The food industry has been lying to American families for years.
Now a bombshell study just exposed how deep the deception really goes.
And Americans just discovered one horrifying truth about what they’re eating from grocery stores that will make you check every label twice.
University study exposes massive food fraud targeting American consumers
Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill just dropped a study that should have every American questioning what’s really in their grocery cart.
The team bought shark meat products from grocery stores across Washington, D.C., North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia – the kind of everyday shopping trips millions of families make every week.
What they found will make your blood boil.
More than nine out of ten samples were slapped with vague "shark" labels that told customers absolutely nothing about what species they were actually buying.
But here’s the part that should make you furious – nearly one in three of those products contained meat from endangered or critically endangered shark species.¹
We’re talking about great hammerhead sharks, scalloped hammerheads, tope sharks, and shortfin mako sharks – species that are literally fighting for survival.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature says great hammerhead and scalloped hammerhead populations have crashed by over 80 percent in the last 70 years.
Some research suggests fewer than 200 of each species remain on the planet.
And American families are unknowingly eating them because the food industry can’t be bothered to put accurate labels on their products.
The health risks they don’t want you to know about
Here’s what the grocery stores and importers don’t want you to know about those mislabeled shark products.
Some of those hammerhead species pack dangerous levels of mercury – a neurotoxin that accumulates in your brain, kidneys, and liver.
Dr. Savannah Ryburn, who led the study, found something that should make every parent furious – those scalloped hammerhead and great hammerhead sharks sitting in grocery store freezers were just labeled "shark," even though doctors warn against eating them because of toxic mercury levels.²
So what does that mean for your family? Simple – companies are putting poisonous fish on store shelves without bothering to tell you what it actually is.
Over time, mercury exposure leads to mood changes, memory loss, tremors, paralysis, and vital organ damage.
But as long as someone makes a profit, who cares about your family’s health, right?
The researchers found these mislabeled products selling for as little as three bucks a pound – making dangerous, mercury-laden meat from endangered species accessible to any family trying to stretch their grocery budget.
The bigger picture that should terrify every American
Look, this shark meat scandal is just the tip of the iceberg.
If the food industry is this brazen about mislabeling endangered species, what else are they hiding from American consumers?
The study tested 30 shark products and found that only ONE was labeled correctly.
Think about that for a second – a 97 percent failure rate when it comes to basic honesty about what they’re selling you.
Dr. Ryburn nailed it when she said: "Mislabeling and ambiguous labeling remove consumers’ ability to choose what they are putting in their bodies."
Here’s what this really shows us – the entire food labeling system is a joke, and American families are paying the price.
You want to know what’s driving this? Pure greed.
These companies know that if they had to accurately label their products, consumers would make different choices.
So they keep the labels vague, keep the prices low, and keep the profits flowing while American families unknowingly consume endangered species and dangerous levels of mercury.
The researchers found samples that included everything from shark steaks to shark jelly – a substance from shark snouts that helps them detect electric fields.
These products were sold at grocery stores, Asian markets, seafood markets, and online retailers across multiple states.
The environmental destruction hiding in plain sight
Here’s the part that should make every conservation-minded American see red.
Sharks are apex predators that keep entire marine ecosystems in balance.
Without sharks controlling fish populations, smaller fish overeat coral reefs and deplete food sources faster than they can recover.
Eventually, the prey species die off too, creating a cascade of ecological destruction.
But the food industry doesn’t care about any of that as long as there’s money to be made.
The researchers found that out of 11 shark species in their samples, only ONE came from a "least concern" species – the Atlantic sharpnose shark.
Everything else was either vulnerable, near threatened, endangered, or critically endangered.
The tope shark population has dropped 88 percent in the last 80 years.
The shortfin mako shark population has crashed between 60 and 96 percent depending on the region.
And American consumers are unknowingly contributing to this ecological disaster every time they buy mislabeled "shark" products.
What this means for your family’s future
You want to know what this really means?
It means you can’t trust the labels on the products you’re feeding your family.
It means the regulatory system that’s supposed to protect American consumers is failing at the most basic level.
And it means companies are making massive profits by keeping you in the dark about what you’re actually buying.
Dr. Ryburn’s team successfully performed DNA testing on 29 out of 30 samples to determine the exact species.
The technology exists to provide accurate labeling.
The science is there to identify exactly what consumers are buying.
But the industry chooses deception over transparency because it’s more profitable.
Look, this goes way beyond just shark meat.
What we’re really looking at here is an entire industry that decided corporate profits matter more than keeping families safe or protecting the environment.
The researchers recommend that sellers should be required to provide species-specific names on all shark products.
They also suggest that when shark meat isn’t a food security necessity, consumers should avoid purchasing products that lack species-level labeling or traceable sourcing.
Here’s the bottom line: American families deserve to know what they’re putting on their dinner tables.
They deserve to make informed choices about the environmental impact of their purchases.
And they deserve to protect their children from consuming dangerous levels of mercury hidden in mislabeled products.
The food industry has shown they won’t police themselves.
It’s time for regulators to step up and demand truth in labeling – before more endangered species disappear and more American families suffer the health consequences of corporate deception.
¹ Emily Joshu Sterne, "Americans are unknowingly eating endangered animals… as study finds grocery store meat is mislabeled," Daily Mail, September 11, 2025.
² Ibid.
