Regarding ‘dyed’ farmed salmon, the linked Cracked article is absolutely full of shit.
This is completly wrong, no Safeway is drenching the salmon filets in dye. The ‘dye’ is added to the food the fish are fed and builds up in their flesh over time, the same way that the natural colorings from the shrimp and krill that salmon eat in the wild builds up.
It works the same way because the coloring is the same, Astaxanthin.
Wild fish get the astaxanthin from the things they feed on, DSM and Roche get thier astaxanthin from algae farms. Fish feed manufacturers add the astaxanthin to the feed.
It is not some ‘chemical dye’, it is the same carotenoid present in salmon’s natural diet.
Now, farmed fish is crappy fish, that is a different discussion, but whoever wrote that Cracked article did not do much or any research.
Cows eating a diet high in beta carotenes produce milk with a bit of a yellow or orange color, which imparts a natural yellow/orange color to cheese made from that milk. At some point, people began to value cheeses made from such milk that were naturally that color, which gave incentive to other people to color white cheese to make it look yellow or orange.
In other words, nothing wrong with white cheese, just that some folks have gotten used to yellow and orange cheese in the ensuing centuries and expect certain cheeses to be that color regardless.
The carotenoids that color the flesh of both wild and farmed salmon are important vitamins for egg development. They are not referring to the skin color changes.
Even captive brood stock, fish held in hatcheries for egg production and species recovery, are also fed the feed with these coloring agents even though they will never be slaughtered for food.
The only chocolate cake I make from scratch is the One Bowl recipe on Baker’s Chocolate.
I really don’t mean that in the “oh yeah, well…” way that I’m afraid it will come across, just thought you might enjoy knowing. And my source for the cocoa speculation was my aunt, not the Cooks Illustrated Red Velvet issue so I’m not surprised to have it debunked.
I’m rather skeptical of MLS’s cite, and the other cites I saw when searching “oranges dyed”, there’s a lot of blah blah blah but no hard facts from reliable sources. Then I searched for “degreening” and found a good looking document from CJ Hearn, US Dept Agriculture.
The color-add was done at a commercial packinghouse, Hearn did not strictly control this test, he only sampled the oranges that were routinely processed by the packer.
I’m guessing that chemically there is a difference between Olive Oil and Vegetable Oil that would show up with testing, or that the levels of certain things would be suspiciously high/low. Of course it would be easy to try such things and probably get away with it (testing would probably only be done when there is suspicion) but surely you are not saying that just because it is difficult we just shouldn’t bother?
Evidence for your claim? I find it unlikely that such large companies would risk so much by breaking the law in such a fundamental way for their industry.
The FDA and USDA have many labeling regulations, and they do enforce them. States also have labeling regulations. I don’t know what the regs are relating to olive oil though.
They can test the stuff - for purity and quality.
No, it’s not easy. No, the government doesn’t do a great enforcement job. I’m sure lots of it slips through, as this article says.
