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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."
I hate it when I pay top dollar for blue whale and they serve me inferior dolphin.
...for intentionally mislabeled "certified" seafood, sold at five times the price of the regular mislabeled seafood. Just like the claims of "organic" vegetables, I won't believe a word of it unless the seafood I'm buying is still intact and clearly recognizable.
Personally I think we should encourage counterfeit seafood; for example, find an indistinguishable but sustainable substitute for shark fin and that's a good thing, I won't lose any sleep over social-climbing Chinese middle class consumers thinking they're buying genuine shark fins when they're not.
between the Gulf of Mexico BP oil spill, Fukushima disaster, and untold other spills and illegal dumping in to the ocean i no longer trust seafood from any part of the ocean anymore, i hold no grudge against the seafood industry because it is not their fault that the ocean is where all the pollution eventually ends up since both shit and water flows down hill. i feel bad for both them and the ocean and those that like seafood (i like seafood) but the ocean i feel is no longer safe to eat from...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
There's DNA in my fish? Disgusting! What is wrong with this country?!
You damn well know what he is talking about. Claiming something was raised "organically" in the popularly understood sense of the word is quite profitable to abuse due to the fact that many people will pay more for it.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
Good news, folks! If you live in Massachusetts, it'll soon be easier to find out if you got the right fish from Legal Seafood than it will be to find out whether the right man was convicted by the state legal system!
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Access_To_PostConviction_DNA_Testing.php
Nuff' said.
A proud member of the Onion-in-Hand alliance
Nope. That is just old fashioned fraud killing people. There has been a lot of this lately from one nation. From toxic toothpaste to lead painted toys... Simple solution. Buy local food that still looks like the food... It also happens to be green, but I do it anyway.
You damn well know what he is talking about. Claiming something was raised "organically" in the popularly understood sense of the word is quite profitable to abuse due to the fact that many people will pay more for it.
Good point sir!
On another note though, there may be some ambiguity. Some relatives visited from Luxembourg, and I recall at one family dinner we made a big deal about the produce being pesticide free, and the meat being free of artificial hormones, etc. When we explained the term was "organic", our guests spat out their food and all reached for their wine simultaneously, as they exclaimed "you grow all your food in shit?". As it turns out, they use the term "biologique" or maybe "organic-biologique". Very amusing dinner conversation.
If you can't tell the difference, and aren't refraining from something for ethical/religious reasons, why does it matter?
If that's the case, I have some AAA rated derivatives to sell you.
Alternatively, fraud is fraud, and we have laws against it because allowing fraud is bad public policy..
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I eat only free-range vegetables
rewriting history since 2109
One word: allergies
For instance, I personally am allergic to ordinary boned fish, but don't have a problem with shelled fish. So if I order crab, it's important to me to know that it's actually crab, and not imitation crab, because one will make me sick, and the other won't.
I doubt 90% of what is sold as "organic" is organic in the "popularly understood sense" as you put it. From Horizons being the largest organic brand in the country, importing the majority of their food from China, to your local farmers market filled with stands that got all their produce at the local grocery store the night before the market opened. There's a sucker born every minute and if you feed them a premise that involves technology being bad and improving their health, they will give you all of their money in very short order.
"You can't brand fish that way"
It's not about branding. It's about price and sustainability. When enough volume of thing$ are fraudulently or erroneously labeled then thing$ either end up with an artificially high price, because supply of real thing$ is known to be small; or the glut of fake thing$ artificially lower the price of the real product because supply seems plentiful, although the supply is largely fake.
Either way a free market requires accurate information regarding supply and demand in order to work properly.
Also, some people have food allergies. Others simply wish to avoid eating certain species. Others just don't like being lied to.
In all cases fraud is NOT desirable. Regardless of your taste buds or mine.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
I've been saying the same thing for years.
"Of course everything here is organic. Do you see me serving you a bowl of sand?"
"Mmm, basalt. Crunchy."
Besides all the smuggling and poaching issues (i.e. poaching endangered tuna species from protected fisheries and selling them as their not so threatened cousins), fraud issues (i.e. selling you bottom of the barrel fish at top quality prices) - the main reason that should concern you and everyone else is right there in the summary.
In 2007 several people became seriously ill from eating illegally imported pufferfish that had been mislabeled as monkfish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraodontidae
(Maple) Puffer fish are generally believed to be the second-most poisonous vertebrate in the world, after the Golden Poison Frog. Certain internal organs, such as liver, and sometimes their skin are highly toxic to most animals when eaten, but nevertheless the meat of some species is considered a delicacy in Japan (as æè±s, pronounced as fugu), Korea (as bok), and China (as æè±s he2 tun2) when prepared by chefs who know which part is safe to eat and in what quantity.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
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.
