Cuisine Canada Scene

The naked eye can’t tell the difference between sturgeon caviar and roe from Mississippi paddlefish. But with the help of DNA technology developed at the University of Guelph (U of G) in Ontario, the US is hoping to clamp down on food fraud.

Whether it’s inferior olive oil passed off as extra-virgin,  cow’s milk cheese sold under an expensive sheep’s milk label, or mouldy tomato paste sneaking past quality control and into ketchup bottles,  food fraud is a growing concern.

In a recent article,  U of Guelph technology helps US monitor food fraud, Stewart Laidlaw writes:

The FDA called U of G, which has come up with a world-leading technology using DNA testing to sort out such frauds.

“We’re the ones writing the protocols for the FDA,” says U of G professor Robert Hanner.

Hanner is the global campaign co-ordinator of the school’s Barcode of Life project, which is working to genetically identify all the varieties of fish in the world. The resulting database can then be used to identify the types of fish sold to consumers.

Of course, fraud isn’t new, it doesn’t stop at the border, nor is it limited to fish. But if Canada doesn’t keep up with the US on food fraud issues, Hanner wonders if our own technology could be used against us.

What sort of anti-fraud measures would you like to see initiated in Canada? Should we follow the US lead, work together or create our own system?

Photo © geishaboy500. Published under a Creative Commons License.