Fight against counterfeiting! These fake dining tables have made me suffer!

The annual 315 International Consumer Rights Day is here again. Today, let's summarize the fakes on the dining table.

Golden "Abalone"

Compared with the limited number of species in livestock and poultry food, aquatic products involve too many species, and we may not even know what they look like when they are alive. Therefore, aquatic products have become a major disaster area for counterfeiting.

There are many "fake abalones" on the market made from chitons, baloney snails, and blister snails, which can easily deceive inexperienced consumers. The most deceptive of these is a product called " golden abalone ".

This type of "golden abalone" is actually a fake abalone made by unscrupulous merchants using cheap, meaty conchs such as spiral shells . The common method is to cut the spiral shell meat into slices, add real abalone shells, and then label it as "imported".

This is it | Webpage screenshot

So how do you tell the difference between real and fake abalone?

Look at the shape. The adductor muscle of real abalone is protruding, so the whole abalone looks like a gold ingot; but the front and back of fake abalone are very smooth , just a piece of meat.

Look at the color. The sides of real abalone are darker , but fake abalone does not have obvious black edges.

Real abalone, with a "bumpy" shape and dark sides | Pixabay

Look at the price. Fake abalones such as golden abalone are sold at low prices. A half-pound golden abalone may only cost 50 yuan, and buy two get one free.

Longli fish or Basa fish?

There is a type of white fish fillet on the market, which is very convenient for cooking, hot pot, and making soup. There are two main types of this type of fish fillet: longli fish and basa fish. The former is expensive, while the latter is cheap, but it is difficult to distinguish them just by looking at the fish meat - this provides convenience for some merchants to counterfeit.

Left: Longli fish fillet, right: Basa fish fillet. The two fish fillets look very similar and it is difficult to tell them apart | indiamart

The true form of Basa fish is a large catfish (Siluriformes) in the Mekong and Chao Phraya Rivers. The most common ones are Pangasius bocourti and Pangasianodon hypophthalmus. They are also important freshwater economic fish in Southeast Asia.

Low-eyed toothless 𩷶 | Staticd / Wikimedia

The sole is a general term for fish under the suborder Soleoidei of the order Pleurotiformes (a type of flat bottom-dwelling fish commonly known as flounder).

If you see the whole fish, I believe no one would confuse basa fish with longfish. Pictured is sole (Solea solea) | Peter van der Sluijs / Wikimedia

In addition, common "fakes" in the aquatic products include but are not limited to: tilapia impersonating sea bream, various products labeled as "cod" (actually corresponding to many kinds of fish), various types of snake mackerel (oily fish) such as the heterotrophic mackerel are called white tuna or cod, golden apple snails impersonating field snails, freshwater white pomfret (Gree pomfret) impersonating saltwater pomfret (Gray pomfret), etc.

Most of these "fake" aquatic products are low-priced products that want to use the names of high-priced aquatic products to increase their selling prices. When buying, please pay attention to looking for big brands and trustworthy merchants, and don't be greedy for cheapness. In addition, the Latin name of the species is often marked on the packaging of imported aquatic products. You can find out its true identity by searching on the Internet.

The scientific name of the species marked on the packaging of Basa fish fillet | Calendar Girl

Agaricus blazei is not Matsutake

In addition to aquatic products, various fungi are also severely affected - the reason is simple: there are too many species involved, and it is difficult for ordinary people to distinguish the differences.

For example, the price of matsutake is higher than gold. It has always been a representative of high-end food ingredients, so counterfeiters will naturally not let it go. Matsutake (Tricholoma matsutake) is named because it looks like deer antlers and grows with pine trees. It has a lot of other names: pine mushroom, pine mushroom, pine mushroom, combined mushroom, Taiwan mushroom, pine mushroom, etc. The main distribution areas are in Northeast my country and the Hengduan Mountains. Japan and North Korea are also major production areas of matsutake.

Matsutake | Tomomarusan/Wikimedia

However, the Matsutake sold on the market is not actually the name of a kind of fungus, but a general name for a type of mushroom, including a number of mushrooms of the genus Tricholoma in the family Trichoderma. Tricholoma matsutake is one of the representatives and is also the authentic Matsutake.