If you can't tell the difference, and arn't refraining from something for ethical/religious reasons, why does it matter? Whether you tell me that food is a delicacy from France or it's from down the street, it's going to taste the same to me. Either I'll like it or I won't. Stop worrying about this authenticity crap. You can't brand fish that way.
Personally, I think food should be labeled as what it is. If I buy something that says it's hamburger, I don't expect there to be 20 percent textured soy protein mixed in with the meat. Likewise, if I order a fish off a menu or buy it in a store, I expect it to be the fish it says it is.
Unfortunately, the fish industry seems particularly prone to this sort of mislabeling. Lots of types of fish seem to have "common names" that aren't particularly descriptive of what they actually are, yet they're allowed to be used on labels and in stores.
Example: I've seen a fish called "super white tuna" on menus at a number of sushi restaurants. I think it's pretty yummy myself; it can be so fatty that it actually tastes like butter. That's gotta be some exclusive, high-grade tuna, right? Wrong. Two problems here: First, this particular fish is illegal to sell in some countries because it can be so fatty that it causes (ahem) anal leakage. Seems like such a friendly-sounding fish should carry a warning label or something, no? Second, and most importantly, "super white tuna" isn't really tuna. It's actually a fish called escolar. It's not even in the same family as tuna. So why is this labeling legal?
Escolar isn't alone, either. "Rock cod" isn't really cod, for example. Seems to me this entire industry could use a lot more regulation and oversight, for multiple reasons. In the meantime, you pretty much have to bring a guidebook with you to know what you're getting when you order fish these days, and whether it's fished in sustainable ways. I recommend the app from the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Breakfast served all day!
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.
'organic' vegetables - the stuff even the insects won't eat. ;)
"For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice" -- God
may I take you order? do you want the DNA Certified food or the mystery food?
The fact you don't mind being scammed is irrelevant to everyone else. It's still fraud, in particular "bait and switch" style fraud.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It also happens to be green
I don't care what Dr Seuss says, ham should not be green.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
I present to you 'organic' salt.. Good for seasoning french fires, and making chemists' heads explode.
I think that's more of a language issue. As far as I know, the organic standards thing is the same in Europe as in the US, it's just that in some European languages they use the term biological. In German the use the prefix 'Bio-', in French they use the term 'biologique,' and I think in Italian the use the word 'biologica'. So basically, Europeans tend to call it biological, but it is the same thing that English speakers call organic.
It really is a better term when you think about it, because organic in general relies on biologically derived inputs as opposed to chemical ones. And yes, they still do use inputs; the whole 'organic food is pesticide free' thing is simply not true (and even if they didn't, plants naturally produce an order of magnitude more pesticidal secondary metabolites internally then you're going to get from properly applied spray residues). They'll just use fertilizers and pesticides that are derived from naturally occurring sources as opposed to being manufactured (and yes this includes manure [which is probably good to add to the soil every now and again no matter what system you use]), in other words, of biological origin as opposed to chemical.
The whole thing is a still just clever marketing based on a big idiotic appeal to nature fallacy that serves no purpose other than to separate the gullible and the scientifically illiterate from their money (if it occurs to you that the origin of a substance has no bearing on its chemical properties, then you know more about chemistry & biology than the organic movement) and undermine the integrity of agricultural technology and food science in the public's eye for profit, but the term 'biological' is still better than 'organic.' Not by much I guess since all food is going to biological in nature just like all food is organic but at lest this says something a little more specific about the production practices.
If they will give seafood a honest rating system?
AAA = tested - definitely looks, smells, and taste like lobster.
AA = some lobster and some cod
A = a few drops of lobster juice 100% cod flesh
-A = imitation seafood can be anything found safe and cheap with additives, and fish juice added to make it taste like any type of seafood.
-AA = imitation seafood can be unsafe for children and pregnant women contains all imitation ingredients.
-AAA = imitation not safe for human consumption but sold cheap in supermarkets, and fishmarkets as an alternative to the real thing.
Not to defend these suppliers, but keep in mind that part of the reason these toxic chemicals are used lies on your side of the Pacific. The US demands cheaper and cheaper goods, big buyers like Wal-Mart squeeze their suppliers to the max, and some unscrupulous suppliers respond by offering the prices Wal-Mart demands but replacing certain ingredients with sub-standard ones. Many of these toxic ingredients happen to be cheap.
The solution may lie in Wal-Mart et. al. demanding certification that the products are safe, and using only approved ingredients, on top of doing actual testing on those products for hazardous substances before putting them on store shelves, but that costs money, money Wal-Mart and many consumers are not willing to pay. Strict government regulation is the only way to have such testing/certification done and done properly, and that's something that again goes against general US culture.
You get what you pay for - and if you want good quality, you have to pay more.
Just get rainbow trout. It's produced in commercial fish farms in high volume at low cost, so nobody tries to pass something else off as trout. It also tastes good and tends not to accumulate mercury, because it's low on the food chain.