Fraudulent Seafood: Are You Really Getting What You Think You Are?

[JohnyCanuck]

By running fish DNA through gene sequencers, scientists have found rampant labeling fraud in the supermarket and in restaurants. Cheap fish is substituted for expensive filets and over fished species are passed off as fish whose numbers are plentiful.

The fish geneticists state that 25 to 70% of the seafood they check is fraudulently identified.

Government inspections find an average of 37% of seafood fraudulently identified. The most common mis-labelings are for red snapper, cod, wild salmon and grouper. Most fish purchased in the US is imported, but the FDA currently inspects less than 2% of these fish.

snip

Some other examples of fraud: Tilapia masquerading as almost anything else; perch labeled as shark, yellowtail instead of mahi-mahi, catfish as grouper. and farmed shrimp from Vietnam labeled “Gulf shrimp”. In one case, tilefish was labeled as grouper. Tilefish contains more than 3X the amount of mercury found in grouper and women of childbearing age and children are advised not to eat it.

http://www.activistpost.com/2011/10/fraudulent-seafood-are-you-really.html

[madinmaryland]

1. And the repukes are bitching about regulations. Maybe they should be eating several

pounds of tilefish a day.

:grr:

[nc4bo]

2. Free market. Free "global" market. It works out great for the 1%'ers.

Not so much for the rest of us.

:mad:

[Fool Count]

3. Free market will surely sort it out. Eventually. Somehow.

Those people who care enough about knowing what is that they put into their mouths will have to develop more discriminating palates
or buy themselves DNA sequencers to not get fooled so easily. If they don't, that simply means that they don't care and proper labeling
is not important according to the all-knowing free market.

[Motown_Johnny]

7. you should use the sarcasm tag for posts like that

and if that isn't sarcasm you need to seek professional help




no palate is ever going to be so discriminating as to be able to tell farm raised shrimp from gulf shrimp




and the idea that everyone now needs to buy DNA sequencers just to not be a victim of fraud is insane



THIS IS THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT!IN MICROCOSM! Protecting peoples health and preventing fraud is exactly the types of things our tax dollars should be going toward.

[trotsky]

8. I thought the sarcasm was pretty clear.

:shrug:

[Motown_Johnny]

9. you can never be sure around here

almost as if you need a DNA sequencer to find out if someone is mislabeled as a liberal or not

[Fool Count]

10. Tags-shmags... I'd rather let the natural selection take its course

and allow all the sarcasm-blind readers to die-off of all the extra stress due to unwarranted
righteous outrage.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Many of those names are unofficial, traditional names ...

and almost meaningless at times, as they vary from place to place. Since no internationally agreed-upon names are enforced, this is pretty much license to sell under any name you want.

[RegieRocker]

5. This comes as no surprise. A nation of criminals and hypocrites.

[seabeyond]

6. thanks for this. i am about done getting fish. most labeled are from countries with high mercury

anyway. now to find that me checking countries doesnt matter cause the labeling is a lie is disgusting.