7 ms·

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

101 points by jaequery 13y ago

noonespecial 13y ago
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 13y ago
  You do realize how big that $100k fish is right?
  - noonespecial 13y ago
    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 $36. I just figured the "tuna" at most sushi joints was one of the lesser species of tuna like albacore or something else entirely.
elliott34 13y ago
wait so , if I go buy tuna sushi roll from my grocery store in boston for 8$, what's the probability it's actually tuna
- jlgreco 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    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 13y ago
      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 13y ago
        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.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
skore 13y ago
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 13y ago
  Perhaps it depends if it was farm raised
rjzzleep 13y ago
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
jonahx 13y ago
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-future-of-wild-fish http://www.npr.org/2010/07/19/128512740/paul-greenberg-the-f...
jlgreco 13y ago
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.)
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > 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. Yes, because fighting ignorance with lies that cater to it is much better than fighting it with information.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    You could, and should, do both of course. If the FDA sanctioned the practice and published lists of approved fish substitutions then only uninformed consumers would be unaware of the possibility that they were being gouged for cheap fish (you can see that gouging as a reward to restaurants that refuse to serve real tuna, and an informal punishment for consumers who are trying to get tuna). These uninformed consumers are presumably un-reached by your media campaign to cut back on tuna consumption. It also eases the transition from tuna to other fish. I like tuna-salad sandwiches, I eat them a few times a month. I wouldn't know if the tuna in them wasn't real tuna, in fact I hope it isn't. I would have no idea what "escolar salad" is though. Mislabeling allows me to get what I want without unnecessary environmental impact. Also, mislabeling fish is not unprecedented, but done for worse reasons in the past. See Vietnamese catfish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basa_fish#.22Catfish_war.22_in_the_U.S http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basa_fish#.22Catfish_war.22_in_....
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > You could, and should, do both of course. No, you should just use the truth, since the lies combat the truth. If you prevent mislabeling, the rare fish becomes expensive rather than cheap-and-adulterated, the price differences drive lots of the people that think they prefer the rare fish to settle and try the cheaper, less rare, fish, and to the extent that the cheaper fish actually is suitable, people learn and it becomes popular. If there is a risk of this transition happening too slowly to meet some social good (like, preserving the rare fish), you enact appropriate protections to the rare fish (either quotas, taxes, or outright bans) that restrict the supply or drive up the retail price, which accelerates the process of conversion. > It also eases the transition from tuna to other fish. No, it actually delays the conversion of demand by masking the cost and delaying people trying the other fish as itself and learning that it is acceptable.
richardjordan 13y ago
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.
- chourobin 13y ago
  Just curious, would it help to boycott eating certain fish on the endangered specifies list?
  - astine 13y ago
    Not individually, but there are groups who attempt to keep track of which cause the most damage when you eat it. It's not likely to solve the problem in the long run though, because there are a lot of people who just don't care. Personally, I think the world should look to the Iceland model and institute strict quotas across the board.
  - gsnedders 13y ago
    If you can get another people to do so that fishing them becomes uneconomical.
  - rogerbinns 13y ago
    The Monterey Bay Aquarium has seafood watch. This includes iOS and Android apps to check while on the go. http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx You can also download and print: http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/download.aspx http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/downlo... "The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program creates science-based recommendations that help consumers and businesses make ocean-friendly seafood choices."
mh- 13y ago
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.
- reddit_clone 13y ago
  Yikes. Good thing I never liked Tuna.
- nmcfarl 13y ago
  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)
- mmariani 13y ago
  > oily anal leakage > To be frankly and bluntly specific - and I'm sorry for this - consumption of escolar causes explosive, oily, orange diarrhea. People have reported that the discharges are often difficult to control and accidents can happen while passing gas. Ewww!
- lmkg 13y ago
  Uh no, not really. Key word: "can." I've had Escolar before. Like, went to the supermarket, bought a few pounds of big ol' chunks that were labeled "Escolar," and served said fish as the main entree for dinner. I do not recall anal leakage. They're fatty. That's it. A cooked Escolar will taste like it was fried in butter, even if you put it in the pan totally dry. Absent food sensitivities (which probably exist), I doubt it causes any leakage beyond that caused by any other source of the same amount of fat, oil, or grease.
otterley 13y ago
Actual study, for those interested: http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/National_Seafood_Fraud_Testing_Results_FINAL.pdf http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/National_Seafo...
biot 13y ago
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/AAAAAAAAAgM/BQFgu08j5Fs/s1600/escolar-vs-albacore.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7tZTQT-lBpA/TJARkX5NXeI/AAAAAAAAAg... 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?
rayiner 13y ago
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.
fnayr 13y ago
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).
jcampbell1 13y ago
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 13y ago
  > 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
fatjokes 13y ago
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.
mje 13y ago
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
acslater00 13y ago
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_Seafood_Fraud_Testing_Results_FINAL.pdf 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 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.
- Tyrant505 13y ago
  Thanks for this response; I don't have to read the article now. One thing about the "White Tuna" sashimi, almost every sushi place around me has it, North Jersey, NYC included.. I've had it.. but now know its not real tuna as it seems. Just FYI.
  - 13y ago
ktran03 13y ago
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.
Zigurd 13y ago
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?
frankblizzard 13y ago
Quite ironic that this was stated by "The Atlantic". I hope at least for Omakase they use the real thing.

