Today I learned +

[Ryujin]

I mean, this is much, much worse in the US with olive oil. As that article points out, the majority of the fraudulent olive oil is sent to the US and Japan. Why? Because the EU has regulations and tracking, and whilst that isn't perfect, it's insanely more than the US does (even before recent... er... setbacks), and more than I assume Japan does re: foreign goods. And the article points out that the real test is in your kitchen - you can tell if it's rubbish, so long as you know what it's supposed to taste like.

The EU in general regulates quite a lot of these claims - albeit not coffee AFAIK because it's not grown here. The biggest scandals here recently have all been around honey, which had (and kind of still has) weaker regulation. I think it's probably easier to reliably get single origin non-adulterated honey in the US right now.

That said it is pretty easy to tell, say, Ethiopian single-origin coffee apart from, like Colombian. Certainly since I got an actual coffee grinder. I know it is because I've forgotten what kind of beans were in the grinder before and then been like "Oh wow this definitely X", then checked the package in the bin and it is (I prefer Ethiopian to other kinds, it's got a lighter to me somehow more coffee-like flavour)

I am reminded of Irish "beef."

 

[Scribe]

That spider is horrific.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

TIL

JFK did NOT kill the hat for men. Hat wearing had been in decline for decades by the time JFK made his hatless inauguration speech.

Here's a link to a more detailed article:
JFK's Hat Legacy

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

TIL

JFK did NOT kill the hat for men. Hat wearing had been in decline for decades by the time JFK made his hatless inauguration speech.

Here's a link to a more detailed article:
JFK's Hat Legacy

Huh, TIL that JFK was blamed for killing the hat market. Literally never heard this until you posted that!

I’ve been into hats my whole life, so I’ve learned a bit about them, historically and anecdotally. Thing is, you can SEE the slow, gradual decline in hat wearing in documentary films and popular entertainment with your own eyes. Go back before the Great Depression, and you’ll almost never see a man without some kind of hat, with many styles directly linked to status or profession.

You’ll see more hatless heads just prior to WW2, but not many. After the war, though? Most hats didn’t fit the styles favored by the youth, and by the mid-1950s, almost all of the hat-wearing characters in contemporary entertainment were parental figures or men of economic & political power. Get into the early 60s, even many of the main characters had stopped wearing hats.

Even with entertainment aimed at younger audiences where the characters themselves might not be hat wearing, there were signs of the decline. Looking at the set designs, hat & coat check rooms disappeared almost completely, and in the background, hat & coatracks had started to dwindle as well.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I am reminded of Irish "beef."

Yes that was an interesting one, which was very illegal and like olive oil was the result of organised crime on the part of several parties (mainly in exactly the countries you'd expect). As soon as the tech that allowed it to be discovered was in common use it was discovered. Never look at a frozen lasagne the same way again that's for sure! (For some reason the vast majority of the affected products in the UK and Europe were frozen lasagne).

I imagine in the US, USDA-certified beef avoids this particular issue (or did, before... recent changes), because the way they grade the beef they'd physically see it wasn't a cow carcass, but an unknown proportion of beef sold in the US is not USDA-certified. I can't even find good estimates as to the proportion. Also US beef is so messed-up on hormones and antibiotics it's not even legal to sell in Europe, so there's that.

 

[Ryujin]

Huh, TIL that JFK was blamed for killing the hat market. Literally never heard this until you posted that!

I’ve been into hats my whole life, so I’ve learned a bit about them, historically and anecdotally. Thing is, you can SEE the slow, gradual decline in hat wearing in documentary films and popular entertainment with your own eyes. Go back before the Great Depression, and you’ll almost never see a man without some kind of hat, with many styles directly linked to status or profession.

You’ll see more hatless heads just prior to WW2, but not many. After the war, though? Most hats didn’t fit the styles favored by the youth, and by the mid-1950s, almost all of the hat-wearing characters in contemporary entertainment were parental figures or men of economic & political power. Get into the early 60s, even many of the main characters had stopped wearing hats.

Even with entertainment aimed at younger audiences where the characters themselves might not be hat wearing, there were signs of the decline. Looking at the set designs, hat & coat check rooms disappeared almost completely, and in the background, hat & coatracks had started to dwindle as well.

You would have been in heaven where I was yesterday; on the SS Keewatin, a lake steamship that was commissioned in 1907 and in service until 1970. They had set up a series of staterooms (it only had First Class accommodations) with clothing from every decade that it served. Sadly, I didn't get to specifically take a picture of the row of hats that they had placed on a couch, because others on the tour wouldn't get the hell out of the way, but I'm sure that I incidentally got a few shots along with a couple of the staterooms.

 

[Ryujin]

Yes that was an interesting one, which was very illegal and like olive oil was the result of organised crime on the part of several parties (mainly in exactly the countries you'd expect). As soon as the tech that allowed it to be discovered was in common use it was discovered. Never look at a frozen lasagne the same way again that's for sure! (For some reason the vast majority of the affected products in the UK and Europe were frozen lasagne).

I imagine in the US, USDA-certified beef avoids this particular issue (or did, before... recent changes), because the way they grade the beef they'd physically see it wasn't a cow carcass, but an unknown proportion of beef sold in the US is not USDA-certified. I can't even find good estimates as to the proportion. Also US beef is so messed-up on hormones and antibiotics it's not even legal to sell in Europe, so there's that.

If I remember correctly a few of the affected products even made it to Canada.