Globe exposes fish mislabeling

[daviscubed.livejournal.com]

http://www.boston.com/business/specials/fish_testing/fish_testing_results/?cbResetParam=1%2F&p1=News_links

Three Davis Square restaurants (or affiliates) implicated.

The Burren shows up for selling farmed salmon as "Wild Atlantic" salmon.  

Snappy Sushi shows up as passing off European Sea Bass as "Striped Bass."

The Taipei Tokyo restaurant in Woburn (which shares a website with the one in Davis Square) got nabbed for selling escolar as "white tuna," which, along with ripping you off, can be dangerous if it turns out you really like it.  

Enjoy your lunch.

Comments

[smoterh.livejournal.com]

I would say that a public apology is in order

[ifotismeni]

what a disappointment all around, to see many restaurants i've frequented over the years on that list, and to read the myriad excuses (blaming the supplier, blaming the chef, blaming the menu designer?!?). many of these are high end and/or highly reputable places to boot. pretty amazing that no one ever erred on the side of substituting for a more expensive fish.

if there's such an issue with suppliers bait-and-switching fish to purchasing restaurants, one would hope a big supplier exposee is in order?

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

This is a long-standing issue with suppliers and the seafood industry in general, so I generally would believe the "supplier" excuse.

The Burren thing is a bit more upsetting--that's really awful and I don't know if I'll be going back there any time soon.

[ifotismeni]

that's really interesting... i do wonder then if there's going to be a follow-up about the suppliers, as that seems to be a big root of the problems here.

[ifotismeni]

responding to myself!

"TOMORROW An examination of the role of suppliers and lax government oversight in fish mislabeling."

well then, i guess it's time to stay tuned...

[ron_newman]

the article about suppliers is in today's Globe front page.

From sea to sushi bar, a system open to abuse. Subhead: The rampant mislabeling of fish that consumers buy can be largely traced to this: the lack of anything like the regulations imposed on meat suppliers

[smoterh.livejournal.com]

I guess the question is, would you even want to eat a sushi restaurant where the master sushi chef is not able to tell the difference between one fish and another and can be fooled by the supplier. I'm not defending the suppliers fault, but if one claims to be half decent sushi restaurant, they should know better.

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

My favorite excuse (I just finished reading the article and then stumbled across this entry!): "it's the industry standard to do this."

Read: everyone else does it so why shouldn't we?!

GRAH!

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

The worst part for me was reading that in some cases endangered species were substituted for more expensive ones. UGH.

[emcicle.livejournal.com]

what surprised me is that the endangered species wasn't already the more expensive fish. I would have thought Bluefin Tuna would be very expensive because it is endangered. but yeah, that was really upsetting.

[perich.livejournal.com]

Just musing from my armchair here, but I would imagine Bluefin tuna became endangered because they were so cheap, and therefore got overfished.

[squirrelitude]

Cheap, meaning easy to catch.

[emannths.livejournal.com]

While the article highlights an important problem, the authors seem to be a little ignorant of the use of fish, particularly in the context of sushi.

Somehow their "language specialist" was able to tell the Globe that "tai" meant (red) sea bream, and that "izumidai" meant tilapia, but then the Globe faults using the label "izumi tai." Izumi tai is simply a slightly poorer transliteration of izumidai--when a vowel precedes an unvoiced consonant in Japanese, the consonant becomes voice (e.g., t -> d, s -> z, etc). So the supplier is not at fault for labeling the fish "izumi tai" as the Globe suggests. They are of course at fault for labeling it "izumi tai - red snapper" though!

Also, while the FDA doesn't allow non-tuna species to be labeled as tuna, and non-cod to be labeled cod, there should be very little confusion over the use of "white tuna" and "black cod." It seems that "white tuna" should be reserved for albacore tuna. But the term "white tuna" has pretty much always been used to refer to escolar in the context of sushi (this is backed up by the Globe finding that 100% of the fish labeled white tuna to be escolar). Same with black cod--sure, it's not from the cod family. But the only fish called "black cod" is sablefish, so you always know what you're getting. If the FDA is going to allow fish from the Pacific to be called "Dover sole," taxonomic inaccuracies in common names shouldn't be too much cause for concern.

The big problems are when one fish is substituted for another well-known fish. If you call something red snapper, and it's not red snapper, you suck. Or if you are calling hake/haddock/pollack/etc cod, no thanks.

Oh, and escolar is only as "dangerous" as eating Olestra. If we're going to call it dangerous, pretty soon we'll be calling baked beans a mild public health issue due to their...digestive effects.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Well, escolar is apparently banned in Japan. That might be of interest. And I certainly didn't know that the "white tuna" I was getting wasn't a tuna and was a mild laxative.

Wish they'd tested Super Fusion; I discovered a couple days ago it has giant nigiri for good prices and now I'm wondering what corners are cut for that. Though they certainly charged a lot for the alleged chu-toro and bluefin.

[emannths.livejournal.com]

The name has no effect on its...medical properties. You could call it double-rainbow fish and eating a half pound of it would still make you poop orange goo. Or more practically speaking, if it were identified as escolar on the menu, would that really increase the number of people that would identify it as a fish that causes GI issues if eaten in quantity? I doubt it, but of course I don't really know. It can't hurt, I suppose.

It should be a bigger cause for concern that restaurants are happily selling customers a food that commonly causes GI problems. If there's something to be upset with here in the escolar/white tuna thing, it's that, not the name.

[ron_newman]

If I'm buying tuna I expect tuna! Not some other fish that might get me embarrassingly sick to my stomach. And especially not if it's banned in Japan, the country that invented sushi.

There's a reason I don't buy stuff with Olestra in it.

[squirrelitude]

Oh, and escolar is only as "dangerous" as eating Olestra. If we're going to call it dangerous, pretty soon we'll be calling baked beans a mild public health issue due to their...digestive effects.

Anything that might cause me to leak grease out of my anus is a health hazard.

[ron_newman]

also Masa's Sushi Bar at nearby Porter Exchange in Cambridge: selling tilapia as "red snapper"