Slashdot Mirror
Is That Sushi Hazardous To Your Health?
pdclarry writes "A recent study by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History and Columbia University found that a piece of tuna sushi may not be tuna at all: 'A piece of tuna sushi has the potential to be an endangered species, a fraud or a health hazard,' wrote the authors. 'All three of these cases were uncovered in this study.' The study, published in PLoS ONE examined 68 samples of tuna sushi purchased from 31 restaurants in Manhattan (New York City) and Denver, Colorado. Some of these were from endangered species, others were not as labeled, and some were not tuna at all. Of these last, five samples labeled as 'white tuna' were from a toxic fish, Escolar, which is a gempylid species banned for sale in Italy and Japan due to health concerns. 'It can cause gastrointestinal symptoms ranging from mild and rapid passage of oily yellow or orange droplets, to severe diarrhea with nausea and vomiting. The milder symptoms have been referred to as keriorrhea [i.e. flow of wax in Greek].' Fraud in sushi is not new; Slashdot also reported study on mislabeling in 2008. This new study shows that some sushi can actually make you sick. The study was also covered by Wired."
BLAH!
If we're just talking about the tuna, then it's Sashimi.
Sushi is vinegar rice, topped with other ingredients, such as fish.
</pedantic>
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I can finally be a lot more accurate about my bowel movements whenever I call in sick or I'm late for something.
Eating sushi is almost as disgusting as eating raw fish!
"It can cause gastrointestinal symptoms range from mild and rapid passage of oily yellow or orange droplets"
Oh really :-( I don't think I'll go to that restaurant anymore... That would also be why most of the Toro or plain old Maguro (tuna) in US doesn't taste like the Maguro in Japan.
PLoS ONE, if you didn't know, is a public-access scientific journal publishing enterprise. No more use/abuse of scientists as creator of content AND reviewers of content (who both do this for free) and then only releasing the articles for profit, for the next 100 years. I am thoroughly disgusted by this business model which takes the work of us scientists, gives nothing back and then profits from it. Fuck that.
PLoS ONE, I wish you luck. Please do crush the Natures, Sciences and Elseviers of this world. Pretty please.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
rapid passage of oily yellow or orange droplets, to severe diarrheaM
:)
Huh, so that explains last week...
Maybe it's just me but I don't eat the tuna anyway.. if I want tuna I'll go buy some John West.
Salmon on the other hand....
How we know is more important than what we know.
Just recently, Tuna was able to be bred. Prior to that, Tuna pretty much had to be caught in the wild. It would be nice to see DECENT aquaculture come to fruition.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I live in Denver and I'd never eat sushi here... A good steak, or rocky mountain oysters (something I've never tried) are one thing for this part of the country, but sushi? C'mon, this should be common sense.
I currently live in an inland city, hundreds of kilometers from the the nearest ocean. This is why I refuse to eat sushi at the restaurants here since the fish will not be very fresh. I am a microbiologist, so I don't even eat that much sushi anyway since I know what sort and how many bacteria will grow on uncooked fish. Regarding fake or poisonous fish, ask around first before you eat at any restaurant (not only for sushi). I am sure that bad reputation will spread very quickly. There are many websites and blogs that do restaurant reviews. Alternatively, you can make your own sushi as it is not very hard to do. If you can make a sandwich, you can definitely make sushi.
Seriously, if someone lied about what something is, of cause it can turn up to be harmful. What we need is sushi regulation, not this useless information. And for that note, why label only some of these examples as a fraud? Aren't they ALL frauds?
...by drinking lots of sake.
American Sushi is mostly about appearance, though the recent "fusion" sushi brands have brought more variety and flavors. Japanese sushi is an entirely different animal and the taste is 90% from the higher quality and fresher fish that is available. There are also a number of local herbs and vegetables that are traditional in Japan and compliment fish flavors much better than American "equivalents". You are also forgetting Udon, the traditional large noodle stew that is very flavorful.
the different kinds of fish taste different when they're fresh
99% of the US are simply ignorant. Proper use of words co-opted from other languages,
should be the norm. Sadly most people pass on bad information all the time. Others
tend to believe those people. Pity.
Negative points for the topic being seen on Digg 24 hours ago.
so who believes? And who cares?
