
59% of the 'Tuna' Americans Eat Is Not Tuna - jaequery
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/59-of-the-tuna-americans-eat-is-not-tuna/273410/
======
richardjordan
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 understand the
situation there better. Nationalistic arguments resting on protecting
'traditional' livelihoods and preserving centuries old fishing villages have
been used to continue subsidizing an industry with much larger collective
fishing fleet than is possibly justifiable. Of course nowhere in this
"tradition" argument is it ever acknowledged that traditionally we used vastly
less sophisticated machinery and mechanisms so catches per fisherman were
obviously dramatically lower - and we were STILL depleting stocks.

This is no different to any of our resource extraction industries sadly. Give
rights to extract resource. Rights holders make tons of money. Use money to
pervert political process and buy protection against breaches of law and
regulation. Deplete resource. Move on.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
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 improve yet, specially on
small scale and associated with hydroponics, only now we are seeing research
into that. If you want to invest, this a good area to put your money.

~~~
astine
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.

~~~
jellicle
The objection is basically this: the desirable fish to farm are mostly meat-
eaters. To feed these fish, large quantities of random fish are driftnetted
and fed to the fish farms. That is, fish farms are converting 10 or 100 pounds
of bait fish into one pound of marketable fish. This method of farming fish
WORSENS the ocean depletion problem, it doesn't improve it. It would actually
be better to simply fish for tuna directly.

------
acslater00
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...](http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/National_Seafood_Fraud_Testing_Results_FINAL.pdf)

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 make up more half the sample, you might ask? Well, it turns out
there is essentially no such thing as White Tuna. Hence 94% of the samples are
"mislabeled." [the authors assert that a certain type of albacore tuna sold in
a certain form counts as 'white tuna', which accounts for the 6% of correct
labels] If your goal was to achieve a result which shows lots of mislabeling,
a good strategy would be to considerably oversample 'white tuna'.

They took 48 more samples of tuna other than 'white tuna'. Notably, that
didn't include anything from a can, which is by a WIDE margin what most
americans think of when they think of tuna. Nevertheless, of those 48, they
determined that five were "mislabeled" due to the tuna actually being a
substituted variety of tuna. In other words, all 48 were 'tuna', though
perhaps not 'albacore' or the specific type it claimed to be.

So where does that leave us? More than half of the samples were of a fish
known to be commonly "mislabeled" by standard industry practice, and the rest
of the mislabelings were substitutions of one type of tuna for another. In no
universe does that lead to the conclusion that 59% of the tuna Americans
consume is not actually "tuna". I would venture that no one reading this
comment has _ever_ eaten a piece of tuna that was not actually from a tuna
fish (though _maybe_ they lied about which specific variety you were eating).

This organization has a history of running biased studies and then churning
out ridiculous charts and headlines to push on local newspapers. They ran with
a version of this story in New York City around a year ago. It's nonsense. Eat
your tuna and enjoy it.

~~~
jsherry
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.

~~~
Roboprog
I followed the link about the "olestra fish". You have to eat over 6 ounces.
You eat two days worth of meat in one meal, you get what's coming to ya'.

------
jlgreco
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 themselves.

(To keep it safe, the FDA could create lists of fish that may be substituted
and labelled as each other.)

~~~
jbattle
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.

~~~
pessimizer
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_carp#As_food](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_carp#As_food)

Kentucky Tuna.

------
noonespecial
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.

~~~
Tyrant505
You do realize how big that $100k fish is right?

~~~
noonespecial
I believe the fish in question is the bluefin which averages 500lbs or so.
Apparently they can sell for much more (even 10x more) than $100k! Even if
every pound of the fish became sushi and there was zero markup from the
($100k) fish market price, I figure each piece of sushi should still cost
around $12. My feeling is it should probably be more like $36.

I just figured the "tuna" at most sushi joints was one of the lesser species
of tuna like albacore or something else entirely.

------
jcampbell1
White Tuna has always been Escolar. There is no such thing as a "white" tuna.
Even albacore is not white until cooked. Saying that white tuna is not tuna,
is the same as saying Chilean Sea Bass is not a bass. While true, there is no
conspiracy.

~~~
fatjokes
> Escolar's wax ester content can cause keriorrhea (Greek: flow of wax),
> gempylotoxism or gempylid fish poisoning.[4] Keriorrhea is similar to
> diarrhea, only the body will expel yellowish-orange drops of oil instead of
> liquid bowel movements.

w. t. f. O.O

------
otterley
Actual study, for those interested:

[http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/National_Seafo...](http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/National_Seafood_Fraud_Testing_Results_FINAL.pdf)

------
skore
I've always wondered - at what level is a person contributing to the Tuna
shortage? I rarely eat fish to begin with, have yet to go to a sushi place.
But I do have a can of Tuna on Pizza about every month. Is that already too
much?

