Diluted milk, greens with nitrates and spoiled meat, this is the reality of many stores. There are several techniques that will help to avoid the traps of dishonest producers.
For good health it is important to use high quality products, but not all manufacturers and sellers hold this opinion, so trying to make money, they go to different tricks to sell stitched and unsafe product. There are simple and effective ways by which you can check the quality.
1. Look Into Your Eyes
Do you want to enjoy a delicious fish? Then it follows to her choice to approach with full responsibility. Look into the eyes of the fish and if it is fresh, the pupils will be convex, transparent and shiny. Sniff it and you should feel the scent of the sea or iodine. Other attributes of fresh fish include: tightly adjacent to the body scales, a withered tail, elastic and shiny skin, covered with mucus, pink or red gills.
2. No dents on the surface
Very often, many people buy meat in a vacuum package, but even in this case you can check the freshness of the product. First, there should be no liquid, blood and mucus inside. Secondly, the pieces must be even and elastic. If you buy meat on the market, then be sure to press it with your finger, the fossa formed must quickly recover, otherwise it is worth doubting the freshness of the product. Some more signs of freshness: bright red color, clear meat juice and absence of unpleasant aroma.
3. Floating eggs
This test is familiar to many, it is worth recalling it once again. To check a fresh or missing egg in your hands, it must be lowered into a glass filled with water. If it is fresh, it will sink to the bottom and lie on its side, and an egg of a week ago will pop up with a blunt end up. When the product has already deteriorated, it will float on the surface and its place in the trash can. When choosing eggs, it is recommended to pay attention to the expiration date indicated on the package. Many will be surprised by the fact that storing eggs is not necessary in the refrigerator and they can be left at room temperature.
4. Fresh fragrant bouquet
Today, greens can be found in stores throughout the year, because of what creeps in the thought that it can be grown using nitrates. It is not recommended to buy greens if it looks fresh, but the twigs hang on either side, the color of the foliage is too dark, and the stems are long. Remember that the quality and natural greens are elastic and colored in a natural green color.
5. If the quality, it melts in your eyes
This rule applies to butter, because instead of it dishonest sellers can slip margarine or spread. To check, pour a piece of butter with boiling water and if it's quality, it immediately melts, but the margarine breaks into pieces.
6. Tasty, useful and quality dietary meat
When choosing a chicken fillet, it should be taken into account that it must be elastic and this can be checked by pressing on the surface of the meat. Experts recommend paying attention to white fatty veins and if they are too broad, it means that the bird was fattened with hormonal supplements, and therefore, it should be abandoned. The fact that the chicken is stale speaks the yellowness of meat.
7. Chemical experiments in the kitchen
Love home-made sour cream, but often, in a jar, besides a fermented milk product, you can find quite unpleasant additives:
- Starch. At home, you can conduct a simple experience in chemistry, which will require a first aid kit. It is necessary to add to sour cream a few drops of iodine and observe the reaction. If sour cream is bad, mixed with starch, then it will acquire a blue tint.
- Stabilizer of carrageenan. This additive is placed in sour cream to thicken the product. About its presence is indicated by clots, grains and even lumps.
- Vegetable fats. To test for the presence of this harmful additive, dilute a spoonful of sour cream in a glass of hot water. Stir and see what happened. The presence of fat in sour cream will be indicated by white clots on the surface of the liquid.
8. There should not be any water
A common trick of cunning sellers is the addition of water to milk. You can determine it with alcohol (unexpected, right?). It is necessary to mix a part of milk and two parts of alcohol. Shake the liquid for a minute and pour into a saucer. If immediately appeared flakes of white color, it means that the product is of high quality. The fact that milk contains water is evidenced by the fact that flakes are formed in time or do not appear at all. You can check the milk and the presence of starch with iodine, as in the case with sour cream.
9. Snow coverages should be elsewhere
Recently, frozen vegetables, fruits and berries are very popular, which can be found in many supermarkets. If you buy these products by weight, then be sure to pay attention to the appearance. Snow and ice indicate that the vegetables were stored incorrectly. The quality of the light frost speaks. When buying frozen foods in a closed pack, be sure to remember it in your hands to determine whether there is much inside the ice and whether the fruits were stuck together.
10. It's not bees at all
Bee products often suffer from all sorts of counterfeits to increase their volume and weight. Experiments have shown that honey can be starch, chalk, water, flour and so on. To determine if in your favorite sweetness chalk, add to it a little acetic acid. If there is foam, then this honey is better not to eat. To check the presence of water in the pour a little honey on the paper, and if it spreads, leaving a wet trace, then it's wrong.
11. This is not like even mice
Love to start your day with a cup of coffee and toast with cheese, and you are thinking about the quality of the product, which is so often on the table. If the composition contains vegetable fats, then in the open air the cheese quickly becomes friable and cracked, and when cutting, the pieces will crumble. Another test - leave a piece of cheese in the sun and if it's quality, it will become soft, and if not, it will harden and be covered with oil drops.
12. Chemistry or naturalness?
Delicious treat, which is loved by both children and adults - candied fruits. The process of making them is very simple - the fruit or berries are first cooked in syrup, and then subjected to drying. Unfortunately, but not all manufacturers adhere to this scheme, but it strikes another, as it turned out, some candied fruits have nothing to do with this product, because they are made from gelatin and dyes. Conduct a simple test - drop the bought candied fruits in warm water and if they become colorless and slightly dissolved in water, then you have a fake.
13. Cheating on a stick
In a hot time, which can be more pleasant than a tasty and cold ice cream, but its composition often desires better. To check if in this product vegetable fats, you need to leave a piece on the plate. If the ice cream just became soft and kept a dense consistency, then it's good, but if it melts and turns into a puddle - it's a fake.
14. Only fragrant and natural
Many faced such a problem when you open a bottle of wine to enjoy its taste, and in the end a huge disappointment. People have found several ways to verify the authenticity of the wine. Pay attention to the amount of sludge at the bottom of the bottle, as it is necessarily present in natural wines. Appreciate the appearance and smell of the cork. Do not try the drink if the cork is dry and gives off an unpleasant odor. Another test - in a plate with soda pour a little wine and if the drink is of high quality, it will change color and become darker or grayer. If nothing has changed, then it is a fake.
15. Vegetable fats - fight
Cottage cheese is another popular sour-milk product that can be faked. The method of checking for the presence of starch has already been mentioned and it is also relevant in this case. In addition, vegetable fat can be added to cottage cheese, which are recognized as dangerous to humans. The test is very simple: leave a small amount of curd overnight on the table at room temperature. If harmful fats are present, a yellow crust forms on the surface of the product.