Considering that Colorado is surrounded by land on all sides and New York is about as far away as possible from the pacific ocean (while staying in the US) i'm not surprised the tuna sushi you get there is a bit off.
[FUCK BETA 2.6.2014]
Escolar makes admirable sushi. It is not "a nasty fish". It is legal for sale in the US and is openly served in many sushi restaurants here. I had some the other night. Most people will not suffer any ill effects from escolar, as long as they don't eat too much of it at once.
Health hazard? In the long run, eating real tuna is probably a bigger health hazard, due to the mercury content. Wired sensationalized a reasonable scientific paper.
I'm more interested in hearing what kinds of places serve the bad sushi, so I can avoid those.
I will not be avoiding sushi.
I've already bought into the fact I'm eating raw fish.
You quite clearly know squat about fish, even at 0 your rambling is overrated.
NOW they tell me. I just ate some tuna sushi for lunch today. ::sigh::
I, for one, welcome my new parasitic overlords.
"Before humanity, the stars shone throughout the heavens. After humanity [has gone], the stars will continue to shine"
The chances that the fish you eat in sushi is an endangered species in a sushi bar is roughly the same as if you go to any other seafood restaurant. There are a lot of fish in the sea (no shit sherlock) - assume that 0.01% of fish are endangered. Now imagine dragging a net behind your boat. In theory at most 0.01% of all fish in your net will be endangered. Let's look at this more closely: Endangered fish are likely to exist in much smaller quantities, so while there might be 500 tuna per square mile of ocean, there might only be 1 of super-endangered-deliciousfish. Secondly, super-endangered-deliciousfish (SEDF) may only exist in the Bahamas, while the fisherman may be trawling off the coast of Georgia for Tuna, where Tuna are known to be abundant. Your likelyhood of catching a SEDF is highly unlikely.
In any case the fish is dumped in the boat's hold on ice, and then sorted out when they get back to port. Fish are already partially ready for consumption at this point. It's not like fisherman go out in the forest and hunt individual endangered fish with rifles where they can see them. Making most any argument about endangered fish in a commercial fishing situation is completely retarded. The only argument for this is situations where opportunistic overfishing occurs in specific areas like when salmon swim upriver to lay their eggs, and this is already highly regulated.
Also this article came out almost a year ago in the NYT this is old news(!)
moox. for a new generation.
Back to good old American Hamburgers. At least nobody ever got sick or died eating those, right?
Or in other words: People do stuff with food that might be harmful. There is no reason to take out Sushi in particular.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I wish there were more pedantic people to point out the abuse of the word study finstead of polls and surveys, so I wouldn't feel the urge to...
I just sat down at the computer for dinner with my spicy tuna roll and this is the top story on the Front page. Thank you Slashdot, for ruining my appetite yet again.
Interesting that the Japanese won't/can't eat this, but consume many other poisonous fish. Perhaps we should warn them of the dangers of contact with whales...
endangered (thus rare) fish randomly ends up in your dish?
For Escolar's effects.
Which are inconvenient but not toxic. The fish hasn't been shown to kill or cause long-term harm. But has unpleasant digestive system side effects in some people. If you experience any of those effects ever, stop eating the fish, but it's your problem not the fish's, and not a problem everyone has :)
I wouldn't suggest eating it, but it sounds as if the effects are short-term, not all people are necessarily effected, and primarily occur if the portion size is too large and not prepared in a way to reduce oils.
More like an unwanted effect than something truly toxic that would be likely to kill you or have a long-term health effect.
So limit the amount of sushi you eat, to a sane amount. No more than a 5 oz piece aday, for sure. Definitely don't eat Sushi multiple times a day, or multiple times in the same week.
63 comments already, and not one bad car analogy.
Not everywhere of course, but in many regions the common name for Escolar is White Tuna... The fact that Albacore is ALSO referred to as White Tuna does not make this fraudulent naming. In fact in most Sushi restaurants I have frequented, Escolar is MUCH more expensive and is intentionally distinguished from other Tuna varieties. I usually see it labeled as "White Tuna (Escolar)". This is definitely not meant to fool the customer into thinking it is Tuna, it is because that is what they themselves have learned to identify it as. Anyone who enjoys Albacore would _immediately_ know the difference as Escolar is VERY different...
