Editor's letter: Of Swedish meatballs and fake fish
The news is thick with food scandal.
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
The news is thick with food scandal. The world’s most famous Swedish meatballs, those sold to bleary-eyed shoppers at Ikea, were found to contain horsemeat at outlets in 14 European countries (see News: The week at a glance). Organic eggs in Germany turn out to have been laid by battery hens fattened on distinctly non-organic feed (see Best columns: Europe). At least it’s happening on the other side of the Atlantic. Or is it? A new study using DNA analysis has found that “seafood fraud” is rampant on our shores (see Noted). One frequent stand-in for what sushi restaurants call “tuna” is actually a cheaper, oily fish called escolar, which can give you explosive diarrhea. And the odds that you’ll get real red snapper in a restaurant or at the supermarket are about one in 16, or roughly the same as Gonzaga University’s chances of winning this month’s NCAA men’s basketball championship.
It’s all enough to make the health-conscious consumer consider going vegan—until you actually take a closer look at what’s going on in the friendly world of plants. As disgusted as we may be about fake fish, horsemeat, or the now-banished “pink slime” that until recently juiced up our hamburgers, there’s no evidence anybody died from the aesthetic horror of eating something icky. In fact, the deadliest U.S. food scandals in recent years have centered on salmonella, E. coli, and other microbial infections of cantaloupe, peanuts, spinach, and green onions. Bean sprouts, the crunchy granola of the vegetable world, are among the foodstuffs most prone to bacterial contamination. Perhaps the only sane response is to eat less of everything—except chocolate.
James Graff
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
-
Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 30 September 2023
The Week’s daily digest of the news agenda, published at 8am
By The Week Staff Published
-
Crossword: September 30, 2023
The Week's daily crossword
By The Week Staff Published
-
Sudoku hard: September 30, 2023
The Week's daily hard sudoku puzzle
By The Week Staff Published
-
Editor's letter
feature
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Editor's letter: Are college athletes employees?
feature The National Labor Relations Board's decision deeming scholarship players “employees” of Northwestern University has many worrying that college sports itself will soon be history.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Editor's letter
feature
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Editor's letter: When a bot takes your job
feature Now that computers can write news stories, drive cars, and play chess, we’re all in trouble.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Editor's letter: Electronic cocoons
feature Smartphones have their upside, but city streets are now full of people walking with their heads down.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Editor's letter: The real cause of income inequality
feature When management and stockholders pocket all the profits, the middle class falls further behind.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Editor's letter: The real reason you’re so forgetful
feature When you consider how much junk we’ve stored in our brains, it’s no surprise we can’t remember our PINs.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Editor's letter: Ostentatious politicians
feature The McDonnells’ indictment for corruption speaks volumes about the company elected officials now keep.
By The Week Staff Last updated