I applaud National University of Singapore (NUS) scientists for their discovery (“Pig DNA found in cuttlefish and prawn balls: NUS researchers”; Nov 2).

This is, unfortunately, not the only issue with store-bought food.

Many food items sold at supermarkets bear claims that may mislead consumers.

It is difficult to eradicate such misleading labels. Even well-resourced countries are overwhelmed by the task. The Singapore Food Agency, for instance, carries out only random sample tests. 

The problem is compounded by the fact that many items move across borders before reaching consumers. 

Consumers, meanwhile, are increasingly annoyed to find that they have paid a premium for products that may not be of premium quality.

Terms such as “wholegrain”, “free range”, “grass-fed” and other colourful adjectives that dangle a promise of higher quality often mean little in reality. 

This augurs ill for consumers, even as food producers get away with it because of lax labelling laws.

Marketers relish terms such as “contains no” or “free of” to claim that their products do not bear ingredients that sound scary. Such fear-based labelling plays on the psychology of consumers and marketers should stop their fearmongering ways.

Other forms of such labelling include “no high-fructose corn syrup” on peanut-butter jars, even though no peanut butter contains such an ingredient in the first place.

Another example is “fruit-juice concentrate”, which is simply another term for sugar. 

Food that bears claims of being “trans-fat-free” may also not be so. If it contains less than half a gram of fat, food manufacturers may round that down to zero on the label. Producers may also modify the serving size to downplay trans fat so that each serving is shown to have less of that.

Some food manufacturers also hype up claims of a healthy product by displaying prominently the addition of vitamins, antioxidants, protein or fruit juice.

We must compel food manufacturers to use clear and accurate labels, and the authorities must act fast to rein in misleading labelling.

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