- sigs are stupid
Cavemen discovered that cooking meat was a good idea some millennia ago and we've been doing it since then, but some people never got the memo because they were on an island or something.
Do a search on parasites and sushi.
I don't eat animal flash raw. I prefer most of vegetables cooked, too.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Apparently the stupid people who make and eat sushi haven't realized what humans have known for thousands of years. If you cook your meat, you don't die from deadly bacteria in it. Seriously, how many cases of dangerous bacterial infections have there been from eating completely raw fish. Especially those caught and prepared in the just WONDERFUL sanitation in the Asian fish farms and places where the sushi is prepared.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Last time I had sushi in the US (and it wasn't my idea, definitely) I got very seriously ill. That's never happened to me in Japan. I'm not saying I've never had one thing served me and called another in Japan (frankly, I'd hardly know apart from the varieties of tuna), but at least the chefs are trained well enough (and the people inculturated enough to know what's up and down) not to make me sick.
This occurred to me once. I had noticed that the tuna was a little bit different, still ate it. A few hours later, I was running to the toilet. Felt fine, just couldn't stray further than about 10 metres from the toilet. Lasted about 36 hours. It's called oilfish in this part of the world.
Awful experience - if you ever think it is not tuna - complain, preferably to the restaurant and the local health authority.
So fraud and shit happens in the US. We knew that.
What about the rest of the world where we actually have food standards?
"White tuna" is a euphemism that's used here and elsewhere for escolar. There's no such thing as "white tuna" outside of this peculiar label. It's sort of like how they usually call it mahi mahi instead of dolphinfish, because people are too damn stupid to understand that dolphinfish is not the same as eating Flipper the Friendly Dolphin. If you're fool enough to eat something without knowing what it is, or fool enough to eat escolar in the first place, then you deserve everything you get.
"Slashdot also reported study on mislabeling in 2008"
If by "reported" you actually mean "linked to an article in the NY Times which reported on".
Tune tastes nice and Escolar is served in fine french restaurants here.
I wonder what the scientist think about raw shrimp. I like it though. I went to my local japanese restaurant and had raw shrimp and rice. The japanese word is EBI for shrimp. It is pretty good.
This is exactly why i don't trust the cheaper sushi places in Texas...Yes i said Sushi and Texas in the same sentence.
Being born and raised in Hawaii, you are fed almost anything and everything out of the ocean, cooked or raw. Once example is Ahi Poke. Raw tuna marinated. It is freaking delicious! Ask any local in Hawaii and that food is as staple as corn in the midwest. Seafood can be caught/bought fresh daily in Hawaii. So even the cheaper sushi places in Hawaii have awesome sushi that doesn't get you sick. I never got sick once eating sushi in Hawaii. The fish you see on the menu is the fish you eat on your plate, no substitutions (except for maybe a few imitation crab items). And the prices are also cheaper since the fish is caught locally.
Here in Texas, you need to go to a fine-dining seafood restaurant to get the same quality sushi as a regular mom and pop sushi restaurant in Hawaii. ($35 2-roll sushi plate in Texas vs $15 sushi PLATTER in Hawaii). The finer dining establishments in Texas have their fish flown in overnight frozen and prepare it the same day it arrives, it never sits after the fish is delivered. It is setup and prepped for the days meals once it arrives in the morning. I've had the unfortunate privilege of eating at a cheaper sushi place years ago when I first moved to Texas; this was my first sushi experience in Texas. Never again will I ever eat at another cheap sushi establishment here. The sushi was dry, tasted like crap, and even looked cheap. It was a bad experience for me that night when i got home. Now I just stick to the higher price and eat sushi ad finer dining sushi restaurants and go home with a settled stomach and a smile on my face, rather than sit on the porcelain throne all night.
PLoS charges scientists to get published. A big part of what caused the economic collapse is that rating agencies started to hand out AAA ratings to securities that didn't deserve them, and they did this because the issuers of these securities were paying the rating agencies. This PLoS ONE's business model is the same thing. PLoS ONE receives more money when it publishes more articles.
Doesn't this just scream CONFLICT OF INTEREST to anyone else?
Please, I'll take Science and Nature any day.
