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59% of the 'Tuna' Americans Eat Is Not Tuna

theatlantic.com

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Re: 59% of the 'Tuna' Americans Eat Is Not Tuna

#81

Post by jlgreco »

jbattle wrote: post #31
jlgreco wrote: post #2

Perhaps, given the dire state of tuna supplies and consumers who apparently cannot tell the difference without resorting to testing, we should be encouraging mislabeling. Insisting on a particular rare fish while another more common fish satisfies you just as well is exceptionally silly. Of course it is near impossible to convince consumers of this, but business owners have apparently figured out a solution themselve…

Around Chicago we have problems with Asian carp making their way closer and closer to the great lakes. I've often suggested they be renamed 'river tuna' and our problems will be solved.

A good re-branding could probably go a long way towards helping with that sea lamprey issue the Great Lakes have too...

Re: 59% of the 'Tuna' Americans Eat Is Not Tuna

#82

Post by benihana »

sliverstorm wrote: post #25
richardjordan wrote: post #3

The shocking depletion of the world's fisheries over the last century and a half is one of the great tragedies of our modern civilization. We're causing mass extinction on a level we have to go back to the fossil record to see. We're eating fish that was previously thrown back or used as bait, often just giving it bogus pretty names (like Chilean Sea Bass). I live in the US for now but having grown up in Europe I und…

The biggest challenge with fishing is the ocean is largely a shared resource. The incentive to preserve and protect is much smaller, because you can just fish in international waters or sneak over to somebody else's waters to fish, and conserving in your own waters may be fruitless because other people will come a'fishin! Basically, one giant global tragedy of the commons.

Ironically, recreational hunters solved this problem a long time ago. Give people a private plot and a quota and they will make sure populations stay healthy in that plot and surrounding areas. There are more whitetail deer in North America now after these kinds of hunting practices than there were when the first European settlers arrived.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_deer#Human_interac...

Re: 59% of the 'Tuna' Americans Eat Is Not Tuna

#83

Post by [deleted] »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #77
soci wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been in sea fish farms and I'm a spearfisher hobbyst myself. Beyond the notion that fish farms are a sustainable source of fish meat, the fact is that fish farming needs a fodder supply to feed the fish. Fish eat fish, remember? This means in its majority the fodder produced nowadays comes from wild fish, probably a cheaper one to catch than de one in the farming nets. So wild fish still needs to be catched. But…

> Beyond the notion that fish farms are a sustainable source of fish meat, the fact is that fish farming needs a fodder supply to feed the fish. This is not the only model. There are fish, specially freshwater, you can feed on algae and micro crustaceans, which in turn consume organic waste from traditional farming. That's where research is going into, and where fish farming is more promising, not the sea net model.…

[deleted]

Re: 59% of the 'Tuna' Americans Eat Is Not Tuna

#84

Post by Tyrant505 »

noonespecial wrote: post #7

I always kind of knew that the $5 tuna roll couldn't possibly have come from a $100k fish transported from market in an amored car. I can't tell the difference. To me tuna is a taste, not a species. For the poor overfished creature that is tuna, maybe it's better this way.

You do realize how big that $100k fish is right?

Re: 59% of the 'Tuna' Americans Eat Is Not Tuna

#85

Post by bicknergseng »

acslater00 wrote: post #67

This headline is preposterously misleading. This is a link to the actual study. Page 16 is relevant. http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/National_Seafo... The group tested 114 tuna samples. Of those 114, 66 were of a fish that the vendor was calling "White Tuna". Have you ever eaten something called White Tuna? Neither have I. It's a fairly unpopular sushi fish sold sparsely around the country. Why does it…

So the headline is definitely misleading. But there is some shady stuff going on

>> Have you ever eaten something called White Tuna? Neither have I. It's a fairly unpopular sushi fish sold sparsely around the country.

Well. Not really. One or two people might eat this:

http://www.bumblebee.com/products/1/bumble-bee-solid-white-a...

"White tuna" is actually canned albacore. As the article says, "All 16 grocery store samples were labeled correctly." So tuna bought in a can from your local store is Albacore legally and "accurately" named "white tuna." That stuff is ok.

The study goes on to say sushi restaurants are the problem, where escolar is sold as "white tuna."

"The majority of the tuna samples in this study were labeled as “white tuna.” Of the 66 white tuna samples, 62 were mislabeled (94 percent). Eighty-four percent of the white tuna samples were actually escolar (52 of the 62) (Figure 10). The remaining white tuna mislabeling (16 percent) came from the substitution of one type of tuna for another or the use of a non-acceptable market name. A fish product referred to as “white tuna” is only acceptable as a market name when sold in a can."

In restaurants and stores, tuna sold as "tuna" ended up being... tuna.

To be honest, I don't know the prevalence of "white tuna" in sushi restaurants, but a google search of "white tuna sushi san francisco" returns dozens of menus with white tuna on them.

