Mislabeled fish: What you can do 12/11
(Part two of a three-part series adapted from the December 2011 Consumer Reports magazine.)
Mislabeled fish 3-part series:
Part one: What you don't know can hurt you | Part two: What you can do | Part three: Overfished or not?
 | | Photo Credit:NOAA |
Federal law requires seafood to be labeled in a way that's truthful, not misleading, and in accordance with federal regulations. It is "not acceptable" to misrepresent the identity of seafood products to consumers, says Doug Karas, a spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
If the FDA discovers fish fraud, it has the authority to slap companies with warning letters, seize seafood, and prevent businesses from importing fish. But FDA experts say it's primarily the responsibility of state and local agencies, not the FDA, to regulate retail food stores and restaurants.
In New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut (where Consumer Reports purchased fish that was mislabeled), state officials told us that their inspectors aren't trained to differentiate among fish species and that they focus their limited resources on food safety, not fraud.
FDA spokesman Karas says that all imports are screened before they enter the country and that a subset are inspected based on their potential risk. All investigators are trained to identify and document evidence of fraud and will detain seafood mislabeled with fictitious names such as "salmon trout" and "mackerel pike."
He also says the agency has purchased DNA sequencing equipment for five FDA field laboratories and anticipates using the equipment to start testing imported and domestic seafood species, usually before they reach the retail market. "With this new technology, the FDA can more easily identify instances of seafood misbranding," Karas says. "We plan on using it regularly as part of our efforts to combat mislabeling, where it affects both seafood safety and economic fraud."
That will be good news to Gavin Gibbons, a spokesman for the National Fisheries Institute, a seafood trade association. He says that the FDA has the authority to deal with species substitution and other types of fraud, "but they basically don't use it, saying essentially that that's an unfunded mandate."
According to a February 2009 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on Seafood Fraud, the FDA has spent very little time looking for seafood fraud in recent years. Eighty-six percent of the seafood that Americans consumed in 2010 was imported, mainly from Canada, China, Ecuador, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. But FDA officials physically examined only about 2 percent of imported seafood from fiscal 2003 to 2008. And then, only about 0.05 percent of the examined seafood was checked for seafood fraud (mislabeled, substituted, or short-weighted items), according to the GAO report. During that time, the FDA looked for fraud while conducting only 0.5 percent of domestic seafood inspections. That involved mainly reviewing seafood labels (to make sure that they listed the fish by its correct name, for instance); the agency conducted very little lab analysis, GAO officials told Consumer Reports.
Two other federal agencies play important roles in detecting and preventing seafood-species substitution: the National Marine Fisheries Service (MFS) and the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection. Each has its own labs for testing seafood, but the two haven't effectively collaborated with each other or the FDA in fighting fish fraud, the GAO reported in 2009.
Lately, however, limited progress seems to be underway: Representatives for all three agencies say they've recently shared resources on fish-fraud detection.
Last year, for example, an investigation by the three agencies and others led to the sentencing of a New Jersey man for importing Vietnamese catfish labeled as grouper. His goal: to evade more than $60 million in tariffs. (Vietnamese catfish is subject to federal tariffs; grouper is not.)
Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, supports legislation introduced this year in the U.S. Senate to help prevent seafood fraud, standardize labeling, and strengthen cooperation among federal agencies that oversee seafood safety.
Consumers Union also supports the USDA's new oversight of catfish safety, calling for the USDA to define catfish broadly, so inspectors will be able to regulate all domestic and imported catfish species. Consumers Union also would require testing for aquaculture drugs that are illegal in the U.S. but are sometimes used overseas.
What you can do
Before deciding what fish to buy, ask the person behind the counter (or the server in a restaurant) which fish, if any, is in season, and where and how the fish was caught or farmed.
Ask for the manager (or chef) if you aren't satisfied with the answers or want to learn more. Just letting the seller know that customers are interested might raise his or her consciousness about the seafood being sold.
Buy from a well-run, clean fish retailer. Make sure that employees working behind the counter are wearing clean clothes, hair coverings, and disposable gloves. In a supermarket, shop for fish last so it stays refrigerated longer.
Whatever fish you buy, look for:• Fish that are refrigerated or displayed on a thick bed of fresh ice, without a tag stuck in their flesh.
• Fish that smell fresh and mild, not fishy, sour, or ammonia-like.
• Fillets with no discoloration and no darkening or drying around the edges.
• Firm, shiny flesh that's moist, but not mushy, and springs back when pressed.
• Eyes that are clear and bulge a little; gills that are bright
red and free of slime.
• Frozen seafood with the package intact—not open, torn, or crushed at the edges—and without frost or ice crystals, which could indicate that the fish has been stored a long time or thawed and refrozen. Related links
Mislabeled fish: What you don’t know can hurt you. 12/11
Using DNA to solve a mystery. 12/11
Overfished or not: Assessing labels and claims. 12/11
Sole searching: Have you seen this fish? 12/11
Mercury in tuna still a concern. 1/11
Seafood: green buying guide. 10/10
The trouble with salmon. 10/10
Mislabeled fish 3-part series:
Part one: What you don't know can hurt you | Part two: What you can do | Part three: Overfished or not?
|
|
|
