Target, Walmart Selling Fake Ginkgo, Garlic, Ginseng Thanks to Political Loophole

This week, the New York State Attorney General charged Walmart, Target, Walgreens and GNC with selling "mislabeled" and "adulterated" dietary supplements.  

No surprise, at least to Fake Food Watch readers.  (See below for my list of other dietary supplements that should also be investigated by authorities... ) 

Many health supplements are fakes. Most, actually. Frauds. Bogus, pricey bait for consumers.  Neither effective, nor worth the billions Americans waste annually in vain hopes of improving their health. 

That's because "These drugs are not subject to the F.D.A.’s approval because of a loophole in a 1994 federal law (spearheaded by Utah Sen Orrin G. Hatch who received funding from supplement makers), fraudulent products can easily reach consumers without accountability or oversight," per Salon.com.    

Republican Sen. Hatch berated 2012 proposed legislation created to force greater accountability in the lucrative dietary supplement industry. 

Sen. Hatch bitterly railed against an amendment that would ..."require facilities engaged in the manufacturing, processing, packing, or holding of dietary supplements to register with the FDA, provide a description with a list of all ingredients, as well as a copy of the labeling for each dietary supplement product.  Additionally, the facilities must also register with respect to new, reformulated, and discontinued dietary supplement products. 

While I appreciate my colleague’s commitment, his amendment is based on the misguided presumption that the current regulatory framework for dietary supplements is flawed..."  (Source - U.S. Senate website of Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah)

Findings of the New York State Attorney General?  Of 390 DNA barcoding tests performed on 78 samples of 24 generic products sold at the four retailers: 

• At Walmart, "4 percent actually contained the ingredients listed on the label."
• At Walgreens, 18 percent contained the listed ingredients.
• At GNC, 22 percent contained the listed ingredients.
• At Target, 44 percent contained the listed ingredients.
• (Source - Food Safety News)

Each sample was tested five times; samples were selected from all regions of New York state. The dietary supplements tested were garlic, ginseng, gingko biloba, St. John's wort, echinacea, valerian root, and saw palmetto.

Even I'm amazed at the incredible array of fake fillers found in these supplements in lieu of ingredients listed on the labels. "In many cases, the authorities said, the supplements contained little more than cheap fillers like rice and house plants, or substances that could be hazardous to people with food allergies," per the New York Times.

Specific ingredients found in supplements tested often included:

• Dracaena, a houseplant (right photo)
• Rice
• Wheat
• Spruce
• Pine
• Palm
• Wild carrot
• Grass
• Allium, from the garlic family
• Radish
• Daisy
• Mung bean

Friends, don't waste your hard-earned money on dietary supplements. The industry is barely regulated. And profiteers, of course, prey on this regulatory loophole to line their rich pockets at your expense and the expense of your health hopes.

Among other products I urge state and federal regulators to also investigate for misleading consumers about the health benefits and/or ingredients are:

Raspberry ketones - See "Raspberry Ketones: Another Industrial Food Quasi-Scam?"

Olive leaf extract - See "Olive Leaf Extract: Industrial Food Quasi-Scam with Clever Story"

Ensure - See "Ensure Drink: Sugary Fake Food Pseudo-Wonder Tonic by Vicodin Maker"

Coconut water  - See "The Coconut Water Fad: Hucksterism, Health Elixir or Quasi Fraud?"

Detecting Fake Food: Take this App to the Market

I'm not an app person. Most make life busier and more complicated, not easier.  And like all of us, my smart-phone romance is already too intense.  

But I found one, free of charge, that fits the bill:  super easy  and fast for anyone to use and understand, and with a database of 80,000 grocery products found in U.S.stores.

I strongly recommend that you take this app to the market, and use it.  (Yes, that includes tech-befuddled baby boomers!) 

Food Scores by The Environmental Working Group, released in late 2014, assigns to each product an overall score from 1.0 ("best score") to 10.0 "worst score"), and below, shows the Score Breakdown by:

• Nutrition Concern
• Ingredient Concern
• Processing Concern.

Below that is a third, succinct section that lists Top Findings, both positive and negative, for that product.  A fourth, more detailed section follows with Other Information.

One feature I especially like: products can be quickly either  scanned or keyed into the app. No holding up aisle traffic or restless kids.  

Food Scores by The Environmental Working Group can be downloaded for free at the iTunes and Google stores.  All information about this app, including score formulations, can be found at The Environmental Working Group website.  

Use this handy tool to easily detect and rank fake food in the grocery store.  

Use it to sort through the marketing BS, the pretty packaging, and the intentionally misleading lures of industrial corporations.  

Use it to improve the your health and that of your loved ones. Today. 

Related Reading

Top 12 Worst Food Additives in American Meals

Top 15 Most Pesticide-Free Fruits, Vegetables

Pesticide-Ridden Produce: The 12 Most Infected Fruits, Vegetables

Walmart, Target Fatten Profits by Fattening Football Fans, Children

This recent Walmart "Game Time" ad colorfully promotes a party meal of:

• Red Baron Pepperoni Pizza, frozen
• Lay's or Doritos "Party-Size" Bag of chips
• Great Value Chicken Wings "Sections," frozen  
• Gatorade Sports Drinks, 8 20-oz bottles
• Velveeta (a "Pasteurized Recipe Cheese Product) 
• Nabisco Ritz Crackers, Oreo and Chips Ahoy! cookies in "Family-Size" packs
• M&M's Peanut Candies, 42-oz package
• Football-topped cupcakes

And Ro-Tel, canned tomatoes and green chilis (plus salt. calcium chloride, citric acid, and unidentified "spices") presumably to be mixed with Velveeta, and then dipped with Doritos chips.  

