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. . . .
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!
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.
"Tubgirl Tuna", they call it.
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 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.
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.
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"
Division of Vertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, New York
Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York
They do.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
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.
Just keep telling yourself whatever you need to to feel good about being wrong.
Down with the career politician! SUPPORT TERM LIMITS
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 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.
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.
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.
We are not the only ones who say sashimi is raw fish. Go to any Japanese restaurant or ask anyone who actually eats the stuff and you'll see. The sushi eating culture unanimously agrees that you're wrong.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
i'd lay money most cases of illness come from greedy managers putting yesterdays sushi out today, NOT from the fish farms.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
"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".
That's OK, you should see how the Japanese butcher our words.
Butchering words is how languages grow and develop.
If the sushi is prepared in the fish farm, you're doing it wrong. Sushi is prepared by the chef behind the counter.
Tune tastes nice and Escolar is served in fine french restaurants here.
The urge to what? Oh, I see, you ended a sentence with a preposition and an ellipsis just to enrage the Grammar Nazis*.
(* What's this? I seem to have misspelled Grammer Nazi's)
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
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.
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
I never claimed that sashimi doesn't mean raw fish, I claimed that the word Sushi can refer to sashimi. In my culture people go to eat a "sushi restaurant" to go get "sushi" but then they order "sashimi". This would indicate that in the culture I live in sashimi is a subset of a boarder category of "sushi". Thus my point stands, when someone says the word sushi it includes the subset "sashimi." If you don't agree with this assessment please let me know your experiences that indicate that sashimi is not referred to using the broad term "sushi".
Maybe you didn't read the thread so you don't understand what I was even saying, but I never claimed that sashimi wasn't raw fish.
I eat sushi very regularly with friends and family so I do think I know what I am talking about within the average US sushi eating culture.
So you'd eat a fully cooked steak that has sat out at room temp all night?
I've eaten raw or undercooked meat (fish and beef) my entire life. The only cases of food poisoning I have ever had have been from: pizza, bacon and a hot dog.
I love a rare steak. I also love sushi and sashimi. I've eaten raw tuna on a fishing boat that was still warm. The reason people are so used to fully cooking their meat is because of poor standards at meat factories, you HAVE to in some cases or you will get sick (factory chicken).
Properly raised and slaughtered meat of any sort is perfectly fine to eat less than well done, or even raw. Even chicken and pork.
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
You argument is easy to understand, it's just not correct in this situation. When you can go to a fish shop and ask for sushi it will be correct, but until then it's wrong.
I like sushi but don't like the ones with raw fish (plus they are more expensive than chicken, beef or vege rolls). So to me, the guy in the shop, the supermarket where I can get the nori and rice to make my own (badly), the dictionary and everyone I've met that's eaten the stuff it does not mean raw fish.
A dollar is that which I can exchange for 51.53 fluid ounces of crude oil.
This is a debate as old as time itself. You're clearly on the prescriptivist side of the argument, where I used to be myself. But then I came to realize that the purpose of language is communication, and as long as we're understood, what form that communication takes is really irrelevant. It's not as if there's some external Platonic ideal of a language to which we can compare ours and say, "Ah, this is good." Language just is.
That said, "irregardless" does get on my nerves, but not so much because of its inherent internal contradiction, but rather because it's negatively correlated with socioeconomic status. In other words, using "irregardless" isn't wrong per se, but it does mark you an idiot. In that sense, "irregardless" is useful: I can see it and immediately skip the rest of the post.
Butchering words is how languages grow and develop.
I'm still in favor of the death penalty for people who abuse the word 'like'. Like, ya know what I'm like talking about, like ok?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Frequently when I am with my friends I will ask if they want to go to a coffeshop for some coffee. I rarely get coffee myself however, I much prefer tea. Does this mean that in my mind tea is a subset of coffee? Of course not. It's just lazy use of language, which is fine in that context because it gets the intended idea across.
Same goes for sushi restaurants. Sometimes when I say I feel like sushi, I end up getting soba. Certainly you are not going to argue that soba is a subset of sushi, are you?
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
That is like saying because I can't go to the zoo, ask to see an animal, and they don't bring the animal I want, that a zoo doesn't contain animals.
The image of sushi is best described by a google image search of sushi.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.sushilinks.com/sushi-poster/sushi-poster-glow.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.sushilinks.com/sushi-poster.html&h=400&w=700&sz=54&tbnid=xTIBIyogvZFSoM:&tbnh=80&tbnw=140&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsushi&hl=en&usg=__NaeMBmlwS5TuOT6fgSeaBUPLqOg=&ei=kvEJS9K6GcSUnQf5j626Cw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=2&ct=image&ved=0CA4Q9QEwAQ
Or anyone who uses acronyms in conversation, particularly if they actually spell them out..."I mean, I was like, O-M-G! And she was all like, T-M-I!"
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.
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.
And if you go into any restaurant and ask for sushi, you will be getting rice. This entire argument is stupid because its a japanese word used in japanese restaurants, and it follows the proper japanese meaning. However much american consumers may wish the meaning to change, theyre simply going to get the incorrect dish if they use the incorrect word.
