What’s really in our food?

Where does M&S’s lochmuir salmon come from? How can you double the size of a chicken breast in 40 seconds? Does the chicken in a Birdseye ‘Great British Menu’ prepared meal come from Brazil, and would it matter to you if it does? Was a bag of ‘organic salad’ washed in organic water before it was packed? I am kicking myself for not having set the DVD recorder for this programme on BBC1 at 9pm last night. Initially it focuses on marketing techniques used to persuade consumers to buy food products through suggestion of the origin of the ingredients. Are the marketers clever, devious or unethical here? Later the programme moves on to a more serious investigation of food fraud - deliberate misrepresentation of the ingredients used in food products. Food scientists are, apparently, developing all sorts of techniques to hide the DNA evidence of what is in our food, but others are fighting back by using the same technology as that used to identify extinct animal special such as Tyrannosaurus Rex to identify the source of protein used in our food. Some of the opinions sought from consumers shopping in British markets are clearly manipulated by the producers of the programme to get a good old-fashioned ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’ response to what marketers might call imaginative promotion. Elsewhere there is evidence that fraudulent labelling is used to imply that products made from halal chicken actually contain beef and pork. If you missed the programme, it is worth watching on the i-player.