Tonight ` Would you be interested in trying some bacon water? You might not like it,... Ugh! Don't look like water to me. It looks like pollution to me. ...but you're probably paying for it. Look how much water's in here. It's ridiculous. Why has the fry-up turned into a boil-up? You are paying for a certain amount of water. Plus ` they wanted waterfront,... Really loved it, with the creek babbling and everything. Looked beautiful. ...but their waterfront dream has gone bad. This is your property we are standing on now. Yes, it is. Yeah. But if we step out here, where are we now? We're trespassing. We're trespassing. So who's to blame for this debacle? We asked the questions of where the boundary were, and we were told wrong. And an SOS from hungry snack fans has got Brodie feeling quite chipper. Hi. My name's Brodie, and I'm addicted to potato chips. Copyright Able 2016 Welcome to Fair Go. First up ` a story to get bacon lovers sizzling mad. And that includes me. Me too. Now, this looks a bit disgusting, doesn't it? And it is. It's bacon water ` liquid we drained from the pan while frying ` or is that boiling ` bacon. It's water that was injected into the bacon as part of a curing process ` adds weight, boost profit. So who's doing it, and what's it costing you? Garth brings home the bacon... water. JAUNTY MUSIC You heard of this before? Bacon water? (LAUGHS) It don't look like water to me. It looks like pollution to me. It's actually quite gross, isn't it? Ugh! Yeah, it's not that good. Bacon water doesn't look like it'll catch on soon. Would you be interested in trying some? Not really. Yeah. Why not? Nah, it looks pretty <BLEEP>. BOTH LAUGH But what if I told you chances are you've already bought bacon water and that you might be getting it all the time, depending on which brand you're buying and frying? Because this is where we got our bacon water from. Look how much water's in here. That is` It's ridiculous. You are paying for a certain amount of water. The water is put into the product. It plumps the product up. Sarah's a food technologist from McFoodies. It would take a long time to get this bacon brown. Initially it was boiling and steaming it rather than frying it. I think we should do a little pour-off. We were hoping she could give us the low-down on why our fry-up seems to have turned into a boil-up. If you're buying on price, then you're going to get the cheaper end of the bacon, and this injected method of curing is what you're going to be buying. You are buying added water. The injected method is the most common way of making bacon here ` usually on an industrial scale. Here's a demonstration by hand while Sarah explains what's going on. You need water as a carrier to inject into the bacon your curing ingredients, such as your salts and your sodium nitrite. The minute they hit the inside meat, they're starting to cure the product, so that process is sped up very quickly. But are they adding more water than they need to? I think some food manufacturers are potentially using a larger amount of water, which is obviously driving costs down, cos you're plumping your meat up further, and you're getting a bigger volume of meat at the end of it. Time for a bit of shopping. We sent a mystery shopper into a range of supermarkets and retailers to pick up seven brands of bacon, which were then sent off to an independent lab to determine how much moisture was actually in the meat. Of course, it doesn't really take an expert eye to spot the water in some. You wouldn't throw that in the pan, but you've paid for that, haven't you? You have, yes. The packaging has a few clues, but does it really tell the full story? It's telling you that there is water as the second main ingredient. You can't really get from the packet how much is being added, and there's no real guide. So that's all they have to tell you, though, on the label? Yeah, definitely. There's no, like, regulations around listing quantities of water. And that has some butchers sizzling mad. We're not gonna try and fill things up full of water ever. I'll quit butchery if I have to do that. Kurt really knows his bacon. We dry-cure it, so we rub that down with salt and brown sugar. That's it. That's all? That's`? Nothing else? That's it. That's our dry-cured bacon. From raw pork here to finished bacon takes four to six weeks of attention. Just a wee massage. Very simple. Just a wee massage in there. He made NZ's best bacon in 2015. That and that. That's quite a lot smaller. Obviously salt's going in, which is drawing moisture, but as it gets smoked and it gets cooked, more moisture's being lost there, so obviously it's turned a bit smaller and it'll be part of the hanging process as well. So good bacon ` the dry-cured way ` it gets drier, like the name says. Exactly, yep. There should be less water in i Yeah, so this here would weigh roughly 200g or 300g less than a fresh piece, so we're losing weight. Like, 10%, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Kurt knows his industry too. He's heard some shocking stories. Some people cure to 40%, 50% more weight. Now, some of that water may drain away, but not all of it, and what's kept in the meat pumps up the profits. After it's gone through those processes, it might go back down to 20% or 25%. Of course, his prizewinning bacon takes longer to prepare and does cost more. End of the day, if you are cooking bacon and only ending up with half as much, well, it might be costing you more. So at least with us you're getting what you pay for ` 100%, yeah. Of course, all food contains some water, and even after lengthy dry-curing, testing showed Kurt's prizewinning