101 points by jaequery 13y ago

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 13y ago
You do realize how big that $100k fish is right?
- noonespecial 13y ago
  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.

elliott34 13y ago

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 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    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 13y ago
      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.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

skore 13y ago

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 13y ago
Perhaps it depends if it was farm raised

rjzzleep 13y ago

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

jonahx 13y ago

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-future-of-wild-fish http://www.npr.org/2010/07/19/128512740/paul-greenberg-the-f...

jlgreco 13y ago

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.)

dragonwriter 13y ago
> 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. Yes, because fighting ignorance with lies that cater to it is much better than fighting it with information.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  You could, and should, do both of course. If the FDA sanctioned the practice and published lists of approved fish substitutions then only uninformed consumers would be unaware of the possibility that they were being gouged for cheap fish (you can see that gouging as a reward to restaurants that refuse to serve real tuna, and an informal punishment for consumers who are trying to get tuna). These uninformed consumers are presumably un-reached by your media campaign to cut back on tuna consumption. It also eases the transition from tuna to other fish. I like tuna-salad sandwiches, I eat them a few times a month. I wouldn't know if the tuna in them wasn't real tuna, in fact I hope it isn't. I would have no idea what "escolar salad" is though. Mislabeling allows me to get what I want without unnecessary environmental impact. Also, mislabeling fish is not unprecedented, but done for worse reasons in the past. See Vietnamese catfish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basa_fish#.22Catfish_war.22_in_the_U.S http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basa_fish#.22Catfish_war.22_in_....
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > You could, and should, do both of course. No, you should just use the truth, since the lies combat the truth. If you prevent mislabeling, the rare fish becomes expensive rather than cheap-and-adulterated, the price differences drive lots of the people that think they prefer the rare fish to settle and try the cheaper, less rare, fish, and to the extent that the cheaper fish actually is suitable, people learn and it becomes popular. If there is a risk of this transition happening too slowly to meet some social good (like, preserving the rare fish), you enact appropriate protections to the rare fish (either quotas, taxes, or outright bans) that restrict the supply or drive up the retail price, which accelerates the process of conversion. > It also eases the transition from tuna to other fish. No, it actually delays the conversion of demand by masking the cost and delaying people trying the other fish as itself and learning that it is acceptable.

richardjordan 13y ago

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.

chourobin 13y ago
Just curious, would it help to boycott eating certain fish on the endangered specifies list?
- astine 13y ago
  Not individually, but there are groups who attempt to keep track of which cause the most damage when you eat it. It's not likely to solve the problem in the long run though, because there are a lot of people who just don't care. Personally, I think the world should look to the Iceland model and institute strict quotas across the board.
- gsnedders 13y ago
  If you can get another people to do so that fishing them becomes uneconomical.
- rogerbinns 13y ago
  The Monterey Bay Aquarium has seafood watch. This includes iOS and Android apps to check while on the go. http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx You can also download and print: http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/download.aspx http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/downlo... "The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program creates science-based recommendations that help consumers and businesses make ocean-friendly seafood choices."

mh- 13y ago

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.

reddit_clone 13y ago
Yikes. Good thing I never liked Tuna.
nmcfarl 13y ago
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)
mmariani 13y ago
> oily anal leakage > To be frankly and bluntly specific - and I'm sorry for this - consumption of escolar causes explosive, oily, orange diarrhea. People have reported that the discharges are often difficult to control and accidents can happen while passing gas. Ewww!
lmkg 13y ago
Uh no, not really. Key word: "can." I've had Escolar before. Like, went to the supermarket, bought a few pounds of big ol' chunks that were labeled "Escolar," and served said fish as the main entree for dinner. I do not recall anal leakage. They're fatty. That's it. A cooked Escolar will taste like it was fried in butter, even if you put it in the pan totally dry. Absent food sensitivities (which probably exist), I doubt it causes any leakage beyond that caused by any other source of the same amount of fat, oil, or grease.

otterley 13y ago

Actual study, for those interested: http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/National_Seafood_Fraud_Testing_Results_FINAL.pdf http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/National_Seafo...

biot 13y ago

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

rayiner 13y ago

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.

fnayr 13y ago

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).

jcampbell1 13y ago

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 13y ago
> 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

fatjokes 13y ago

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.

mje 13y ago

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

acslater00 13y ago

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_Seafood_Fraud_Testing_Results_FINAL.pdf 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 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.

Tyrant505 13y ago
Thanks for this response; I don't have to read the article now. One thing about the "White Tuna" sashimi, almost every sushi place around me has it, North Jersey, NYC included.. I've had it.. but now know its not real tuna as it seems. Just FYI.
- 13y ago

ktran03 13y ago

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.

Zigurd 13y ago

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?

frankblizzard 13y ago

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