While I don't approve of unscrupulous restaurants calling escolar "white tuna", as it's clearly not tuna, escolar can be had at sushi restaurants here in Canada and is commonly called "butterfish". It's quite tasty, and I suffered no ill effects as I ate only a few pieces.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fssa/concen/specif/escoe.shtml) doesn't recommend eating a lot of it, and suggests that it be consumed cooked, but I thought it worked well as sashimi, with an excellent texture and flavour.
One time I went to an all-you-can eat Sushi restaurant and ate a bunch of 'White Tuna'... Later that day I took a dump... and noticed oily stuff in the toiled. Ended up farting oil for next two days. Felt like Exxon Valdez.
Bastards.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world > > Those who understand binary and those who don't
Dog's Breakfast, what does that mean? Is it good? My dog only begs for good stuff, he never asks for my broccoli. So Dogs Breakfast must be good. Don't know since I have never heard of it except from Mr Language Nazi - who seems to speak for "the rest of the world". And Sir, Your welcome. Language bigot.
It probably makes for a better story to say it's a "toxic fish banned in Italy and Japan", but Escolar is sold widely in quality food markets in the US. Our local quality supermarket (Market of Choice in Oregon--an awesome chain) used to carry it in volume and maybe still does. I recall my wife informed them of the symptoms. She found out the fish was the cause from the Escolar Wikipedia page, by the way.
In any case, "toxic" is a misleading, even if technically it's true (I don't know the scientific def of the term). It's a fish that's sold in many countries, it does not cause permanent damage despite the disturbing symptoms, and if I recall correctly few people experience these symptoms and not when consumed in moderation.
Let’s go back to burgers, fries, cola and sweets then... ^^ ;)
Just as bad, but at least it tastes great!
I have long given up the expectation that “everything, where I don’t know otherwise, is healthy”. It just comes down to if it’s worth it.
If I live only 30 years, but have lived more than some “healthy” (well, only in his dreams, if he’s not literally planting it himself and eating it all-raw) 100 year old, it was damn worth it! ^^
Luckily, I have found that nowadays, I get nauseous and squirrely from sweets and saturated fats. Then 15 minutes later, I’m hungry as hell again. So to me, those things actually have worse memories associated with them. And since I’m a good cook and know that a big part of the secret of great taste is freshness... which happens to also be a big part of the secret of what is healthy food... I have no trouble making all stuff taste really great. :)
Except for sushi. I hate sushi with a passion. ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
It is a strange day on /. when tubgirl is on topic...
I'd worry more about mercury intake rather than eating the wrong kind of fish.
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
I've taken to pretty much completely skipping the tuna when I'm getting sushi - not because of concerns about which fish I'm getting, but because of mercury levels. Since commercial tuna are very large pinnacle fish, they tend to accumulate significant amounts of mercury - much higher than is found in smaller fish such as salmon. There's a nice little article about mercury levels in tuna sushi in NYC from early 2008: High Mercury Levels Are Found in Tuna Sushi (NYTimes January 23, 2008)
fencepost
just a little off
"Fraud in sushi is not new; Slashdot also reported study on mislabeling in 2008."
Is there a slashdot report on the mislabeling of slashdot articles?
If not, we can start by working backwards from this article.
ps. I don't eat fish, but I eat sushi regularly.
(from Wikipedia)
Sounds like the obese should just skip the Xenical and help themselves to escolar sushi... which one's the cheaper cause of anal leakage?
Wait. Escolar is toxic? Here in Louisiana it's a featured menu item at sushi bars. It's delicious. And if you can't tell the difference between tuna and escolar you really have a problem.
A dollar is that which I can exchange for 51.53 fluid ounces of crude oil.
Wow Sashimi is really familiar sounding. I gotta make sure not to eat any.
But don't distrust a really nice local family-owned sushi place.
I'm not a fan of fish and I've eaten straight raw meat sushi without any rice or anything.
It didn't have any odor and tasted completely of marinade. It was cut into little pink ribbons and was partially frozen.
Each bite was crisp and reminded me quite honestly of slices of ice-cream. It wasn't gross at all though, and each piece was easy to bite through: not at all like I expected.
It was intensely seasoned with marinade. The flavor was an authentic ginger taste, which is apparently very popular in Asia.
It wasn't disgusting at all and didn't give me any stomach problems.
I recommend just checking it out at a nice FAMILY-OWNED establishment. You should order a nice imported asian beer like Sapporo or Kirin with your food and remember: it's the wasabi that's terrible.
