rapid Meals seem to cut down on prep time so that you can get to the best part even sooner: eating. With hacks like microwaving over baking (which is a great tip for potatoes), HelloFresh is making it even easier to cook a healthy and delicious meal without sacrificing that cooked-all-day taste.

One of their signature rapid meals is the Butternut Squash with Kale in a Sage Brown Butter Sauce. All you have to do is first wash and dry all produce, slice your shallots, mince your garlic, and chop up some sage leaves. Then, cook the kale with the shallots for 4 to 6 minutes, adding the garlic. Toss the agnolotti into boiling water and cook for 5 to 7 minutes. Add some butter to the kale pan to make your sage brown butter, and assemble! With only 5 minutes of prep time and 20 minutes total cook time, this delicious pasta dish looks and tastes like it took much longer.

Every HelloFresh meal is designed to be easy to prepare. Each meal comes in mini boxes packed with everything you need, including perfectly-portioned, fresh ingredients and simple to follow recipe cards. The Classic Plan provides three nights of dinners for two people each week, which makes a healthy and just-as-easy alternative to ordering takeout. You can also skip weeks or cancel at anytime.

Life is busy, and eating great food shouldn't have to take all day. By using a meal-kit service to take some of the tedious tasks out of cooking, it makes it so much easier to cook at home three days out of the week. Then after you've built up your cooking skills, it will be easier than ever to make healthy choices. HelloFresh's rapid meals are just one meal type within their diverse meal preferences, which also includes a "Fit" plan, a "Variety" plan, and options for seafood-free, beef-free, pork-free, or vegetarian. Whatever your food preferences, HelloFresh wants to make dinner a lot more easy, quick, affordable and fun!

NZ food prices spike in August

New Zealand food prices posted their biggest monthly increase in at least three years in August as produce and grocery items got more expensive.

Food price increased a seasonally adjusted 1.2 percent in August, snapping three months of cheaper goods, and led higher by a 1.7 percent rise in fruit and vegetable prices, Statistics New Zealand said.

The monthly spike in produce prices was driven by seasonally higher prices for tomatoes, lettuce and cabbage, while banana prices climbed 22 percent to a record high.

Grocery food prices also rose a seasonally adjusted 1.2 percent as cheese and snack foods got more expensive.

On an unadjusted basis, food prices advanced 0.5 percent in August from the same month a year earlier, the biggest annual increase since April, as dearer capsicums, onions and courgettes lifted vegetable prices 2.6 percent and restaurant and ready-to-eat meal prices rose 2 percent.

Grocery food was cheaper than August 2015, falling 0.5 percent as the slump in global dairy prices helped push down the price of domestic fresh milk and yoghurt.

Woolworths-owned Countdown said prices for its most commonly bought items fell 0.6 percent in August from the same month a year earlier due to cheaper milk prices.

Bad weather created shortages for produce which pushed up prices, while the spike in banana prices came when a ship transporting the fruit to New Zealand broke down leaving a temporary gap in supply, the supermarket operator said.

The food price index accounts for about 19 percent of the consumers price index, which is the Reserve Bank's mandated inflation target when setting interest rates.

Tuesday's data show meat, poultry and fish prices fell 0.2 percent in August from a year earlier, led lower by an 11 percent drop in the price of poultry, while non-alcoholic beverage prices were unchanged from August 2015.

NZN