"If it weren't for those pesky kids....!"
Posted on 08/25/2008 5:55:20 AM PDT by Abathar
Up to a quarter of fish in stores and restaurants in New York City was mislabelled as a more expensive variety, according to samples collected by two US teenagers and tested with genetic "barcoding" methods. fish market
In the worst cases, two samples of filleted fish sold as red snapper, caught mostly off the southeast United States and in the Caribbean, were instead the endangered Acadian redfish from the North Atlantic, according to the tests, revealed on Friday.
"We never expected these results. People should get what they pay for," said Kate Stoeckle, 18, of the project with Louisa Strauss, 17.
The two classmates from New York's Trinity school collected and sent off 60 fish samples to the University of Guelph in Canada. Of 56 samples that could be identified by a the DNA barcoding identification technique, 14 were mislabelled.
In all cases, the fish was labelled as a more costly type, apparently ruling out simple chance. It was the first known student use of DNA barcoding technology in a public market.
"We really like sushi and we'd take home fish samples and put them in alcohol," Stoeckle said of fish bought in shops and restaurants in Upper Manhattan.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Cool beans caught them red fished
That a store or restaurant would try to scam me on price is one thing, what concerns me more is origin. A lot of fish these days are coming from questionable sources. Farm raised, fed waste, living in polluted waters. No thanks.
Ocean perch is unfit for human consumption but lake perch is the best eating you can get.
Yet another reason I never buy fish in a store or at a restaurant.
A local mass market retailer here was sent to prison for this crime..........The State of Florida tries to keep an eye on this kinda stuff, but it’s just too prolific............
I prefer walleye myself, but perch is a close second and I have never snubbed it if I get a chance to enjoy it.
I can believe it. At an extra $3-4/lb a couple of hundred cases of mislabeled fish can put a lot of extra profit in someones pocket.
Fish fraud is, and always has been, rampant. I well remember being in a grocery store in Elkins, WV, and seeing some fish in the meat cooler. The fish had been headed and gutted, and were packaged like steak. They were labelled “Ocean Perch”, but were obviously carp!
Ironically, they got him on Tax evasion, not the fish swapping..................
Then he truly was too greedy then, and an idiot.
ping
"If it weren't for those pesky kids....!"
No fish thank you mercury makes me burp.
The findings raise questions about the management of fish stocks, under pressure from overfishing and facing new threats such as climate change. About 160 nations are meeting in Accra, Ghana, this week to discuss ways to combat global warming.
No fish thank you mercury makes me feel funny.
Next thing they’ll tell us is the icky sounding Patagonia Toothfish has been sold as the high-priced Chilean Sea Bass.
You may have had something else labeled as ocean perch; the real thing is OK. Mild flavor, firm texture, not oily, can be seasoned various ways.
Mississippi has a law that makes restaurants post the origin of the fish. The penalties are severe if they are caught misrepresenting the origin of the fish. This happened when SE Asian origin catfish were being sold here in Mississippi as Mississippi farm raised catfish.
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