TL;DR Why don't US consumers give a toss about consumer protection?

This comes up time and again on HN. Most recently Apple not recognising the iPhone 6 faults. US consumer protections appear to be none existant. I've long known things were more "relaxed" over there, but it seems relaxed to point of no longer even basically functional.

What the hell happened since the start of the 20th C when there were efforts both sides of the Atlantic to ensure that the food you buy is what it claims to be, unadulterated and safe? That stemmed from widespread adulteration, short measures, and often horrific safety.

Why are American consumers (Republicans included) not picketing and email bombing the Whitehouse or Congress? Do you not want to buy what you expect you're buying? Do you like paying expensive restaurants for Artisan food when they apparently buy the lot from the nearest discount wholesaler?

UK has the Tory party, who also love the market as the solution to everything, even what it patently cannot solve. Every now and then they suggest some industry voluntary agreement, or to relax some aspect of labelling. These ideas rarely hit statute, as the Tory voters are consumers too and don't want safety to be simply handed to multinationals. It's going to lose them voters, so we usually end up with something fairly acceptable. EU legislation helps greatly on this too.

We had the piece about restaurants in the US recently. That gave the impression restaurants able to lie to such an extent that the expensive "organic locally sourced salmon" you order from the menu might be none of those things.

If it were the UK, and you sold Truffle Oil containing no truffle, the retailer has broken the law and would be liable to fines and recalls(usually used for safety issues, or discovering beef isn;t). The retailer can then claim against the supplier or manufacturer.

There are legally mandated amounts where you can name something Chocolate Spread (min % choc), reduce it below and you end up in the band where you have to call it Chocolate Flavoured Spread (As found in cheaper ranges). Keep going to the point of no chocolate and you have to switch to "flavour" which can be artificial flavourings (bottom of the heap discounters). Those wordings correlate to whatever percentages or weights have been mandated.

Large retailers therefore test products for safety, legality, labelling before first sale, and they'll periodically randomly check. When this comes up, Americans often claim this isn't possible, there's simply too much stuff. Walmart (Asda) do it here, and if you look at supplier guidlines for any large UK retailers they'll all have details of the testing process you as a supplier are expected to meet.

We then have Trading Standards who randomly check products on sale for safety, especially food, and including restaurants. Breach those rules and you can go to prison, or have the business closed. They can, and do, test for the foods being what are claimed, the presence of allergens, labelling and even whether it's organic or not.

All is not perfect here, of course. The Conservatives reduced the number of Trading Standards such that the public are at higher risk (not enough to go around), and some labelling has minor loopholes such as get outs for country of origin, and the assorted terms "farm fresh", "free range" and the like. They sometimes don't legally mean what common sense and the public think they do.

So if I buy a bottle of Truffle Oil here and it has none, I can sue Tesco (not for very much I expect). Realistically I'd take it back for a refund, or more sensibly send it to Trading Standard who can send a letter with legislative force.