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Swindled : The Dark History of Food Fraud, from Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee / Bee Wilson.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2020]Copyright date: 2009Description: 1 online resource (400 p.) : 53 halftonesContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691214085
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 363.19/26 22
LOC classification:
  • TX531 .W688 2008
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. German Ham and English Pickles -- 2. A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread -- 3. Government Mustard -- 4. Pink Margarine and Pure Ketchup -- 5. Mock Goslings and Pear-nanas -- 6. Basmati Rice and Baby Milk -- Epilogue: Adulteration in the Twenty-first Century -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgments -- Picture Credits -- Index
Summary: 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.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780691214085

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. German Ham and English Pickles -- 2. A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread -- 3. Government Mustard -- 4. Pink Margarine and Pure Ketchup -- 5. Mock Goslings and Pear-nanas -- 6. Basmati Rice and Baby Milk -- Epilogue: Adulteration in the Twenty-first Century -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgments -- Picture Credits -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

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.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Aug 2024)