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Restaurants Plan DNA-Certified Seafood Program
Restaurants across the globe will soon use DNA technology to reassure customers that they are getting what they pay for. In recent years getting "counterfeit" seafood has become a big problem. In 2007 several people became seriously ill from eating illegally imported pufferfish that had been mislabeled as monkfish. From the article: "David Schindel, a Smithsonian Institution paleontologist and executive secretary of the Washington-based Consortium for the Barcode of Life, said he has started discussions with the restaurant industry and seafood suppliers about utilizing the technology as a means of certifying the authenticity of delicacies. 'When they sell something that's really expensive, they want the consumer to believe that they're getting what they're paying for,' Schindel told The Associated Press."
Nuff' said.
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The problem with the man in the middle is the man in the middle. If I don't trust a restaurant to serve me the seafood I want, how can I trust them to not falsify the DNA information? This is an absolutely stupid idea and does nothing to "reassure" people. Stop insisting you want $5.99 all you can eat lobster, and eat somewhere decent for a change. Until you can bring your own independent rapid-test kit and do your own test before your food gets cold, guess what - you still have to trust the damned restaurant.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
They give you a piece of paper that says it's authentic, but there is nothing that ties the paper to the diamond. And why should we trust "they" either? We all know that it's all a racket with the De Beers cartel keeping diamonds off the market to prop up the price and we should trust them to give us a piece pf paper that has some sort of truth on it? We can manufacture bigger and better diamonds than natural ones, and even CZ are hard to tell from diamonds except by their unnatural perfection.
Now the fish market has taken a cue from De Beers. They're going to do DNA sequencing and print a certificate to identify species, but what restaurant goers know which species of fish they want to eat and which they don't? It's like the jewelry store showing you a diamond under a microscope. You get the illusion that you know something, but you don't really know if you're even looking at a diamond. And how does the paper DNA test report "attach" to the fish it came from?
Next it will be wine-marketing- "this particular fish was caught by Mr. X, a 5th generation fisherman, at great risk to his life and limb, and was caught in 234' of water in the Bering sea at 2:37am yesterday. It was prepared by Mr. Y, a fourth generation chef who has studied under Mr. Z for 14 years before finally being allowed to do more than cut vegetables. It was seasoned with the essence of ptanga from Zanzibar..." etc. Today it's on special for only $342.
The bullshit will just keep piling higher and higher until only the 1% can afford to eat fish.