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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.
"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.
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]
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"
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 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.
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.
Yuck, can can you possibly compare tuna sashimi with canned tuna? I hate that canned crap but tuna sashimi is heaven. Especially a piece of nicely marbled toro.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Your lose.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
That's OK, you should see how the Japanese butcher our words.
Well according to Wikipedia the Japanese government banned escolar from consumption in 1977 as they consider it to be toxic. Since article is this is about sushi and sashimi I'd say the Japanese government ought to be a good authority on the matter.
For myself I'd consider a foodstuff that might very well cause an oily discharge from my anus, along with the possibility of other unpleasant side effects such as "stomach cramps, loose bowel movements, diarrhea, headaches, nausea, and vomiting" to be something I am absolutely not going to eat.
The article is also about mislabelling, or passing off escolar as white tuna. If someone told me I was getting "white tuna" and gave me "oily liquid anal leakage fish" instead I'd be pretty incensed.
Butchering words is how languages grow and develop.
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.
It is a strange day on /. when tubgirl is on topic...
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
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.
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.
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.
How much is a gigabyte then?
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.
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.
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 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
Now I feel like one of the van eck phreakers from Cryptonomicon.
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 ||
I think this falls into the TMI catagory.
Or how about '-1, Too Informative'?
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.
Yes, and one completely disconnected from the actual practice of the thing.
No, there are more differences here. In your comparison here, language falls somewhere in between art/music and morality. People are far, far more likely to assume a gustibus non disputandum attitude about art and music than about language. If you don't like a certain form of music, you might get called tasteless or a philistine at worse. If you speak a non-standard dialect, on the other hand, you will have people say that you are illogical and mentally deficient, or even worse. Especially if dialect in question is AAVE; inner-city black children have been matter-of-factly said to not have language at all in some academic circles.
You can prefer all you want. The problem starts when you bully other, less educated people than yourself into bowing to your preferences as superior for spurious reasons--which is what actually happens in practice.
But you see, "cuz I say so" is a pretty bad reason to demand that other people talk and write in the way you say they should. It's one virtue is that it is at least honest--a typical prescriptivist will cover it up with piles and piles of bullshit about "logic" and "aesthetics" and "clarity" and "avoidance of ambiguity" and on and on and on.
Are you adequate?