You may not care for the intense authentic flavor, but you really should experience it just to see what it's like. You may find a meat one like I tried to be less odd than a California roll.
From the Sushi Faq:
The only concern any inspectors have is referred to as the parasite destruction guarantee, which is accomplished by 'freezing and storing seafood at -4F (-20C) or below for 7 days (total time), or freezing at -31F (-35C) or below until solid and storing at -31F (-35C) or below for 15 hours, or freezing at -31F (-35C) or below until solid and storing at -4F (-20C) or below for 24 hours' which is sufficient to kill parasites.
However be warned:
I have spoken with many in the seafood industry who supply ‘sushi grade’ fish for sushi and sashimi served at restaurants and they all give me the same answer they do not know of any regulations from either the FDA or any other agencies regarding 'sushi grade' seafood, which is why suppliers have set up their own micro and chemical parameters for their products.
So the FDA does say there is a level of frozen prep that will guarantee parasite death, but it isn't a requirement like USDA beef grades.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
...you deserve it.
Cook, cure, smoke, or dry.
Welcome to 1000 years ago. At least. Seriously.
I don't know what else to say.
May not be chicken at all, it could be that other, other white meat... Not to state the obvious but stick to well known, well reviewed and well audited places. Fortunately living in SF Bay Area its easy to get good sushi. And yeah some people skip tuna all together unless the place specifies younger fish that has no mercury (that tends to accumulate in tuna and other fish with age).
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
This page is NOT authoritative, it is based on mis-information, the same crap I
complained about in my original response. Here is a non-automobile example:
We are UN peacekeepers under fire from insurgents. YOU are running low on ammunition, .223 ammo sent your way,
so you yell , "I need ammo!!!", and all you get is the US centric
when you actually need the NATO ammo your gun uses. See the difference?
You are dead, and not because of raw fish.
Got it?
But obviously not on Slashdot. Heavens no! That would be to "mainstream" and not hyper-jaded.
On Slashdot, you are against Mice, Camera Phones, Color Monitors, mass distributed virtual server networks (aka cloud computing), HTML that includes images, any font besides times new roman, any system that uses more than a 32-bit address bus, any binary that is more than 30kb, any programming language that isn't C, any innovation that wasn't included in the original Unics systems, and now I guess raw fish too.
Good lord. I thought this site was for tech-loving nerds but Slashdot is increasingly a cave for modern-day Luddites to hide in.
Raw Tuna is good. Very good. So is pretty much all those other things some of you Luddites whine about. If you don't like them because it might make you "mainstream" or might go against some stupid "principle" you have, you are seriously missing out. But to not enjoy is your loss and your loss alone. Not mine and certainly not societies either.
Spicy Tuna Rolls. Yum.
Just a bit too late. I live in Denver, and ate sushi last night... Hey, what's this orange oily spot on my chair?
Discount sushi is a false economy.
That said, the very finest sushi place I've been to is not expensive.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you'd better start looking for a carpentry job.
that's what SHE said.
I do believe that the Moonies control much of the sushi and seafood market. I stopped eating sushi when I found out it was making Rev Moon even richer.
photosMy Photostream
OMG FISH ARE GOING EXTINCT?
what a surprise, we've never heard of this before... *cough*
That is why I don't eat any type of steak.
New Economic Perspectives
Try it, it's great stuff. Just keep your portions under 4 oz and you should be fine; an order of sushi or sashimi isn't going to be a problem for most people.
Sashimi is raw fish, but raw fish is not sashimi. Sashimi is when you serve the raw fish in plain slices. If the fish is served with rice, then it is sushi. The summary mentions "tuna sushi" several times, and the article also specifies as such.
FTA (emphasis mine):
Sample Collection
We collected samples between 5 June and 31 December 2008 from sushi restaurants in New York City, New York, and Denver, Colorado. Whenever bluefin or a tuna species was included in a menu, it was purchased. Otherwise, at most places we attempted to purchase both regular tuna (the muscle cuts described in Japanese as akami), and fatty tuna (toro) when available. When the menu listing was ambiguous as to the species of tuna being sold, the wait staff or chef were asked clarify “what kind of tuna” was being served and if the reply was not a valid name, the question was reiterated as “what species of tuna.” Prior to 14 June 2008, we assumed that all sushi sold as “white tuna” was albacore, so staff were not asked to clarify the species. When the cost was not prohibitive and it was offered, sashimi (a slice of fish with no rice or wasabi) was purchased instead of nigiri sushi to reduce potential contamination due to handling.
