Students Uncover Mislabeled Foods Through DNA Testing

MYFOXNY.COM - When you shop at a grocery store, you trust that the food labels are accurate. In other words, if you're buying anchovies you assume you're getting anchovies.

Some students at Trinity High School in New York City never imagined their school science project would turn into an expose of food labels. The teens tested 66 food items and found that 11 of them were mislabeled, including caviar, cheese and fish.

Their teacher had them team up with scientists from the Rockefeller University and the American Museum of Natural History. The objective: To see if they could extract DNA from samples they took from around the house, including a feather from a duster, a hair from a brush, and stuff in the refrigerator.

MISLABELED FOOD LIST

1. Shark meat is what was advertised in the store but the DNA testing proved it was Lates niloticus, a fresh water fish from Africa - commonly known as Nile Perch.

2. A product labeled "anchovy" came back as Protosalanx chinensis, which is actually not anchovy but a type of smelt fish.

3. One item was labeled "red snapper," but the DNA testing showed it was Lutjanus malabaricus, which is actually a different type of fish called the Malabar blood.

4. At a specialty store, a product labeled "sheep's milk cheese" was tested and proven to be cheese made with cow's milk.

5. Another item labeled "sturgeon caviar" was tested and the DNA came back as Plyodon spathula, a fish commonly known as the Mississippi paddlefish.

6. "Pacific Ocean smelt" was what was advertised in the store, but the DNA testing proved it was actually Odontesthes gracilis. It is not smelt, but a silverside family of fish.

7. "Frozen yellow catfish" DNA tested as Odontesthes gracilis. According to the fish database, this is not yellow catfish.

8. A dog treat labeled as "venison" (deer meat) tested as beef.

9. A fish sample that was labeled "mackerel" was tested and came back as Sardinella atricauda, a fish commonly known as Bleeker's black tip sardinella.

10. One product that was labeled "Jewfish" came back with DNA that showed it was actually Nemipterus furcosus, a fish commonly known as fork-tail threadfin bream.

11. A product labeled in Chinese translated to "Branchiostoma lancelet amphioxus, but DNA tests proved it was Salangichthys microdon, a fish commonly known as Japanese ice fish.

>VIEW THE FULL PROJECT