Revealed: seafood fraud happening on a vast global scale

[liuzhou]

Revealed: seafood fraud happening on a vast global scale

I guess it's well known that fish isn't always what it seems to be, but the scale of the mislabelling, deliberate or accidenta,l is massive.

[KennethT]

Wow, that is crazy.  I knew this went on to some degree, but that much!?!

[Kim Shook]

That's incredibly disturbing when you consider the sustainability and health issues.  So, how do we avoid fake fish?

[ElsieD]

I read about this a few years ago but not in such detail.   As I recall, it is particularly prevalent with frozen fish.

[FauxPas]

I've read about this a few times also. I know we can avoid some of it here because we can catch our own or buy it off the boats in the harbour or from the oyster farms, but grocery stores and restaurants can still mislead us (I think a fairly common one is a restaurant passing off farmed salmon as wild). I trust some stores and restaurants more than others, but they may not even know what they are getting at times. I know that Thrifty Foods had some initiatives to try and trace fish, but it's probably still open to manipulation. 

 

Quote

 

In May 2010, Ecotrust Canada launched Thisfish and its website http://thisfish.info/, which allows consumers to trace their seafood back to the fisherman who caught it. Pacific Halibut and BC Salmon are great examples of popular seafood items that have been tagged by fishermen and traced through Thisfish.

"Thisfish connects you to your fisherman, the boat the fish was caught from, and the waters that boat calls home," says Tasha Sutcliffe, Fisheries Program Director for Ecotrust Canada. "You can even access photos of the boat and crew, along with details from the captain's logbook and a map showing where on the coast the catch took place."

 

https://thisfish.info/generic/article/14/

 

Quote

ThisFish is a global provider of seafood traceability software that improves business efficiency and increases trust and transparency in seafood supply chains. Our mission is to improve the social, environmental, and financial sustainability of seafood enterprises.

https://thisfish.info/trace/

[liuzhou]

Fish detectives: the sleuths using ‘e-DNA’ to fight seafood fraud

A Canadian supplier known for wild salmon has teamed up with geneticists to prove what really ends up on the plate.

Edited March 16, 2021 by liuzhou (log)

[Owtahear]

I am extremely careful about where I source seafood from.  Obviously this gets a bit expensive.  But I am wary of many species and also how they have been handled.  For example, I love scallops but will rarely order them out because I have had so many poor quality scallops (I source mine from Maine).

 

But a lot of this is due to the fact that we don't respect the seasonality of some species and forms and expect them year round and fresh.  

[weinoo]

58 minutes ago, Owtahear said:

I am extremely careful about where I source seafood from.  Obviously this gets a bit expensive.  But I am wary of many species and also how they have been handled.  For example, I love scallops but will rarely order them out because I have had so many poor quality scallops (I source mine from Maine).

 

It's what I do as well.  Farmer's market for locally caught seafood (whole body) and harvested shellfish. Or trusted sources for the same. My scallops don't often come from Maine (I noticed Regalis had live Maine scallops in the shell this week), but they're still great.

My forays into frozen include stuff such as salmon and halibut from Alaska, where I believe what they're selling is what they say they're selling, because they've been selling that stuff to a lot of customers for a long time.

[liuzhou]

A large part of the problem is that people are, in general, pretty useless at identifying fish, making it easier for the fraudsters. This study is about fish recognition in Europe, but I'm sure applies everywhere.

Edited March 17, 2021 by liuzhou (log)

[ElsieD]

Here's a little quiz:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/20/could-you-spot-the-fish-fake-test-your-seafood-detective-skills-in-our-quiz?utm_term=faa66df65ca916a3448ba27317568689&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUK_email

[AlaMoi]

I've had 'the switch' in restaurants - serving a fish that _clearly_ was not the listed menu item....

 

if you buy fresh fish you'll easily learn to recognize mislabeled stuff - a lot depends on whether you have a fish monger with a wide selection to learn from.

[gfweb]

5 hours ago, ElsieD said:

Here's a little quiz:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/20/could-you-spot-the-fish-fake-test-your-seafood-detective-skills-in-our-quiz?utm_term=faa66df65ca916a3448ba27317568689&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUK_email

5/7 right

[ElsieD]

47 minutes ago, gfweb said:

5/7 right

 

That's pretty good.

