The Romans knew they were plagued by food fraud. However, adulteration was an even bigger problem than they realized. It turns out that many Romans personally added even more poison to the wine they drank. In those days, people used toxic lead as a sweetener! Lead is deadly. Unfortunately, it is also very tasty. It would be many centuries before people learned that lead is a slow, sweet poison—and even then, ruthless food fraudsters continued to put lead into food.
Food fraud continued long after the Roman Empire broke apart. No one was safe from food swindles during the medieval period of knights and castles. In fact, food fraud was one problem that concerned the rich at least as much as the poor. Peasants mostly grew or hunted for their own food. Rich merchants and nobles could afford the spices and other luxury foods that were the most profitable for swindlers to fake.