bacon contained 62.6% moisture. How do the big brands stack up? Well, top of the water table ` budget brand, followed by Hobson's choice. Third place to Mad Butcher. Not much between Grandpa's, Signature Range and Beehive, While Hellers tested driest. Here they are rated highest to lowest. What does that mean in dollars and cents? Here's the price we paid per kilo. Look at what you pay for this one, compared to a brand that tested drier. And look at the price per kilo for the ones that tested the wettest. Sarah isn't surprised. She's a very highly qualified label-reader, after all, and she saw this coming. You can see when you look on the ingredient list on the label... Yeah. ...there's a lot of ingredients added to this bacon to help the water stay in the meat. The clues are in the fine print. Reading the packet, what should you be looking for? If you see a long ingredients list, with mineral salts and stabilisers, that does tell us that there potentially is a lot more water being held in the bacon. If you look at the ingredients list and you just see sugar and salt and a preservative, which is sodium nitrite, it suggests that perhaps there's not so much water being held into the structure of the bacon. And you're not buying bacon water. Yeah. We put that all of this to bacon makers. Their responses were similar. Crucially, most admit the additives they use do help bacon retain water, and none deny it. They make other claims about those additives ` that they bind the ingredients, improve the cooking experience, maintain succulence or keep it moist. They point out raw pork is about 75% water before curing, so they're not surprised by our test results. None would say how much water they add, except for Mad Butcher, which says it adds less than 5%. Nearly all suggested shoppers check the pork percentage on the packet, which varied hugely ` from 93% to 53%. Hobson's Choice had the least pork of any bacon we sampled and the shortest response. It wouldn't say how much of the other 47% in its bacon is water, just that it uses water to dissolve the brine and improve the bacon's texture. Keen? Now they know the real story of bacon water, is that all too much for our bacon eaters to stomach? I guess when I think water, I don't think bacon. Maybe that's cos none of the manufacturers is doing anything wrong ` Would you try that? in regulatory terms, anyway. One of the most puzzling things I found when making bacon water was that the word bacon occurs nowhere in our Food Standards Code. And as for water, well, as long they say it's in it ` and they don't have to say how much ` the bacon makers are in the clear, which leaves you with something rather more murky. This stuff is really disgusting. You'd be game, though? I` I have volunteered to try it. Foolhardy. Oh no. Ugh. Oh, that's not actually as terrible as I... (LAUGHS) Oh no, that's awful. That is disgusting. I can see globules of fat in there. It does taste like bacon. In the European Union, if they've pumped up the bacon by more than 5%, they have to label it 'bacon with water added'. Here they just have to include the word 'water' in the ingredients. I really wouldn't recommend that, though. Wonder what would happen if they brought that EU rule in here. Might be a fairer fry-up for the consumer. Mm. Now, for our True/False challenge. Last week we asked whether a bar can charge you for tap water. The answer is no. Under the Sale of Liquor Act, they have to provide tap water ` not bacon water ` for free. This week Pippa's got a new brain-teaser. MAJOR LAZER'S 'LEAN ON' This week's question ` all new NZ passports are valid for 10 years. And I'll tell you something ` it's a little bit tricky, this one. It certainly got you guys thinking. all new passports are valid for 10 years? All the new ones. Uh, true. False. I don't know. False? False? We get another one wrong, did we? So is it true or false? Who's right? Who's wrong? Find out later in the show. And remember, there's 20 bucks for the person who gets all four of our questions right. Later we'll be dipping our toes into a real-estate disaster. It was a waterfront dream. Really loved it, with the creek babbling and everything. Looked beautiful. But what they bought was not what they got. This is your property we are standing on now? Yes, it is. Yeah. But if we step out here, where are we now? We're trespassing. And ` ghost chips. Ooh! Brodie bites into a weighty issue. . Welcome back. Now, we all know the first rule of real estate is location, location, location. So what happens when the real estate agent gets the location wrong? In this case, a waterfront dream dried up. LAID-BACK MUSIC Jenna and Dale have left the city behind. Last year they dipped their toes in a little slice of South Canterbury paradise. Well, they did before the stream went dry. We fell in love with it. When we walked in the gate there and saw what we were looking at buying, really loved it ` with the creek babbling and everything. Looked beautiful. Loved the gardens ` just beautifully established gardens. Look at the marketing of what they bought. We stood just on the path in the garden, near the creek, and Dale asked specifically, 'Where is the boundary?' And the agent said, 'The boundary is the centre of the creek.' There's no fence, obviously, on that side, and that's why I asked ` because I could see fences on the other side, and I wanted to make sure where we were purchasing to. So what's gone wrong here? Remember, the bought a riverfront property. And we bought the walk by the creek as well as the house, and, yes, we love the house, and we love what we do have, but that's not what we bought. Well, as you can see, it really is a beautiful spot. Now, this is what the Nimmos thought they'd bought. This is what they actually got. Right, so, Jenna and Dale, this is your property we're standing on now. Yes, it is. Yep. But if we step out here, where are we now? We're trespassing. We're trespassing. Yeah. So this is the next-door property, essentially. Yes. It is. And get this ` What's that down there? That's our septic tank, which we think is under here. On the neighbour's property. On somebody else's property. 