Agaricus subrufescens is a typical counterfeit of Matsutake . Agaricus subrufescens is native to America. Although it has only one letter difference from Matsutake, Agaricus subrufescens is not a member of the Agaricus family, but a member of the Agaricus genus of the Agaricus family .

Agaricus blazei | Alan Rockefeller / Wikimedia

Agaricus blazei is not as picky about habitat as matsutake, and can easily grow on a culture medium made of straw and sawdust . This also makes Agaricus blazei a new mushroom variety on the market. Compared with authentic matsutake, the cap of Agaricus blazei is rounder and much larger than the stem, making it look top-heavy; in terms of taste, the stem of Agaricus blazei is crisper, which is also a very obvious difference between it and matsutake.

In addition to Agaricus blazei, there are also cases in the market where Stropharia rugosoannulata is used to impersonate Matsutake.

Stropharia rugosodium | apa3a / Wikimedia

Gallus gallus

Termitomyces spp., a specialty of Yunnan, is delicious. However, due to its strict symbiotic relationship with termites and climatic conditions , Termitomyces spp. can basically only grow south of the Yangtze River in China, and is mainly produced in Yunnan and surrounding provinces.

All the chicken mushrooms on the market are wild . It is almost impossible to cultivate chicken mushrooms artificially because it is difficult to simulate the dynamic changes in nutrient supply and information exchange between termites and chicken mushrooms during the symbiotic process.

Termitomyces clypeatus | mushroomobserver.org

The common species used to impersonate chicken mushrooms is the long root mushroom , which is commonly known as "black chicken mushroom" and "dew chicken mushroom". Long root mushrooms look very similar to chicken mushrooms and can be cultivated artificially , so they are often promoted and sold as chicken mushrooms. Someone once claimed to have grown chicken mushrooms, but perhaps what they grew was long root mushrooms.

Black-skinned chicken, dew-water chicken (Oudemansiella sect. Radicatae sp.) | Silkworm Boy

In addition, there are news reports that "polished" King Oyster Mushrooms are being sold on the highway side as wild Chicken Mushrooms.

Scenic area fruit

Tourist attractions have always been the hardest hit by fraud. Based on the principle of "scamming as many customers as possible, we don't want repeat customers anyway", and tourists often don't want to cause trouble when traveling to other places, some vendors in tourist attractions are quite arrogant in their methods of deceiving people. Here are a few classic fraudulent fruits in tourist attractions, hoping that everyone will not be fooled in the future.

"Fresh black plums": waxed round raisins and grapes;

"Taihu Blueberry": waxed long grapes, raisins;

"Golden Plum": processed fruit preserves, usually made from crisp peaches.

Common Deceptive Fruits in Scenic Spots | Attack of the Succulents

Greek yogurt

After talking about these fresh ingredients, let me add one last fake processed food: "Greek yogurt" .

Greek yogurt is a type of defatted yogurt . Although it is called Greek yogurt, it is actually very common in West Asia, the Middle East, and Southern Europe. There are similar yogurts in other countries and regions.

Greek yogurt with a firm, semi-solid texture | Famartin / Wikimedia

Traditionally, this kind of yogurt is made from goat milk or sheep milk , which are more abundant in the local area (cow milk is also commonly used nowadays). The fat and protein content of goat milk is much higher than that of cow milk. After fermentation is complete, some of the whey will be filtered out to further concentrate the yogurt and obtain a tighter texture.

Greek yogurt is made by straining out the whey | Chaojoker ? Wikimedia

Generally speaking, after whey removal, the protein in Greek yogurt will be concentrated two to three times, reaching more than 6g/100g (compared to the Chinese national standard, the protein content of fermented milk is ≥2.9g/100g). Since it needs to be concentrated, Greek yogurt needs to use more raw milk to produce 100 grams of yogurt, and the cost is naturally higher.

There are some yogurts on the market now, called "Greek yogurt" or "Greek flavored yogurt", most of which are just given such a name. Their production process and nutritional ingredients are similar to ordinary yogurt or flavored fermented milk , and are very different from traditional Greek yogurt. When we buy them, we only need to pay more attention to the nutritional label and see the protein content to distinguish them.

This article is compiled from articles by Species Calendar author berlika, Seafood Knowledge, Shi Jun, Silkworm Boy, Attack of Succulents, and Missing a Screw

Cover image source: Tomomarusan / Wikimedia

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