If Japanese have infuence the Engwish langwige, it would be moe appawent.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
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?
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.
Again. Linguistic laziness. If you go to McDonalds, it's very common to say "I just had McDonalds." Meaning "I just went to a McDonalds restaurant." Your above statement means "I just went to a sushi establishment." If, in fact, they mean what you imply, then they are idiots. That's also a distinct possibility. But I'm very much against letting idiots define language, even if a majority of them do it. Fo Rizzeal my nizza.
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
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.
OK, let's use a computer analogy because that's normally the only situation where this annoys me.
It's exactly the same way to use language as if you say "computer" and expect everyone to think it means a black Dell 19 inch LCD monitor.
Now while neither of us are that ignorant about computers we don't know much about sushi so have to accept the meaning given by those that do.
And everyone should see how the Japanese butcher sushi. Just the other day I had this sliced up tuna on a plate.. it was delicious! There wasn't even any rice or gross seaweed or anything cluttering up the dish, just some dip.
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.
How much is a gigabyte then?
> 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
Let's call it 'embrace and extend.'
Or anyone who uses acronyms in conversation, particularly if they actually spell them out..."I mean, I was like, O-M-G! And she was all like, T-M-I!"
Neither of those is an acronym, they are just plain old abbreviations. You don't pronounce them as words like "omg" or "tmi".
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Sushi Den in Denver flies fresh fish in daily from Japan.
Two points:
Are you adequate?
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.
How many different nations do you know (lived with them for some time) and how many different languages do you know well enough to make a comparison and a judgment. I am asking because I agree with your statement about ignorance I am wondering why did you single out US - the same happens in any country I had a pleasure to live in. These were not many but I lived in few european countries and in each one of those most people were ignorant especially about others as well as things that matter and are used & relied upon in every day life. This included also the country of my origin. So why US? Are Chinese, British, Germans,French or whoever else any better? I do not think so. Just in case you wondered - I do not know US, I have never been there, have no intention to travel there and actually do dislike big parts of US culture. I find your statement outrageous because it is discriminatory and even more so because it does not bring anything into the discussion.
That doesn't sound even remotely like Japanese pronunciation of English. If you had two braincells to rub together, it would be more apparent.
That depends also on who you speak to ...
Hardware people use it as 1,000,000,000 Bytes
Software people generally use it as 1,073,741,824 bytes
Sushi also depends on who you speak to
To someone who speaks or knows Japanese, and in any Japanese restaurant it is a rice dish
To an average American (and some Europeans) it might be raw fish (which is really Sashimi)... or a rice dish.....
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Well the one thing right in your post is that it is true, you are never going to walk into a restaurant and say "I would like tuna sushi" and get tuna fried rice, because that isn't what "sushi" is referring to. "Sushi" means rice in so much as it is referring to the fact that sushi is raw fish with rice as compared to sashimi which is without rice. You will never find a restaurant in Japan that serves anything thing but raw fish served in or in vinegared rice if you order tuna sushi, and you will also find that you will never be served only raw tuna without rice if you order tuna sushi. This is true in the US too. The problem stems from the fact in America we don't eat just raw fish without rice, so there was never any need to import the word sashimi so in the minds of English speakers "Sushi" referred to the raw fish part of raw fish and rice, compared to the Japanese meaning which means sashimi with rice. In conclusion, I think starting poster of this treads pedantic point was that saying sushi is dangerous is just silly, since it isn't raw fish with rice that is dangerous, it is raw fish. Therefore why focus on the fish with rice part by using the word Sushi. It is like if there was an outbreak of mad cow disease and a study saying "Hamburgers Dangerous" while that is true, would it not be more help to say "Beef Dangerous" since there is nothing about a bun, lettuce, and a tomato that would make hamburgers more dangerous than just eating a beef paddy.
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.
The point is that you could order sushi and not get fish, but you could never order sushi and not get rice.
I've had sushi containing raw fish.
I've had vegetarian sushi.
I've had sushi containing cooked fish.
I've had sushi containing cooked beef or chicken.
But I've never had sushi that doesn't contain rice, because there's no such thing.
There has to be some kind of award that this post deserves. (Not to mention the girlfriend.) Mod this up. Is there an 'amusingly horrid' designation?
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
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?
Do you mean just the rice?
No he doesn't.
He means that if you order sushi, it will always contain vinegared rice in some form. Usually in the rolls and nuggets we're used to seeing; sometimes as a bed of rice (sushi donburi).
If there's no rice, it ain't sushi.
Thanks for this. It explains my symptoms many years ago having eaten at a South African seafood restaurant.
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.
Now it's a matter of time before we get hundreds of "Reaction to Two Girls One Tuna Roll" YouTube videos.
Now I feel like one of the van eck phreakers from Cryptonomicon.
The meaning is unambiguously "A Japanese dish usually consisting of raw fish, rice, and seaweed, served with a dipping sauce and wasabi."
I think it's pushing it a bit to call a description unambiguous, when it's got the word "usually" in it. That "usually" covers for the fact that you can substitute the raw fish with vegetables, cooked meat or even cooked fish, and it would still be sushi.