'It's, uh, none of their business.' Cos if someone buys this piece of land, we no longer have a septic tank. It gets weirder. So where are you guys now? We're on our property. And where am I? You're on our property. ...our property. That's Dale and Jen. That's me and Justin, the cameraman. You can come see us down here if you like, but you'll be trespassing all the way. So when you just walked there, what were you doing? We were trespassing. That's ridiculous. It is. We're pretty upset about it, because we thought we were buying to the centre of the creek. The Nimmos have this tree to thank ` or blame ` for finding out. It blew over last October. There's the tree. They looked into who was responsible for it. And that's when we started seeing boundaries where we hadn't seen them before. The further we looked into it, more and more we didn't have. Yeah, the garden` ...wasn't on our property. Turns out there's a weird separate property which snakes along the creek edge behind seven different properties. What did you feel? Really shocked. Horrified, they complained to the agents, Mike Pero Real Estate. Their response? Nothing wrong on their part. They said the vendor walked the agent around and told her the rear boundary is 'the middle of the creek'. The vendor had spent around $9000 on a retaining wall and landscaping. And ` They started by blaming us for not noticing, for not noticing on the LIM and the title and all that sort of thing. They pointed out the Nimmos got a LIM, a Land Information Memorandum, and it shows the boundaries. We accept that it's a good point. We had the title and all the diagrams, but they're very old, and there's a lot going on in that wee drawing. When we first started investigating this, we actually took that to the council, and they couldn't read it either. They couldn't tell us where the boundary was. The Nimmos' lawyer gets blamed too. It's 'disappointing' he didn't disclose the boundaries as shown in the LIM, says Mike Pero Real Estate. Short version ` not their problem. Yeah, we thought we were asking the right people the right questions and got the answers we liked, so we went with it. Now, everybody shares some blame here ` the seller, the agent, the buyers, the buyers' lawyers. But we reckon the agent has the biggest problem here. Why? Because of these. They're decisions from the Real Estate Agents Authority all about boundaries being wrongly described. Two are findings of unsatisfactory conduct against other agents. One is a Mike Pero agent. He's appealing, and he won a separate district court case. So, a very clear principle from these. Agents cannot just pass on what sellers tell them about boundaries. They must take steps to verify them. And if they don't, well, don't make claims about boundaries. Remember, the place Dale and Jenna bought was advertised as a riverfront property with a beautiful garden. The place they got was this. Trespassing. Not trespassing. As consumers, we have a right to trust that what our agent tells us is true. And that's what we did. Our mistake. Even if the agent innocently repeats wrong information, it's the agent's problem. They got it wrong. They got it very wrong. We went off what we were advertised. We asked the questions of where the boundary were, and we were told wrong. They've learnt a nasty lesson. Don't trust your agent. No, do your own research, and unfortunately that costs money. That lesson doesn't give them enjoyment of their little bit of Godzone. So what on earth can be done to fix this? The only acceptable solution for us is to have what we bought. The Nimmos are in no doubt who should be paying. Um, 100% Mike Pero. They sold us this piece of land, so they can make it right. We're consumers; we want what we paid for. Gosh, that is a lot of land they thought they were buying that they were, in fact, not buying. Imagine the sick feeling when you find out. Mm. Now, sadly Mike Pero himself didn't want to do an interview. Instead we got this. Mike Pero Real Estate acknowledge there's a problem. They're a resolution-focused company. They'll further review their response. They say this can't be sorted on TV and the Nimmos should communicate with them directly. They are doing so, and we are staying on this. Yeah, it's pretty clear to us this sort of thing is not a one-off. We're already looking into another similar case, not involving Mike Pero Real Estate. So do be very careful. Take legal advice, and do not accept what an agent tells you about boundaries. Coming up ` an SOS from snack fans sick of paying for chippified air. They're our favourite snack. Hi. My name's Brodie, and I'm addicted to potato chips. A weighty issue's got Brodie feeling quite chipper. And we're back on the streets... Uh, true. ...with a bit of brain-teaser. False. I don't know. (LAUGHS) . Welcome back. Every year Kiwis consume more than 40 million packets of chips. That's all of us, not each. They're our favourite snack, but they've fallen out of favour with some. There's nothing worse than opening a greasy bag of salty goodness and discovering it is full of non-delicious nothing ` too much air, not enough