Swindled : The Dark History of Food Fraud, From Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee

bee Wilson Is A Terrific Writer Who Tells Great Stories, And Her Book Could Not Be More Timely Given What's Going On In The Chinese Food Industry Today.--marion Nestle, Author Of food Politics And what To Eat

no Other Book Tells The History Of Food Adulteration In This Way. swindled Is Ambitious In Its Coverage And Extremely Well Written.--andrew F. Smith, Editor Of The oxford Companion To American Food And Drink

The Barnes & Noble Review

A Crusading Chemist Once Asked His Fellow Englishmen, Who But A Maniac Would Choose To Season His Victuals With Poison? This Was At A Time -- 1820 -- When Food Was So Adulterated That Only A Willed Suspension Of Disbelief Made It Consumable: Water In The Milk, Sand In The Sugar, Sweepings In The Tea, Of Course, But Weapons-grade Additives, Too, Such As Lead To Sweeten Ropy Wine, Copper To Brighten Greens, Prussian Blue Toxins To Make Baby's Bonbons The Merrier. Food Writer Bee Wilson Brings A Feisty, Learned Hand To This History Of Food Swindles While Coaxing Dark Comedy From A Greed So Biblically Powerful It Could Kill. The Adulterer's Cabinet Was Full Of Ingenious Horrors To Bamboozle The Public, And The Quick-buck Schemes Are Terrible And Fascinating. Squaring The Frauds With Their Greater Economic And Political Contexts Is Where Wilson Hits An Artful Stride. It Is Bracing To Witness Her Social Conscience As She Explains How The Shift From Agricultural To Industrial Society Dimmed Our Familiarity With Traditional Foods, How Swindling Sunders The Trust Of Citizens, Why The Poor Are Disproportionately Affected By Swindles, And How The Thievery Is Abetted By Governments Loath To Intervene In The Free Market, For The Laissez-faire State Is On The Lookout Only When Its Revenues Are Jeopardized. Lest We Feel Distant From The Wily 19th-century Grocer, Wilson Makes It Gin Clear That Watering Down, Coloring Up, Bulking Out, And Plain Poisoning Are Still With Us, As Are Dyes, Flavorings, And Fortifiers -- Pettifogging, In A Word, The Same Old Deceit Now Legalized. --peter Lewis

From the Publisher: Bad food has a history. Swindled tells it. Through a fascinating mixture of cultural and scientific history, food politics, and culinary detective work, Bee Wilson uncovers the many ways swindlers have cheapened, falsified, and even poisoned our food throughout history. In the hands of people and corporations who have prized profits above the health of consumers, food and drink have been tampered with in often horrifying ways-padded, diluted, contaminated, substituted, mislabeled, misnamed, or otherwise faked. Swindled gives a panoramic view of this history, from the leaded wine of the ancient Romans to today's food frauds-such as fake organics and the scandal of Chinese babies being fed bogus milk powder. Wilson pays special attention to nineteenth-and twentieth-century America and England and their roles in developing both industrial-scale food adulteration and the scientific ability to combat it. As Swindled reveals, modern science has both helped and hindered food fraudsters-increasing the sophistication of scams but also the means to detect them. The big breakthrough came in Victorian England when a scientist first put food under the microscope and found that much of what was sold as genuine coffee was anything but-and thatyou couldn't buy pure mustard in all of London. Arguing that industrialization, laissez-faire politics, and globalization have all hurt the quality of food, but also that food swindlers have always been helped by consumer ignorance, Swindled ultimately calls for both governments and individuals to be more vigilant. In fact, Wilson suggests, one of our best protections is simply to reeducate ourselves about the joys of food and cooking. From the Publisher: Bad food has a history. Swindled tells it. Through a fascinating mixture of cultural and scientific history, food politics, and culinary detective work, Bee Wilson uncovers the many ways swindlers have cheapened, falsified, and even poisoned our food throughout history. In the hands of people and corporations who have prized profits above the health of consumers, food and drink have been tampered with in often horrifying ways-padded, diluted, contaminated, substituted, mislabeled, misnamed, or otherwise faked. Swindled gives a panoramic view of this history, from the leaded wine of the ancient Romans to today's food frauds-such as fake organics and the scandal of Chinese babies being fed bogus milk powder. Wilson pays special attention to nineteenth-and twentieth-century America and England and their roles in developing both industrial-scale food adulteration and the scientific ability to combat it. As Swindled reveals, modern science has both helped and hindered food fraudsters-increasing the sophistication of scams but also the means to detect them. The big breakthrough came in Victorian England when a scientist first put food under the microscope and found that much of what was sold as genuine coffee was anything but-and that you couldn't buy pure mustard in all of London. Arguing that industrialization, laissez-faire politics, and globalization have all hurt the quality of food, but also that food swindlers have always been helped by consumer ignorance, Swindled ultimately calls for both governments and individuals to be more vigilant. In fact, Wilson suggests, one of our best protections is simply to reeducate ourselves about the joys of food and cooking Bad food has a history. Swindled tells it. Through a fascinating mixture of cultural and scientific history, food politics, and culinary detective work, Bee Wilson uncovers the many ways swindlers have cheapened, falsified, and even poisoned our food throughout history. In the hands of people and corporations who have prized profits above the health of consumers, food and drink have been tampered with in often horrifying ways—padded, diluted, contaminated, substituted, mislabeled, misnamed, or otherwise faked. Swindled gives a panoramic view of this history, from the leaded wine of the ancient Romans to today's food frauds—such as fake organics and the scandal of Chinese babies being fed bogus milk powder. Wilson pays special attention to nineteenth- and twentieth-century America and England and their roles in developing both industrial-scale food adulteration and the scientific ability to combat it. As Swindled reveals, modern science has both helped and hindered food fraudsters—increasing the sophistication of scams but also the means to detect them. The big breakthrough came in Victorian England when a scientist first put food under the microscope and found that much of what was sold as "genuine coffee" was anything but—and that you couldn't buy pure mustard in all of London. Arguing that industrialization, laissez-faire politics, and globalization have all hurt the quality of food, but also that food swindlers have always been helped by consumer ignorance, Swindled ultimately calls for both governments and individuals to be more vigilant. In fact, Wilson suggests, one of our best protections is simply to reeducate ourselves about the joys of food and cooking. The author of The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us uncovers the many ways in which swindlers have cheapened, falsified, tampered with, and even poisoned food throughout history, in a study that calls for both governments and individuals to be more vigilant.