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."
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. . . .
In many Western countries, the health authorities specify that fish served raw must be frozen first to kill certain types of parasite, so what you get in the middle of the country probably doesn't differ much from what you get on the coast. If you go to Japan, they rely on the chefs being trained to recognize and remove the parasites, so you get much better tasting fish and much higher chance of contracting food poisoning due to an untrained chef.
It would be nice to see DECENT aquaculture come to fruition.
Yikes, aquaculture is hard enough to do with fresh water fish. You want to do it with salt water fish? Good luck...
It's one thing to have a salt water aquarium, at a zoo or for a hobby (read: slavery). But aquaculture involves raising fish at incredibly high densities in order to be profitable. These high densities mean that the slightest little change - in dissolved O2, pH, temperature, nitrites, ammonia, etc will kill your fish. Now you want to add salinity which not only has to be kept within limits but corrodes your pumps, pipes and valves, increasing the chances of breakdowns?
No thanks! Have fun!
PS: Fish die really really quietly, and they love to do it in large quantities. I know whereof I speak, I promise...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If only there were an ocean closer to New York. It would be even better if that ocean had tuna of its own. Best of all would be if the tuna there was one of the most delicious varieties around, such that it was the most used tuna for sushi/sashimi. Wow...one can dream.
The poison in Fugu (the only poisonous species that is eaten in Japan) is localised and easily removed by the specially trained chefs who are licensed to prepare it. Escolar has its oil spread throughout the flesh, so for people who are sensitive to it, it is unavoidable.
Not exactly true. Fish schools are specifically targeted by trawlers, found by sonar and fished out. There is not much by-catch in these nets contrary to indiscriminate trawling or using longlines or gill nets. Bluefin Tuna, for example is only found in the Mediterranean and the chance of catching a endangered species that lives in the Arctic is zero. Of course Bluefin is already endangered and there lies the crux of the problem: We generally overexploit all fish stocks and should declare large areas of the oceans at no-fishing zones to recover fish populations and become sustainable in the long run.
In Japan sashimi is always served in sushi restaurants. A person may say, "Let's go eat sushi" and then at the restaurant end up eating only sashimi. But at a banquet sushi is almost never served. Sashimi on the other hand is virtually always served. A person would never say, "I went to a banquet and ate sushi" meaning that they ate sashimi.
Historically, sushi is a snack food. It's kind of an all-in-one meal since the rice is included in every bite. In a way you can think of it as a sandwich. In western culture, bread was once seen as the most important part of a meal. With a sandwich, you eat the bread with the meal. But you can also eat bread separately with the meal. You can eat a roast beef sandwich, but it would be strange eat a piece of roast beef and call it a "sandwich" simply because you bought it in a sandwich shop.
I understand your point about US usage of words being different. But I think you miss a lot of the Japanese food culture by confusing the terms. There is a lot of sushi that doesn't contain sashimi. In Japan, eating in a sushi restaurant is one of the easiest ways to accommodate vegetarians since there is a large variety of vegetarian sushi. On the other hand, sushi is not actually a very important part of Japanese cuisine. Sashimi is *far* more important. I couldn't imagine eating a high class meal without having sashimi. By understanding the importance of the different kinds of food, I think you will gain a better appreciation for what is one of the world's great cuisines.
But, as always, YMMV.
I ate some Escolar on holiday in Poland. It is also known as butter fish or something like that. In Poland it wass omething like Maszlanka? I had two very large fillets (smoked) and was told nothing about any side effects. It was delicious - very soft meat and very meaty. I ate it all and then when I got up the next day (early) I got ready to go for a jog. I was wearing very small running shorts. Basically this fish causes a reddish oil to build up in your gut and it seems to be able to leak out whenever it wants. A small early morning fart whilst jogging is enough to empt about two egg cup fulls in one go. It has no smell luckily. I was running in the woods when this happened so I immediately got behind a tree and let the rest of it go, and then cleaned off my legs with some ferns. It lack of odour is quite surprising, given where it has been, and it comes out completely separate from other solids. I didn't know at that point that the fish was to blame. So I bought more on the last day at the Baltic, and took it pack to my in-laws house in Wroclaw. I had some for lunch the next day in their home. That night I was ready for bed, and was sitting naked on the bed, which had been lovingly made up by my mother in law (new white linen all round). My gut had been fine since that earlier incident and for a moment I forgot where I was and let out some gas that felt like it had been building up all day. I felt a dampness, and suddenly the world seemed to close in around me, as I realised what may have happened. I jumped to my feet and saw *loads* of bright red oil all over the white sheets. Sweat just literally started sprouting out of my head as I thought about what to do next... sleep in it? Go and wake the in-laws? At this point (three years ago) I wasn't yet married even, and I had to sleep separately from my (then) girlfriend. They were all asleep already. I ended up sleeping on the other side of the bed. I woke up late, to find my girlfiend standing next to the bed with a look of horror on her face. Why she later married me I have no idea. Needless to say, I haven't eaten any of that nasty but delicious fish ever since.