Dna, Food | featured news

Europe’s horse meat scandal has claimed Ikea meatballs, those mysteriously cheap, lingonberry-sauced snacks that have gained something of a cult following among fans of the furniture store. On Monday, Ikea withdrew bags of the meatballs from 21 European countries after officials in the Czech Republic found traces of horse DNA in a bag labeled as beef and pork.

So hungry you could eat a horse? Chances are, if you've regularly consumed processed-meat products in Europe, you already have. Since Ireland published surprise DNA results on Jan. 15 showing that a third of frozen "beef" burgers in Ireland contained at least a trace of horse, food scientists in more than a dozen countries have found the animal trotting into products where it was never meant to roam.

Nonprofit ocean protection group Oceana took 1,215 samples of fish from across the United States and genetically tested them in order to bring us the following astonishing facts: 59% of the fish labeled "tuna" sold at restaurants and grocery stores in the US is not tuna. Sushi restaurants were far more likely to mislabel their fish than grocery stores or other restaurants.

Nestle SA has withdrawn beef pasta meals from sale in Italy and Spain after tests found horse DNA. Horse meat has found its way into ready-to-eat meals sold across Europe in a meat mislabeling scandal that has shaken the food industry.

Horsemeat might not be bad for you to eat, but it's definitely bad for sales of products labeled as beef. But Ireland's surprise discovery of horsemeat traces in many factory-produced burgers is boosting business for one trade: Forensics labs able to use DNA fingerprinting to tell pig from fowl.

Salmon that's genetically modified to grow twice as fast as normal could soon show up on your dinner plate. That is, if the company that makes the fish can stay afloat. After weathering concerns about everything from the safety of humans eating the salmon to their impact on the environment, Aquabounty was poised to become the world's first company to sell fish whose DNA has been altered to speed up growth.