Once anything gains popularity in the eyes of consumers, whether it is brand name purses, clothes, computers, electronics or even food, fake copies begin circulating. We can easily come across a fake Burberry scarf, or get tricked by a Coach purse that looks exactly like the real thing. Well, with the recent surge of organic foods in the market, scientists have realized there is a lot of fake organic milk circulating around.

A group of scientists in Germany tracked the alpha linoleic acid contents and the carbon stable isotope ratios over the year in three organic and three inorganic milk brands. They found a range of difference between the contents of these two materials in the organic and inorganic milk. These differences mainly arise due to the feeding differences between cows that eventually produce the milk. The lead scientist Joachim Molkentin used the fact that organic farmers conventionally feed more maize and incorporate more pasture feeding in the cows’ diet to detect these differences in the milk fat.

The study mentions that the numbers determined may vary from country to country, depending on the feeding patterns among cattle.

Discussion Question: How can we as consumers be more careful about the organic food we purchase?

Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090302130037.htm
Research abstract: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf8022029