[ElsieD]

1 hour ago, AlaMoi said:

I've had 'the switch' in restaurants - serving a fish that _clearly_ was not the listed menu item....

 

if you buy fresh fish you'll easily learn to recognize mislabeled stuff - a lot depends on whether you have a fish monger with a wide selection to learn from.

 

What did you do with the fish?

[gfweb]

11 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

 

That's pretty good.

I was surprised myself

[liuzhou]

2 hours ago, gfweb said:

5/7 right

 

I'm surprised but happy that I got 7/7. There were a couple of lucky guesses.

Edited March 22, 2021 by liuzhou (log)

[rotuts]

6/7  

 

however , this is only because a long long time ago

 

I planed to be a Great Fisherman.

 

this didn't work out , as there were no fish near me

 

that were edible for me to catch.

 

FlyFisherman , of course 

 

Way before this became  popular.

 

so , I read a lot of books.

 

w pictures.

[Eatmywords]

5/7 (missed the skipjack and hoki).  As for the mislabeling I kinda trust a couple local stores but usually go w what I know anyway. 

 

From the health aspect, I go moderation and don't buy too much of anything and avoid farm raised esp tilapia and the red dyed salmon (crazy the dying still goes on).  Been lucky last few years w the neighbor giving us a lot of what he catches from our local reservoirs.

 

This all reminds me of when I discovered crab stick used in maki contained no crab.  I felt violated.  Also wondered if Californians were extra outraged.    

[chromedome]

3 minutes ago, Eatmywords said:

5/7 (missed the skipjack and hoki). 

 

I almost clicked mackerel on that one as well, before my brain caught up to my finger. They look alike, but you wouldn't mistake a mackerel for any kind of tuna once it's on the plate. As for the hoki, well...that one was new to me, but I could rule out the other three.

[AlaMoi]

13 hours ago, ElsieD said:

 

What did you do with the fish?

if it's a tasty fish, I eat it but tell the staff I wasn't fooled . . .

once it was not so tasty and I refused the dish, paid for my drink and left the resto.

 

never had any objections raised, they know . . .

[liuzhou]

36 minutes ago, Eatmywords said:

This all reminds me of when I discovered crab stick used in maki contained no crab. 

 

I thought it was well known that crab sticks don't contain crab. They are made from surimi (i.e fish paste made from the stuff they can't sell!)

That's why, in many places, they cannot be labelled or advertised using the name  'crab'. So we get Krab Sticks', Ocean Sticks, Sea Legs and Imitation Crab Sticks etc.

Edited March 22, 2021 by liuzhou (log)

[Eatmywords]

24 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

I thought it was well known that crab sticks don't contain crab. They are made from surimi (i.e fish paste made from the stuff they can't sell!)

Probably, but it was over 30yrs ago when I made the discovery.  (I was likely thinking more about girls than sushi roll ingredient authenticity)   

[heidih]

1 hour ago, Eatmywords said:

This all reminds me of when I discovered crab stick used in maki contained no crab.  I felt violated.  Also wondered if Californians were extra outraged.    

Nah - the avocado and Krab (surimi) makes for a gateway sushi prep as the Krab is bland. Early days real crab would have been the shocker except at very high end places. All part of the goofiness that occurs when something becomes trendy and cool. - not necessarily taste related. I am still taken aback when there are neon red Krab leg sticks bobbing around in a Thai curry where the kitchen sticks very close to tradition.

[liuzhou]

and it continues.

 

Canada declares fish fraud crackdown but leaves out restaurants

 

Restaurants are the easiest to befuddle consumers. How often do you actually see the whole fish in a restaurant before you see the actual dish? - even if you could 100% certainly identify it.
 

[liuzhou]

Bought these today. Advertised as sardines in olive oil. Well, they got olive oil right.

 

They aren't sardines; they are sprats. Nothing  wrong with sprats.

It's OK. I knew they weren't sardines. I can read Russian (very rustily) so I am sure they are labelled correctly as sprats, but the advertising still irks me.