Fish Fraud

After writing about seafood, and my concern over what to eat and where and how it is caught, comes this article in the Globe and Mail. . . .

"Before you bite into that fish and chips or spend $30 on halibut at the supermarket, you may want to take a second look: 25 per cent of fish is mislabeled, according to a University of Guelph study published today that used DNA analysis to determine the true identity of fish sold in Toronto and New York.

One sample sold as tuna turned out to be tilapia; halibut was really hake; and red snapper was, on different occasions, lavender jobfish, Labrador redfish, perch and cod.

"There's not a lot of regulation around fin fish; it's basically been ignored," says study co-author Robert Hanner, associate director for the Canadian Barcode of Life Network and an assistant professor of biology at the University of Guelph.

"Now that we have the tool to do it, we probably have an obligation to start testing."

He and co-author Eugene Wong tested 96 samples of fish from grocery stores, markets and restaurants in New York and Toronto. They analyzed the DNA of each fish and compared it with a global database of species. They intended simply to test the database, which performed well, identifying each piece of fish they found. Discovering so much fish fraud was a surprise."

For the whole story see: fishy fraud

Now I need to worry that even when they tell me that the fish is from a sustainable, ecological source I will have to question. . .