So yes, we are talking about sushi, and since it is just the raw fish part that is of concern, we are implicitly talking about sashimi too.
how do you think salmon are bred.
> Considering that Colorado is surrounded by land on all sides and New York is
> about as far away as possible from the pacific ocean (while staying in the US)
> i'm not surprised the tuna sushi you get there is a bit off.
Nonsense! The distance from wharf to table is the same as the distance
from wharf to major airline hub to table. Denver is United's main hub.
That means everything is as fresh as the airport is distant--very close.
Any quality restaurant gets its fish flown in daily.
Regard:
Sushi Den; Denver CO
How does Sushi Den get such fresh fish?
One of the most important ingredients of sushi making is getting the
freshest fish available. In Colorado, as a land locked state, many
sushi bars do not have easy access directly to the fish market. We are
one of the very first sushi bars in the United States to purchase
directly from the fish market in Japan. At Sushi Den, Koichi, our
youngest brother, is stationed at one of the largest fish markets,
Nagahama Fish Market, located in our home prefecture in the
southern-most island, called Kyushu Island. At 4:00 AM, he carefully
hand selects the freshest fish just unloaded from the boat, then within
a few hours, the fish speeds its way to Denver, arriving within 24
hours. Toshi also goes to the local fish market at 7:00 AM in Denver 6
days a week, where he painstakingly handpicks the freshest fish
available just for that day. We also source many exotic fish from
Alaska, Seattle, Boston, Hawaii, Florida as well as from Philippines,
Canada, Mexico, and Spain.
http://www.sushiden.net/faq.html#faq7
Hapa Sushi; Boulder & Denver CO
"We owe our awards to our loyal customers, who have come to Hapa since
we opened 10 years ago," says owner Mark Van Grack. "We believe we have
the freshest sushi in town -- most of the tuna is flown in from Hawaii.
http://bouldercountygold.com/2009/eats-drinks-entertainment/best-sushi-hapa-sushi/
http://www.franchise.hapasushi.com/
Sushi Tora; Boulder CO
We get fresh fish flown in daily including fish from Tsukiji Market in
Tokyo every Wednesday.
http://sushitora.net/bouldersushi.html
Jax Fish House; Boulder CO
Jax famous Raw Bar features a variety of fresh oysters, clams, chilled
crabs and lobsters, all flown in daily.
http://www.jaxfishhouseboulder.com/Portals/0/Jax%20Fish%20House%20Boulder%20Press%20Kit.pdf
http://www.jaxfishhouseboulder.com/Menus/DinnerMenu/tabid/62/Default.aspx
Flagstaff House; Boulder CO
Mark's menu changes daily to take advantage of the freshest seasonal
ingredients including fresh fish flown in daily, locally g
If the American Museum of Natural History is involved, then yes, that sushi may just be a wee bit past its expiration date.
Given the fact that many "Japanese" restaurants are in fact owned by Chinese people it's not really surprising. Japanese meals have a higher retail price so they betray their customers, pretending they're Japanese (most people don't have a clue), usually have never eaten real sushis in their life and make some crap people will buy, thinking they're eating stuff similar to that found in Tokyo.
Chinese friends themselves tell me that a Chinese will do anything for money, even if that includes deceiving customers or fraud.
If you want to eat real sushi, go to a Japanese restaurant, if you hear them speaking in Chinese between them they get the hell out, it's a Chinese restaurant !
Sushi Den in Denver flies fresh fish in daily from Japan.
Two points:
Are you adequate?
As someone who works at a restaurant that serves raw escolar on a regular basis: labeling it as toxic is a load of BS. Just because some people have a reaction to it that is less than favorable is the same as labeling wheat gluten toxic. Yes, some people do not have the stomach to handle certain foods. These people should make their servers aware of dietary issues that they have.
Regarding restaurants that serve fish that is mislabeled: There is a relationship to quality of food and how much you pay for what you eat. If you are a sushi restaurant that has a $10 all you can eat maki roll buffet...perhaps you shouldn't expect to get anything that isn't random net catch.