Walmart's fun "Game Time" meal is a time-bomb of salt, sugar, and fat cleverly engineered by industrial mega-corporations to maximize sales and profits.  

(For details, read  "Salt Sugar Fat" - Stunning Big Food Tactics to Hook, Trick, Harm Americans.) 

Problem is... that time-bomb will detonate in your body. In most countries, this highly-processed industrial-concocted "meal" would be viewed as an inedible morass of amped-up salt and sugar flavors. Disgusting fake food. 

This "meal" is guaranteed lethal to your health. A diet of salt, sugar, and fat, laced heavily with hundreds of chemicals...preservatives, fillers, emulsifiers, artificial colors and flavors... has been scientifically linked over and over to diseases including diabetes, heart disease, even cancers.  

A massive new study by the American Association for Cancer Research found that 25% of cancer diagnoses are directly related to "poor dietary habits" and "obese or overweight," usually stemming from poor diet and exercise.  

I don't mean to call-out Walmart as singularly responsible for ruining Americans' health. Most major U.S. food retail corporations are to blame for fattening profits by selling products that fatten customers.  

Take, for instance, this Target ad, which was wrapped around a late August "Back-to-School" promotion.  

The Target ad prominently pushes the big three of highly processed, intentionally addictive U.S. junk food favorites of children... Kraft macaroni & cheese, Coca-Cola soft drinks, and Doritos chips.  

Convenience foods for cheap prices.  At back-to-school time when time and money are scarce for lower-income parents.  

The solution?  Don't buy this junk.  And as much as possible, don't buy from corporate retailers who sell this junk.  Buy from farmer's markets and green grocers.  Buy from stores that specialize in higher quality products. In my neighborhood, that includes Sprouts, Whole Foods, and often, Trader Joe's.  

Remember..  Products that don't sell will be dropped by markets and ultimately discontinued by manufacturers.  And retailers with sale drops will respond by changing their product lines.

We, the consumers have all the power.  Let's use it to dump highly processed fake-foods from our football parties, from our childrens' palates, and from our tables.  

Let's use our power as consumers to take back our health.

Related Reading

"Salt Sugar Fat" - Stunning Big Food Tactics to Hook, Trick, Harm Americans

Soy Sauce Fakes: How to Avoid Industrial Corn-Syrup Soy Sauce

Taco Bell Salad: Why No Warning Label for Lethal Salt Content?

Walmart Hypocrisy: Hunger Campaign that Doesn't Address Real Hunger

The hypocrisy and cynical irony are almost too rich for words. Extreme, ethics-free capitalism at its finest... 

Hunger is defined as "... the physical sensation of desiring food. When politicians, relief workers and social scientists talk about people suffering from hunger, they usually refer to those who are unable to eat sufficient food to meet their basic nutritional needs for sustained periods of time." on Wikipedia. 

With this ad late last month, Walmart urged Americans to join in "fighting hunger together" by buying products in its store, made by the leading fake food mega-corporations:

• General Mills
• Kraft Foods
• Unilever
• Kellogg's
• Con Agra Foods
• Nestle
• Pepsico
• Campbell's
• Dr Pepper/Snapple Group
• Mondelez International (formerly Kraft Foods Inc.)

Walmart wrote:

"In 2010, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation made a historic $2 billion commitment to fight hunger in America through cash and in-kind donations. The Fighting Hunger Together leverages Walmart and the Walmart Foundation’s size and scale to provide nutritious food and funding to nonprofits that are committed to finding solutions for this important issue."

This clever ad campaign leaves the clear impression that Walmart and its fake-food corporate suppliers are fighting hunger.  Truth is that nowhere does Walmart state that it or its partners "are committed to finding solutions for this important issue."     

Instead, Walmart appears to promise to donate a tiny portion of cash (see the list of nonprofits here) from sales to Americans of highly-processed fake foods  manufactured by its "partners" including:

• Kellogg's Froot Loops
• Skippy peanut butter
• Banquet chicken nuggets
• Kraft 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese, canned
• Nature Valley granola thins
• Honey Nut Cheerios

"In-kind donations" by Walmart and its mega-corporate food suppliers means that a majority of their joint "$2 Billion commitment" will be their own fake food products... Froot Loops, Skippy peanut butter, Banquet chicken nuggets, canned Kraft cheese, Nature Valley bars, Honey Nut Cheerios, and the like... to food banks, charities, and soup kitchens serving the hungry in their communities.  

If hungry Americans dine mainly on fake-food product donations, then, by definition, they will remain hungry, as Froot Loops, Skippy peanut butter, Banquet chicken nuggets, canned Kraft cheese, Honey Nut Cheerios, and all other highly processed foods do not meet their basic nutritional needs for sustained periods of time. Not by a long shot... 

Such processed fake foods are chock full of fat, salt, and sugar, as well as chemicals, additives, fillers, emulsifiers, artificial  colors and flavors, and much more. . 

Walmart's "fighting hunger together" campaign is sheer gimmickry genius in that it equates Walmart with fighting hunger, yet requires nearly no sacrifice of one the world's largest corporations beyond increasing sales of its products.  And Walmart gets humanitarian brownie-points by donating products approaching "must sell" dates or the end of shelf life... 

Indeed, a fine example of ethics-free capitalism.  Problem is... the hungry are still hungry!