chips. Brodie's a self-confessed chip addict. She was very keen to investigate this. So, we saw this post on Facebook. A man wrote to ETA saying that he only had 46g of chips in his 150g bag, so we thought, 'Why not do the big chip weigh-in?' LIVELY ELECTRONIC MUSIC CHIP CRUNCHES Yes, Nathan Dickey wrote a classic post on Facebook, telling ETA ` A gutted Nathan asked for a 'please explain' ` where were all the chips, bro? Here at the Fair Go office, this got us talking. Is there really such a thing as ghost chips? So we picked up nine types of 150g bags of chips from randomly selected shops around Auckland, and we picked up at least three bags of each from the shops to be fair. Ooh! We borrowed some high-tech, accurate scales at Sabato, and away we went. Honey Soy Chicken. Mmm. See? It does` It does look like ghost chips. I promise you I ate these after they were weighed. So far there are some good results coming in. 154. So that's, like... That's a little bit more. 154. The same. Good. Good. 154 again. Good. This is good results for the chip companies. But will they all stack up? Dunno with this lot. Seems like there's fewer crisps. Yeah, I mean, look at that. Now, we wanted to find out from the chip companies how they actually weigh their chips and if there's an explanation for ghost chips. (LAUGHS) What better way than a behind-the-scenes tour? We're at the Heartland chip factory in Timaru. It's a family-owned business run by a pretty cool family, led by potato legend Raymond Bowan. Well, I been growing and processing potatoes for coming up 48 years now. Daughter Charlotte runs the day-to-day operation and showed us this amazing machine that makes the chips, starting with the giant peeler. It's not like you peel your potatoes at home; it's like a` sort of a rough, sandpapery peel. They then go down to the crinkle-cutting machine. And the potatoes drop in there, and it forms that nice crinkle-cut shape. After that it's off for a hot wash, then a three-and-a-half minute cook in the fryer before heading to the important machine which sorts out any defects. Like, any brown on the chips, um, any black bits. Yeah, basically anything we don't think looks nice in a packet. Then it's flavour time. Today it's sour cream and chives. Yum! After that the chips travel to what we came to see ` the weighing machine. How does it know there's 150g of chips going in? There is, um, little buckets, and each bucket weighs a specific amount of chips, and when it's time to drop, um, the chips into the packet ` um, whether it's one bucket or three buckets ` it all works out the amount dropping in and drops them out and into the packet. Charlotte says the buckets will never drop an underweight load of chips into a bag, and they get a reading from this at the end of each day. So what about all the ghost chips ` you know, the air and all the room in the bag? Obviously it's a very brittle product that can break easily. You know, you've felt it. If you pick up something with no air in it, you can easily squash it, whereas this, you know, it's got air in it. It's protecting the chips. Yeah. Ah, so that's why. Good to know. Meanwhile, back at the weighing station, I have to admit I'm genuinely surprised at our results. 154. Pams, you're overachieving. 150. Nailing it. Every single packet we weighed from ETA, Bluebird, Chip Off The Old Block, Pams, Proper Crisps and Heartland came in at either bang on 150g, a few were 152, and some were even 154g. Bluebird summer packets were 140g bags, and they came in at 142g. Now, no chips were harmed in the making of this experiment, and the good news is all the chips weighed what they said they would, so no ghost chips here. (WHISPERS) Back to the office. And she did come back with all of those chips, and we did share them around the office. Yeah, I feel like we made quite contribution to that 40 million consumed each year. ETA have apologised to Nathan and offered him a box of his favourite chippies. Nathan had a better idea and asked for them to be delivered to a worthy cause, and ETA agreed. Now, if you've been landed with a dud bag, resist the urge to nibble. Return it. That means they can get to the bottom of what's gone wrong, and they'll only be too happy to sort you out, we hope. Yes. Now, remember the True or False question we asked earlier in the show? MAJOR LAZER'S 'LEAN ON' All new NZ passports are valid for 10 years. New ones? New ones. True. (GROANS) So close! (LAUGHS) Oh! Told you it was tricky. And if you're wondering why, it's a security feature, because kids' faces change so much as they grow. And we will be running out more True and False questions over the next couple of weeks. But that is the show for tonight. We will be on Facebook for the next half hour to answer your questions. Our programme, of course, it's all about your problems, your thoughts, and we do love to hear from you. We're on Facebook. Email us ` Write to us ` And before we go, look forward to next week. Sugar. It's sweet, seductive and deadly. My doctor said, 'You need to cut out everything ` any sugar you can ` in your diet.' For prediabetics, the dangers of sugar are everywhere. Can't use honey. Can't use jams. Sugar is a major problem in our diet in NZ. But how do you avoid this dietary villain? If you have prediabetes, you need to be really cautious about what you're eating. Eating and drinking. I saw this drink here, and it said 'lower in sugar', so I thought, 'This looks good.' But lower than what? This is the amount of sugar that is actually in one of these bottles. You'll be amazed how sugar is in seemingly healthy products. It was a real shock. That's next week. Goodnight.