Catfished by a Catfish - "Waiter, this Grouper tastes funny"

[ksoze]

There’s a 1 in 5 chance that fish you’re eating isn’t what you think it is

WASHINGTON

A new report suggests that consumers worldwide have a 20 percent chance of purchasing or consuming mislabeled seafood.

A review of more than 200 studies from 55 countries by Oceana, an international ocean conservation group, found that mislabeling occurred in 5,000 of 25,000 seafood samples that were tested.

The species most commonly substituted for other products were hake, escolar and Asian catfish – which was substituted for 18 different kinds of more expensive fish.

The studies showed the problem occurs in every stop along the seafood supply chain, whether it be packaging and processing, wholesale and retail distribution, or imports and exports.

Nearly two-thirds of the studies showed an economic benefit for mislabeling the products.

A U.S. presidential task force looking at the problem announced a proposed rule in February to establish a tracing program in order to collect information about the international harvest of 13 types of seafood considered at risk for fraud. Tracking the chain of custody for these products until they reach the U.S. border would reduce the chance of fraud occurring in imported seafood.

Domestically harvested seafood already faces state and federal reporting requirements.

Oceana says the proposed higher scrutiny of imported seafood is a good start. But the group has called on the federal government to be able to trace and verify the retail path of all seafood sold in the United States – from its point of harvest all the way to the dinner plate.

Without it, “consumers will continue to be cheated, hardworking, honest fishermen will be undercut, and the long-term productivity of our oceans will continue to be in jeopardy,” said a statement from Beth Lowell, senior campaign director for Oceana.

“It’s clear that seafood fraud respects no borders,” Lowell’s statement added. “The path seafood travels from the fishing boat or farm to our dinner plates is long, complex and nontransparent, rife with opportunities for fraud and mislabeling. American consumers deserve to know more about their seafood, including what kind of fish it is, how and where it was caught or farmed, and they should be able to trust the information is accurate.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article100504792.html

[Warpy]

1. Back in New England, I used to get my fish from a wholesaler

with the heads on and uncleaned. That way, I knew what I was getting and the eyes were a giveaway as to how fresh it really was.

All it takes is one bad piece of fish that's had bleach disguising the odor to make gutting it yourself seem like a good idea.

[hunter]

2. The international market for seafood is disreputable and unsustainable.

Hard to say who or what will trash the ocean first: high-tech fishing fleets (too frequently using slave labor) or ocean acidification caused by our fossil fuel use.

As much as I like my calamari and wild-caught salmon, I personally think commercial fishing ought to be banned, just as commercial hunting was banned after species like the passenger pigeon became extinct and other bird and animal species became severely endangered. (It's against the law in the U.S.A. to hunt duck or geese for sale in your local supermarket.)

For a less radical approach, The Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood watch is an excellent resource.

http://www.seafoodwatch.org

In my perfect world pig farms would be replaced by fish farms entirely isolated from natural bodies of water. Wild seafood would belong to the great sharks and our fellow intelligent species, the cetaceans.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. It's especially fun when you get Escolar disguised as something else.

You know, the fish that contains undigestable oils that can cause the "anal leakage" which made those Olestra potato chips so difficult to market