Another Reason to Think Twice About Processed Foods

Thanks to Marion Nestle for pointing out this article in the New York Times.

If you needed another reason to think twice about buying and feed processed foods to your family then here is another. It seems that one of the major ingredients in the processed food business is bribery.  The New York Times (print edition) calls its report of the latest scandal, “Hidden Ingredient: The Sweetener.”  and they aren't talking about sugar or even high fructose corn syrup.

This is isn't some fly by night business either...we are talking the big boys...the ones responsible for most of the stuff on your grocery shelves. Big companies like Nabisco, Kraft, Frito-Lay,  and B&G(Ortega) and Safeway.

It turns out that, in this particular case, B&K Foods, a now bankrupt tomato processor, was paying bribes to the purchasing managers of these big companies to accept shipments and pay premium prices for processed tomatoes that were molded or otherwise not suitable for use in food. How about some salsa with those chips or maybe a little ketchup for those fries? Granted mold is not typically harmful in food but when I want mold I'll buy blue cheese and not a jar of salsa.

The thing is that if these guys were caught then the probably of it going on elsewhere is pretty darn high. It should also tell you that the big food companies, by not fully inspecting their raw materials, are fully demonstrating that they really don't care about the quality of their product just their profit. If they really cared about their customers then they would be inspecting all of the raw materials that go into the food they produce for wholesomeness. Remember last year how many products were recalled because of bad peanuts? Incoming quality testing by the producers would have prevented it from happening. Yes you should be able to trust your suppliers but verify.