Since, as you state, sashimi as a dish does not exist in the US, then there is no reason to use that word to describe the problem.
This simply isn't true. Sashimi is widely available in the US. And yes, it's served in sushi restaurants. But then pasta is often served in pizzerias, and that doesn't make pizza mean pasta.
Learn to love Alaska [romancingalaska.com]
I once had a lovely sushi and sashimi platter in Barrow, Alaska... :)
If you like the flavor of butter fish, try grilling it, it will get rid of the oil content in the fish and the flavor will remain. You can also do prep before other cooking methods to remove the oil, its all in the prep. If you don't remove the oil, then you have to limit your portions to quite small ones, or side effects such as the oily diarrhea farts, headaches, nausea, and other undesirable results.
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
Reply to That ||
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.
Slashdot needs a '+1, Disgusting' mod option.
sudo eat my shorts
MABASPLOOM!
Not to mention that beef has to hang for some time before it's ready to cook - enzymes and microorganisms are tenderizing the meat for us.
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.
I think this falls into the TMI catagory.
Or how about '-1, Too Informative'?
Most people are prideful and would rather be dead than admit they're wrong.
I think you are wrong: most people would rather be alive and wrong than the other way around.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
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).
What people are fishing (heh!) around for here is the term synecdoche, which refers to the sort of metaphor in which "a part represents the whole". Some common examples are "head" to refer to an entire creature ("head of cattle"), "hired hand" to mean a worker, and "eyes" to mean readers of a text or viewers of video material. People do this all the time, in all languages.
Two opposite example I've run across: It is well known that the English like their "tea" in the afternoon, but it seems that the majority drink coffee (to the despair of the true traditionalists ;-). The term "tea" is just what the mid-afternoon snack is called; it doesn't mean that nothing but tea is served. In the opposite direction, Finns refer to the same sort of light snack as "kahvi" (pronounced "coffee"), and often have hot water and tea available for the people who prefer that drink, plus the pastries or semi-sweet bread that are usually on the table. Both are examples of synecdoche, using the name of a locally-standard drinkable to name a certain kind of meal.
The Japanese term "sushi" is another example. As noted by others, the word refers to a variety of sticky rice that works well for the kind of food that consists of a bite-size clump of the rice, lightly seasoned with vinegar and topped or mixed with other edibles. This is typical synecdoche, using the grain to refer to the entire meal. In much of the rest of the world where it has been introduced, the remarkable part of this food is the frequent topping of uncooked fish. But even with this misunderstanding of the Japanese term, it's still straightforward synecdoche, because it's using one component of the food to refer to the whole. Even when people think "sushi" means raw fish, they expect it to come with rice; without the rice it's called "sashimi".
Here in the US, we have the Thanksgiving holiday coming up in a few days. It's common to refer to the standard meal as "turkey", although that's only a part of the conventional meal (which is actually mostly vegetarian). Some people don't particularly like turkey, and serve something else such as ham. This doesn't much effect the language used; people still call it "turkey day".
Objecting to this process might make sense in a strictly logical sense. But you're fighting a losing battle. Some of the oldest written texts we have, in the oldest written languages, have examples of this literary device. People use this sort of metaphor in every spoken language (even Esperanto ;-). You can't stop people from using such colorful language. So don't bother complaining about it; we ain't gonna change our behavior any time soon.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
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
That's not a false cognate. A false cognate is when one sound pattern evolved independently in two languages and means two different things.
A good example is that in english, mist is fine water droplets. In german, mist is manure.
You're talking about good old congates - which can diverge quite dramatically in different directions from the original root.
Either way, it is really good with lots of soy sauce, wasabi and pickled ginger...YUM!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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?
Only on \. this story can be rated "5, Informative" and not "Funny". Thanks for sharing!
Yeah, those of us with REAL lives make fun of weeaboos on slashdot.
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?
These "symptoms" you talk about, are they supposed to be unusual?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Complaining about others' butchering of words is also part of that process. Just as planets wouldn't form without both gravity pulling in and electrons repelling each other, languages wouldn't form without both butchering and complaining.
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?
The only sushi roll I see consistently that doesn't have seafood on it is the California roll.
So, imitation/snow crab don't count as seafood?
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." - H.L. Mencken
I'm not a seafood eater or a big fish eater. As a result, I don't like tuna in any form....sandwich or otherwise. The smell of tuna alone is enough to make me gag. Now, thanks to your comment, I just threw up in my mouth a little at work. Combining that imagery with that smell was far too much for me. Congratulations, you actually just made someone puke from a comment you posted on the internet....there should probably be a slashdot achievement for that.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
The Turd Report has returned to us in fulfillment of the prophecy.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Bad comparison. De-pussification is not the same as butchering.
In small amounts (ie, sushi sized portions) Escolar usually has no effect. Its quite delicious.
My problem is that White Tuna is often but not always escolar, but it can be a couple of other white fish which aren't nearly as delicious.
No rice. Rolled in cucumber.
See here for an example.
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
It's called a rhetorical question...
"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.
But also quite a good analogy .... ...which I wanted to highlight
Puteulanus fenestra mortis