
Think You Bought Red Snapper? Don’t Be So Sure - prostoalex
http://www.wsj.com/articles/think-you-bought-red-snapper-dont-be-so-sure-1470428804?mod=e2fb
======
Grazester
I could tell the difference between red snapper and tilapia. I dislike this
fish and the texture doesn't seem quite snapper like(at least the times I had
it). When I moved to the us for school I was surprised to find it on the menu
at restaurants instead of snapper.

I tend to not like it when restaurants try to pass off one fish for another to
me. In the Caribbean a restaurant gave me marlin instead of sword. I think
just about anyone would be able to tell the difference since sword can be a
much much softer flesh fish.

I lived in the Caribbean where my grandfather depended on the sea. Fishing for
a living. He caught only these reef fishes.

My father a retired sea captain, bought a fishing boat and fished mainly
yellow fin tuna but of course marlin and sworn would end up on his lines as by
catch.

I think a lot of people here in the Caribbean who still eat fish would be able
to differentiate between cooked fish.

Blue tangs fried are my favourite reef fish...sorry Dory.

~~~
Something1234
You can eat blue tang? I didn't know that was served. I thought it was just a
display fish.

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dbalan
Apparently it's not limited to fish industry. A lot of ingredients are
substituted behind the scenes and recipes altered when crossing geographic
boundaries. [1] [https://nypost.com/2016/07/10/the-truth-behind-how-were-
scam...](https://nypost.com/2016/07/10/the-truth-behind-how-were-scammed-into-
eating-phony-food/)

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feld
If you've never had the real thing you'll never know you're being duped.
That's the problem.

Fish, shrimp, olive oil, Parmesan, balsamic...

~~~
hammock
Shrimp?

~~~
stevula
From the article:

Shrimp is so bad that Olmsted rarely eats it. “I won’t buy it, ever, if it is
farmed or imported,” he writes. In 2007, the FDA banned five kinds of imported
shrimp from China; China turned around and routed the banned shrimp through
Indonesia, stamped it as originating from there, and suddenly it was back in
the US food ­supply.

~~~
sampo
But what is it that is bad about the shrimp? Is it a particularly unhealthy
variety of shrimp? Or do they contain traces of poisonous chemicals?

~~~
prostoalex
I've read Olmstead's book and his beef (pardon the pun) with shrimp is how
easy it is for bad players (who stuff their product with carcinogens and
various unsafe chemicals to achieve maximum yield) to repackage, relabel and
trans-ship their stuff to get a stamp from a new country of origin. When the
FDA banned the import of bad shrimp from China
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/06...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/06/28/AR2007062801280.html), imports of Philippines
and Indonesia shrimp skyrocketed (sometimes beyond those nation's total shrimp
harvesting numbers). Upon inspection it was same old carcinogenic shrimp.

Honey, tea and spices of unknown origins are also frequent targets of dilution
in order to boost the margins.

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nerdponx
People like to level criticism at wine drinkers for subjecting themselves to
placebo effects.

Now what about fish eaters? If you can't taste the difference between red
snapper and tilapia, why ever buy red snapper? Obviously there are
environmental and health reasons to choose one fish species over another, but
is that doesn't seem to explicitly be the problem here.

~~~
koolba
> Now what about fish eaters? If you can't taste the difference between red
> snapper and tilapia, why ever buy red snapper? Obviously there are
> environmental and health reasons to choose one fish species over another,
> but is that doesn't seem to explicitly be the problem here.

Read up on Tilapia farming a bit and you'll never touch the stuff again in
your life. The majority of farms pump the frys with hormones to force them all
to be males (vs random mix of male/female). This is because males are
generally larger, grow faster, and leads to a more uniform product. Not every
farm does this (I think there are some in the USA that don't) but the bad
apples have poisoned the entire barrel for me. Since I can't tell where it's
coming from I won't eat it. Tis a shame too as it's a relatively hardy fish
and it can be raised on a purely vegetarian diet.

Taste wise I'm not sure if I could tell the difference between real Grouper
and whatever is the knockoff. Would be a fun test to do at home as Grouper
tastes awesome. If there's a cheaper substitute that's just as good, I'm all
for it!

~~~
sbierwagen
Morally, I'm not sure if controlling the gender ratio of a fish population is
much worse than killing and eating them.

~~~
throwanem
I wouldn't be surprised if the concern were less about morality than about
ingesting unduly high doses of hormones which might have some metabolic effect
on humans as well as on fish.

~~~
koolba
> I wouldn't be surprised if the concern were less about morality than about
> ingesting unduly high doses of hormones which might have some metabolic
> effect on humans as well as on fish.

Bingo.

I have zero moral issue asserting my dominance as _the_ apex predator of this
ball of mud to consume any and all prey that my heart desires.

What I do take issue with is not knowing the long term effects of things like
high doses of hormones on us (humans). I'm not educated enough in that field
to know if my fears are well founded, but my gut tells me I'll be better off
not eating Tilapia so I don't have to worry about my dick falling off ( _or
growing a new one!_ ).