Isn't this article more about tuna and less about sushi?
A few years ago, I ordered an escolar entree on a whim from an upscale seafood restaurant. I'd never heard of it and asked the waitress what it was, and she spoke highly of it, so I figured, what the hell. It turned out to be one of the most delicious pieces of fish I've ever had: moist, succulent, and rich.
It also very nearly made me shit my pants, about 2-3 hours later, when I was driving home and had nowhere to stop. (Once I did get to a toilet, the results were distinctive, to say the least.) I generally have a very strong stomach, and if this fish did that to me, I can't imagine what it would do to someone who had IBS or something comparable.
I don't think the fish should be banned, and calling it "toxic" seems strong. But I do think it's totally irresponsible of a restaurant to serve something like that without informing their customers, and serving it under a potentially deceptive name is even worse). In my case, the waitress didn't utter a peep about any possible ill effects, though maybe she just didn't know.
... just use napkins, to not mess up the chair next time...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
The fish contains indigestible fats; as such, it has about the same effect as eating large amounts of Olestra: it's laxative and leads to oily "leakage".
"The US FDA has warned consumers about potential mislabeling of oilfish [same thing applies to Escolar], but has concluded that any laxative side effects that occur are uncomfortable at worst and pose no health risk."
I had fugu a couple times in Japan and it was never expensive. Once was at a fugu restaurant in Osaka -- they had a very large menu of fugu served various ways and while you could easily spend $100 or so on a meal, I was able to get an appetizer serving of raw fugu slices and a small personal grill to cook it on for about 1200 yen (like $12). Another time I bought a large plate of fugu sashimi at a department store in Shinjuku, it was about 1000 yen. I'm sure there are places in Japan to spend much more on fugu (or any other dish), but the idea that fugu is this expensive and difficult to find delicacy is not really correct anymore.
Why not let the restaurant industry regulate itself and let the market decide? Sure worked great when we tried it with the banks, didn't it?
Yes, NYC is known for finding new ways to scam people, as per we all know to be true, however, being an avid sushi fan AND also having traveled countless cities across north america , I can safely say, this is not the norm.
The findings are inconclusive, they need to be atleast 5 sushi places per city, and about 100 cities in the study to have a proper account for what goes on.
Don't rely on NYC to tell you what the rest of the country is doing, please!
I live in Montreal, where are laws are way stricter then anything in the US, and I have to tell you, it is almost impossible
for them to pass one fish off as another, because they have fines for that too here, and they have
random spot checks, so they never know who they are serving.
There is also a 3 time penalty, after the 3rd time you are shut down for good.
So is every city as diligent as ours, not quite, but I am sure I would not say all of north america is the same as my city either, so why compare it to the few restaurants you polled in NYC???
That is like saying because a prostitute charges 50$ for a BJ in Winnipeg, that all prostitutes ( even in NYC ) should only charge
50$,....we all know that ain't happening!
ps- sorry for the comparison to the prostitutes, I had just read that book "The Price" by McNellan, and I had her in mind.
Yes, this read to me as, 'Sandwiches may be dangerous to your health, if the people making the sandwiches put poisonous ingredients on them.'
I understand why they didn't use the word sashimi, but I still think they should have.
Because that's just what any employer wants to hear, more details about their employees' bowel movements!
I've found there are two magic words, that when said together, sequentially, cause the listener to not care any further why you are going to not make it in to the office today.
Word 1: Explosive
Word 2: Diarrhea
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It is commonly marketed as white tuna as is albacore sometimes (almost all super white tuna is butterfish). Look for tuna labeled albacore tuna as apposed to being labeled white tuna to avoid butter fish. That being said, Japan labels it as poisonous due to its side effects when its over eaten or improperly prepared (must process to remove the excess oil or simply grill it)...the USDA said its not poisonous since it won't kill you. It can however make you fart orange oily diarrhea , and give you headaches and nausea...so personally I think it should be banned in the USA too, or at least make them label it as butter fish and not tuna.
Orange and yellow "droplets"???????
How about, "Ewwwwwwwwwwww"
I saw investigative news report a couple of years ago (CBC), and one of the things they identified by mislabeled fish, possibly on purpose from Chinese import.