~~~
bostonvaulter2
Perhaps it depends if it was farm raised

------
mh-
now, now.. surely this is just splitting hairs.

 _84% of fish samples labeled "white tuna" were actually escolar, a fish that
can cause prolonged, uncontrollable, oily anal leakage._

oh.

~~~
nmcfarl
Yeah - but it doesn't unless you it quite a good bit of it. And of course it's
super yummy. It would of course be better if it was just labeled as escolar
(as it is at my local sushi joint)

------
biot
I've never had tuna that looked like escolar, assuming the comparison pictures
in a Google image search are accurate:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=escolar+vs+tuna&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=escolar+vs+tuna&tbm=isch)

Particularly this image:

[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7tZTQT-
lBpA/TJARkX5NXeI/AAAAAAAAAg...](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7tZTQT-
lBpA/TJARkX5NXeI/AAAAAAAAAgM/BQFgu08j5Fs/s1600/escolar-vs-albacore.jpg)

If I received sushi or maki that claimed to be tuna but looked like a ghost I
would send it back. Is the use of escolar as tuna a regional thing, or is some
escolar a pink/red color?

------
fnayr
For an article waxing on about the mislabeling of tuna, it should do a better
job not generalizing facts about different species of tuna with all tuna.

> given the dire state of the world's tuna supply

Only some species are overfished. Albacore tuna, for example, are not
threatened at all. In fact there's no limit in the US on how many you can
catch (non-commercially).

------
ktran03
This article is misleading.

My family has been part of the seafood business in North America for almost 30
years, and I definitely have the ability to distinguish between fish species
just by looking at flesh.

This article makes no attempt to distinguish between what sushi bars label as
'tuna' and 'white tuna'.

Order 'tuna' and you're almost always going to get tuna. Order 'white tuna'
and you're almost always going to get escolar/albacore.

------
jonahx
so when i order tuna in a sushi restaurant, what am i actually getting? does
this apply to dark red tuna as well as the lighter varieties?

on a similar subject, this is an excellent (and depressing) fresh air episode:
[http://www.npr.org/2010/07/19/128512740/paul-greenberg-
the-f...](http://www.npr.org/2010/07/19/128512740/paul-greenberg-the-future-
of-wild-fish)

------
rayiner
So my dad grew up in Bangladesh, a country of rivers with a strong tradition
of eating fish. He told me that when he was growing up, there were hundreds of
different kinds of fish in the market and even the local river. Today, as a
result of run off from intensive agriculture, that variety is almost totally
gone.

------
rjzzleep
i knew it! i stopped eating white tuna a while back because i felt it tastes
weird, and went to yellowfin instead, but recently i went back to germany and
had a tonno pizza and realized just how much different it tastes

------
fatjokes
As long as the fish is not dangerous (often not the case here apparently), I'm
okay with not eating tuna. It's just a real shame they try to fool diners.
It's time for the FDA to get involved.

------
frankblizzard
Quite ironic that this was stated by "The Atlantic". I hope at least for
Omakase they use the real thing.

------
elliott34
wait so , if I go buy tuna sushi roll from my grocery store in boston for 8$,
what's the probability it's actually tuna

~~~
jlgreco
Probably around 82%. I imagine grocery store sushi has more in common with the
rest of grocery store fish than it does with sushi shop sushi. The grocery
store probably buys the fish for both from the same chain of suppliers.

~~~
mapt
I'm less convinced - sushi outside of a restaurant context, from the
similarity in presentation style and selection in the DC area at least, seems
to be outsourced to daily deliveries from regional suppliers

~~~
jlgreco
Hmm, I wasn't aware of that, I thought they usually just had the butcher or
somebody throw it together in house. That was just a guess though.

~~~
elliott34
well it's sold in the butcher/fresh fish section of the store, so I'm pretty
sure it's prepared on site using whatever is used to supply their normal tuna.
at least I hope.

------
mje
HACKER news != hacker NEWS how did this get to the top people?

I agree this is important but I already saw it my feed and is not hacker
related

------
Zigurd
I've defended all kinds of threads from the "Why is this on HN?" whiners. I'm
having a a little trouble with how the choice between yellow waxy buildup in
your asscheeks and mercury dementia is an issue. Is sushi that big a Silicon
Valley thing?

