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Food fraud is outrageously common. In 2013, the United Kingdom was rocked by a scandal in which products thought to contain only beef were adulterated with horse meat. Some products, instead of being 100% beef, were 100% horse meat. That same year, it was revealed that lamb sold in Chinese restaurants might actually be rat meat mixed with some gelatin and food coloring. From cheese to fish, it now seems as if there is little reason to believe that the food you purchase actually matches what is printed on the label.
Now, Malaysian researchers have added yet another food to the potential fraud list: frankfurters, known more commonly in the U.S. as hot dogs or sausages.
To conduct their analysis, the team first identified DNA “fingerprints” that were unique to cows, pigs, and buffaloes. These fingerprints were based on two genes present in the mitochondrial DNA of all three animals. The scientists designed primers (short segments of matching DNA), which are used in a common process called PCR to amplify small DNA segments from these genes. Crucially, each DNA segment was a different size (based on basepairs or “bp”), allowing them to be easily separated and identified. Thus, meat samples from each animal yielded a unique fingerprint based solely on the sizes of these DNA segments.
www.acsh.org
Now, Malaysian researchers have added yet another food to the potential fraud list: frankfurters, known more commonly in the U.S. as hot dogs or sausages.
To conduct their analysis, the team first identified DNA “fingerprints” that were unique to cows, pigs, and buffaloes. These fingerprints were based on two genes present in the mitochondrial DNA of all three animals. The scientists designed primers (short segments of matching DNA), which are used in a common process called PCR to amplify small DNA segments from these genes. Crucially, each DNA segment was a different size (based on basepairs or “bp”), allowing them to be easily separated and identified. Thus, meat samples from each animal yielded a unique fingerprint based solely on the sizes of these DNA segments.
Mystery Meat: What Other Animals Are in that Hot Dog?
Food fraud is outrageously common. In the UK, horse meat was sold as beef, and in China, rat meat was sold as lamb. Now, Malaysian researchers have detected buffalo meat in "beef" frankfurters.
www.acsh.org
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