~~~
natecavanaugh
That's the thing though, if wikipedia is to be believed, and testosterone is
the hormone most often used, we do know the end effects of consuming it. Sure,
testosterone is an insanely powerful hormone, but it's not like the effects of
it on humans is misunderstood or harmful.

I'm trying to imagine how much damage could be wrought at even large amounts
of tilapia (at least from the hormonal aspect...).

~~~
throwanem
Well, as far as "harmful" goes, there's
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycystic_ovary_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycystic_ovary_syndrome),
for a start.

~~~
peyton
I believe the parent was referring to oral administration of testosterone (or,
in the case of most fish, 11-ketotestosterone). Levels in a typical serving of
tilapia are probably in the nanogram range. Oral bioavailability in humans of
around 3% puts us in the picogram range of dosage, or about a billionth of
what the average male produces in a week. You'd need a pretty healthy appetite
to get PCOS from tilapia.

~~~
throwanem
Sure. But fish may not be the only animals so treated. And, in any case, you
did say that testosterone's effect on humans is not harmful. We have here a
case in which it is. There are many others, for this and other hormones. To
blithely discount the possibility that eating hormone-treated meat may pose a
risk seems therefore rather optimistic.

------
Drdrdrq
>... the study shows that the problem isn’t primarily with the people who
catch or wholesale the fish; it’s with the stores and restaurants that deal
directly with consumers

> Another easy tip: Buy American when possible. The U.S. is far and away the
> world leader in fishery management, safety and sustainability, and fish
> caught in the U.S., from Alaska to Cape Cod, are better regulated for purity
> and more likely to be labeled accurately.

How would buying American help if the problem is in B2C companies, which are
presumably all local anyway?

While there probably exists a problem with mislabeled seafood, this looks like
a propaganda article to me.

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berntb
Is this an opportunity for a startup?

Help crowdsource payments for random DNA tests of the food at local stores.
Fish and olive oil, to start.

If a group of people know everyone involved and do a round robin for who
collects the samples and which lab to send them to, it should be more
trustworthy than any alternative.

(The samples need to be sent in without packages, so employees at the testing
labs can't call the stores and charge for faking the tests.)

Edit: Hmm, the business opportunity might rather be with automating lab
tests..?

~~~
theli0nheart
Cool idea, but it'd far cheaper, faster, and more reasonable to just have
people who know what foods actually should taste like run the "tests" as
opposed to running full blown DNA analysis.

~~~
berntb
Does that include olive oil? I am not certain I'd know the difference... :-(

~~~
theli0nheart
Hah. I'd think so. I couldn't tell the difference either, but I'm sure there
are people who can. :)

~~~
berntb
How do you find people like that? How can you trust them?

They aren't so common I'd imagine -- but I sadly know far too few professional
cooks. :-)

Edit: According to my googling, it seems even experts often fail the taste
testing of olive oil. I guess you could wait a few decades and see how your
arteries are doing -- or use a lab.

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dccoolgai
Just went on a charter a few weeks ago for snapper. Probably the best way to
go if you enjoy fishing and find a good boat - you can easily come back with
40+ pounds of fish for around $100. Same with Speckled trout.

~~~
sparkzilla
Did you hear about the woman who went on a fishing trip with a bunch of
rednecks? She came back with a red snapper.

------
shambala
Anybody know if I can do a DNA test on food at home? How can I build a lab at
home?

~~~
sampo
> Anybody know if I can do a DNA test on food at home? How can I build a lab
> at home?

A MinION sequencer from Oxford Nanopore is $1000. With this alone (and a kit
of chemicals and enzymes to prepare the sample) you can sequence DNA, but
sequencing a random piece of DNA may not help you in identifying the animal or
plant species used in a food product.

So probably you need to use PCR to amplify a suitable piece of DNA, so you
know what you are sequencing. For this you need enzymes, which probably cost
in tens or hundreds of dollars for each use, and then in principle you can do
PCR "by hand" (I have done this) with the enzymes, some test tubes and 3 water
baths kept controlled in certain temperatures. Or buy a machine that cycles
the temperature in a controlled manner. They are really just thermal cyclers,
but they are commonly known as "PCR machines". You can get a used one for
about $1000.

Then at least one micropopipette (surprisingly expensive, almost $200, or buy
used) and some glassware etc.

If you have the knowledge, $3000 to $5000 should have you up and running. Some
stuff, like enzymes, are consumable, so you need to use more money to restock
when the lab is running.

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bitwize
No thanks, Kuni, I'll take what's inside the box.

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finid
Behind a paywall. What's the point of posting it here?

~~~
ddeck
Click on the "web" link at the top of this HN page and then go to the article
from Google.

WSJ isn't pay walled if Google is the referrer.

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woliveirajr
I get a "subscribe or sign in"

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ephextom
Try a clean browser instance?

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woliveirajr
Yep. Anywhere. Perhaps it's paywalled outside USA?

~~~
just_observing
Across the Atlantic here and it opens directly in a new tab. That's with
uMatrix blocking several scripts though.