I also don't understand why they chose the misleading "tuna" headline rather than focusing on snapper, of which 100% of sushi restaurant "snapper" was not snapper, as was a large percentage of other restaurants' and grocery stores' supplies.

"More than nine out of every 10 snappers sold in sushi venues were mislabeled (92 percent). Eighty-nine percent of the snappers sampled from grocery stores were found to be mislabeled as were 77 percent from restaurants."

TLDR: Don't eat anything in a sushi place called "white tuna" and your "snapper" is probably not snapper.

Re: 59% of the 'Tuna' Americans Eat Is Not Tuna

#86

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

whyenot wrote: post #36
richardjordan wrote: post #3

The shocking depletion of the world's fisheries over the last century and a half is one of the great tragedies of our modern civilization. We're causing mass extinction on a level we have to go back to the fossil record to see. We're eating fish that was previously thrown back or used as bait, often just giving it bogus pretty names (like Chilean Sea Bass). I live in the US for now but having grown up in Europe I und…

A great example is slimehead ( Hoplostethus atlanticus ), known in the US market by the more familiar name orange roughy. H. atalanticus is very long lived (up to ~150 years) and has a low reproductive rate. Forty years ago orange roughy was not commercially harvested. Today, the species has been so effectively harvested by bottom trawling that in most fisheries, the species has crashed.

Man is it delicious. I was sad to learn it's a bad choice.

Re: 59% of the 'Tuna' Americans Eat Is Not Tuna

#87

Post by jsherry »

acslater00 wrote: post #67

This headline is preposterously misleading. This is a link to the actual study. Page 16 is relevant. http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/National_Seafo... The group tested 114 tuna samples. Of those 114, 66 were of a fish that the vendor was calling "White Tuna". Have you ever eaten something called White Tuna? Neither have I. It's a fairly unpopular sushi fish sold sparsely around the country. Why does it…

Terrible headline for sure. But in sushi restaurants, this mislabeling is actually very common. More often than not, escolar is labeled white tuna. You know it is escolar when it's a pure white and opaque fish with a buttery taste, which although mislabeled, is not at all unpleasant. Rumor has it that of you eat too much, it also gives you diarrhea but fortunately I've never had enough of it to test that theory.

As for real white tuna, there is such a thing and it's called albacore. Aside from being found prevalently in cans, it can also be had at many finer sushi restaurants and it's delicious. White but lightly translucent and often served with a bit of horseradish.

Re: 59% of the 'Tuna' Americans Eat Is Not Tuna

#89

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #21
richardjordan wrote: post #3

The shocking depletion of the world's fisheries over the last century and a half is one of the great tragedies of our modern civilization. We're causing mass extinction on a level we have to go back to the fossil record to see. We're eating fish that was previously thrown back or used as bait, often just giving it bogus pretty names (like Chilean Sea Bass). I live in the US for now but having grown up in Europe I und…

I attribute the tragedy to the fact we farm the soil for ages, grow cattle for as much as long, but fishing was always considered cheap, given the sheer size of the ocean (we're far past the regeneration point), when in fact, fish has the biggest potential of all for intensive farming. Fish farming already is a booming industry in some countries, and the tendency is to double in the next decade. There's a lot to impr…

Why is farming superior to properly managed wild fisheries? Over fishing is the problem. I don't see farming as the obvious solution. Farmed fish are loaded with toxins, as I understand it. The pollution is also a problem.

Even farming cattle in the way we do it is not really sustainable. There is a strong case to be made that hunted venison should be a staple meat at grocery stores. There is also a strong argument that a lot of farmland should be reverted to bison range and hunted for sale.

Re: 59% of the 'Tuna' Americans Eat Is Not Tuna

#90

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

astine wrote: post #29
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I attribute the tragedy to the fact we farm the soil for ages, grow cattle for as much as long, but fishing was always considered cheap, given the sheer size of the ocean (we're far past the regeneration point), when in fact, fish has the biggest potential of all for intensive farming. Fish farming already is a booming industry in some countries, and the tendency is to double in the next decade. There's a lot to impr…

It's worth noting that, in the United States a at least, there is a strong anti-farmed fish movement coming from the environmentalist community. They like to point out all of the damage that fish farming does to a local ecology without acknowledging the much greater damage that catching wild fish does. As a result, there is a lot of hesitation among some consumers to purchase farmed fish.

These farmers are exploiting the higher margins of rare species, not scale, otherwise they would be looking after the highly productive species. Regulation would be enough to change the industry.

It's no different than cattle. We're used to red meat but it's actually a wasteful industry that has a huge impact on ecology. We only keep raising cattle because it sells for a premium (red meat is the most expensive source of protein).

The impact of fish farmers that grow carnivore fish is comparable to the impact of destroying native land to farm soy/corn used to feed cattle. We just got used to it. There are other ways though.

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