8 ms·
When I go to Safeway I can find a handful of saffron threads suspended in a small glass jar for about $23, or I can find a similar thing for $30 at a fancier gr
by c22 3y ago
When I go to Safeway I can find a handful of saffron threads suspended in a small glass jar for about $23, or I can find a similar thing for $30 at a fancier grocer. Meanwhile, if I go to the nearby independent indian grocery store I can get a cigarette-pack-sized box of the stuff for about ten bucks. While it's definitely not the cheapest spice I don't feel bad about liberally using it in my chai recipe and a box usually lasts me a couple months.
- hammock 3y agoCould it be fake, adulterated or poisonous somehow?
- hammock 3y agoBS to downvote me for this comment. Cheap olive oil is counterfeit. Cheap milk, honey and coffee are adulterated with fillers. Cheap tumeric is colored with lead oxide
- tired_throwaway 3y agoI can buy some of your claims, but how do you adulterate a coffee bean?
- infecto 3y agoYou add fillers to the ground product.
- ssl-3 3y agoCoffee beans are bin-sorted in a way where the good coffee gets better, and the lesser coffee gets worse. The most-shapely and consistent beans go to the more-premium lines. The small, underdeveloped, or misshapen beans (called "clinkers") go to the cheaper lines, along with the other defects. And so does the chaff from the coffee hulls, which is rolled up into weird little balls and thrown in too -- which is not done with premium coffees. The unavoidable portion of insect parts is higher in cheap coffee than it is in expensive coffee. In an ideal world, all of the stuff that is removed from premium coffees would be used as compost or something. But it is instead included in the lesser coffees, where it is consumed.
- throwway120385 3y agoNot always. I've done the color test on a lot of cheap spices I get in the middle eastern stores I can go to and they've always passed the tests. Sometimes it's cheaper because you're not paying for it to be portioned into little glass jars and sold as an exotic, rare thing like it is in western european cuisine.
- computershit 3y agoDownvotes were for poison hyperbole almost certainly
- fbdab103 3y agoPoison seems totally fair. Counterfeit tumeric can have high amounts of lead. Lead being one of those chemicals with no safe amount.
- mrguyorama 3y agoWe literally have a cinnamon adulteration case going through the US right now. Children were poisoned by applesauce with adulterated cinnamon.
- BobaFloutist 3y agoCheap olive oil from Costco is not counterfeit. Cheap honey from Costco isn't counterfeit. Cheap vanilla from Costco is...once again, not counterfeit. Moral: Buy things from Costco.
- gnicholas 3y agoOlive oil should be used within a reasonably short time of opening, which makes Costco-sized bottles less practical. We buy honey and vanilla extract from Costco, but we don't use olive oil anywhere near fast enough to justify buying Costco-sized jugs.
- vasco 3y agoMy family makes a small batch of olive oil from a couple of big trees we have and have never gotten through what we make that fast, even though we use a lot. What's the problem in taking long to consume it? (Months)
- gnicholas 3y agoI assume that the olive oil I buy in the store is very old compared to fresh-pressed oil. Similarly, my aunt has an avocado tree, and her fresh-picked avocados stay ripe for weeks, unlike the store-bought kind that have a sweet spot of ~36 hours.
- faizan-ali 3y agoOlive oil somm here (yeah that's a thing!) Olive oil (and all cooking oils in general) are the opposite of wine - once bottled they start degrading and any additional exposure to air, light, heat degrades them further. What degrades specifically? Usually it's the nuanced flavors and health benefits of good extra virgin, it'll usually be fine for cooking but you're losing out on the purposeful decision of using olive oil over vegetable oils (gross)
- pcl 3y agoOlive oil is so much cheaper in bulk. Do you have any tips for how to preserve it? Intuitively, I would assume that re-bottling a large volume into several small bottles (and then keeping the extras sealed and in the dark) would be better than using a larger bottle continuously. Does that hold up to your experience?
- thfuran 3y agoNot lead oxide, lead chromate. So you can get all the hexavalent chromium you could ever need. But by "cheap", I think you mean "the absolute dodgiest crap that mostly never even gets exported from Bangladesh".
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- aagha 3y agoIt's a near certainty that what you're buying at the Indian store is fake. Check out these two sources and maybe run a test? https://sadafpack.com/blog/how-can-we-distinguish-original-saffron-from-fake-saffron/ https://sadafpack.com/blog/how-can-we-distinguish-original-s... https://motherwouldknow.com/how-to-identify-real-saffron-avoid-fake-saffron/ https://motherwouldknow.com/how-to-identify-real-saffron-avo...
- enlyth 3y agoA local restaurant where I live has a dish (chili pepper squid) where they add a generous amount of saffron to it, and I always wondered how they can keep the cost so low. Now when I looked at the pictures on the website you linked, it definitely looks like the fake stuff.
- user_7832 3y ago> https://sadafpack.com/blog/how-can-we-distinguish-original-saffron-from-fake-saffron/ https://sadafpack.com/blog/how-can-we-distinguish-original-s... The contents on the website are a bit.. weird? Good 'ol GPT maybe? > 3. Distinguishing fake saffron with gasoline Saffron does not dissolve in gasoline. Therefore, by dissolving saffron in gasoline, you can decide if your saffron is original or fake. This doesn't make sense. > #first stage; Put saffron in water. In some cases it will change the color of the water very quickly; but this color change is not worth it, because this fast color change signifies fake saffron. #second stage; Put the root in water for a short time. When you remove the root from the water, the original saffron does not lose its color, while if it is fake, it loses its added color completely and does not look the same. Either someone is poor at communicating in English and using heading styles, or this is some kind of poor quality hallucination. A personal method I think is effective (especially you are familiar with saffron's smell/taste), is to soak a little of it (as mentioned) for a few hours, and taste it. It should have a slightly sweetish, herbal taste.
- pazimzadeh 3y agoyou want to buy your saffron from people who don't speak english, trust me
- tekla 3y agoIt's almost definitely fake
- metaphor 3y ago> Meanwhile, if I go to the nearby independent indian grocery store I can get a cigarette-pack-sized box of the stuff for about ten bucks. Worth noting that saffron adulteration in India is common enough that the country's Food Safety and Standards Authority disseminates public guidance on how to detect for it at home; see serial numbers 46 and 47 here[1]. [1] https://www.fssai.gov.in/cms/checkadulteration.php https://www.fssai.gov.in/cms/checkadulteration.php
- jimmySixDOF 3y agoNot saying anything about your case but I see a lot of people confusing Safflower and Saffron and it's not always clearly labeled. They can add a similar color but thats about it. FWIW, I like to keep a little saffron in honey then use that for tea it vs adding threads directly.