All the places tested were sushi restaurants. When confronted, the would produce the package of frozen fish which would say Tuna or whatever, however when tested would contain some cheaper fish. The store owners were pretty much to be found to be complacent (ie. it says tuna on the package, and that was enough for them), or uncaring as to what the sold, or really not knowing enough about what they are doing to really be able to tell the difference anyway. Likely the imported fish from China was cheaper than say other more reputable sources. Anyway from the story, this seemed VERY common, or at least it was portrayed that way anyway.
is to always ask the chef! A good chef has hand picked the ingredients, knows their suppliers, and will make superior recommendations because they know what is freshest. This is also why you should prefer to sit at the bar.
I strongly recommend reading "The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket" by Trevor Corson.
My local sushi joint closed this summer due to the down economy after a great 5 years. I was their best customer. I'm still in mourning (or withdrawal).
I'm a hazardous, fraudulent and endangered species which is not sushi, you insensitive clod!
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
[Fish farming] "requires huge amounts of wild fish to be caught, mulched and processed to be fed back to the "desirable" fish species that is being farmed."
Fish have prions. Using fish as a feedstock for other fish could lead to prion diseases -- "mad fish".
This article --
Farmed Fish May Pose Risk For Mad Cow Disease
-- concerns the possible risk of prion transmission from rendered cows to farmed fish. It stands to reason that if prions can jump from rendered cows to farmed fish (which isn't proven -- the above article is speculative), then feeding fish to fish also poses a risk of prion transmission.
-kgj
Because you realize that, almost without exception, prescriptivists are full of shit, and trying to solve "problems" that don't exist with solutions that make no damn sense. You learn pretty quick that these folks don't know what the hell they're talking about and are constantly making up inane rules that they don't ever follow, and demanding that you do. You also realize that it all comes down to them trying to impose their idiosyncratic, unfounded taste as the rule.
Then you study some sociolinguistics, and you realize that it's just some folks trying to construct a style to distinguish themselves socially from other folks they look down on.
Are you really ready to back up your prescriptive statements about English usage, using modern linguistics? That would be quite an exceptional character.
Are you adequate?
You're thinking about language as a layperson does: conceptualizing it as a big bag of words, so that language change means change of the words in the bag.
A linguist, on the other hand, thinks of language in terms of grammar: a set of implicit, shared rules for using sound to encode meaning. This involves rules for things like which sounds your language has, how those sounds may be combined into syllables, and how to form phrases and sentences out of words.
A simple change in the inventory of words is the least interesting kind of language change; in fact, in the classic Comparative Method, those sorts of individual word changes are noise that one must discard in order to prove the historical relationships between languages. What is more interesting is the change of the grammar of a language; e.g., the change of a language's whole sound system , so that all of the words of the language are affected in an uniform manner.
Are you adequate?
At the fish counter you may not get what you pay for
Close to where I live and work there's a restaurant that specializes in Philly cheesesteaks; they also make burgers. My coworkers and I often go to get "cheesesteak," and inevitably one of us ends up getting a burger. Would this indicate that in the culture I live that burgers are a subset of a broader category of "Philly cheesesteak"? Oh, and there's this Turkish pizzeria where I usually get kebabs...
Not that I'm trying to argue that Americans understand very clearly the difference between sushi and sashimi (they don't), but the argument you're making just doesn't follow. It's very common for a restaurant that specializes in one food item to offer a couple other ones that are considered distinct. For example, in some Latin American countries a panadería is literally a bread bakery, but these places typically also make sandwiches, coffee, toast and pastries, and very often also serve as cafeterias serving full lunch meals.
Are you adequate?
This is a valid self-referential statement, like: "Everything I say is a lie."
In the case of the latter ("Everything I say is a lie.") it affirms that SOME things I say are lies, and this is one of them.
In the case of the truck, it would simply indicate that it has few, or no, brains.
The amount of brawn it has is indeterminate, however we already know that at least part of the claims are false.
"Your lose."
Oh, fer de Cry Eye! That's "You're lose"!
Try and hold it together here, people!
Fundamentalism is a crime against humanity
Which is why you can go to any Spanish speaking country and if you speak the language, you will be fine.
There are many local variations for sure, but they all go to a common dictionary that is recognized by all countries.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... is somehow undesirable.
I prefer to use politics in order to promote change.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.