Perhaps that sauteed snapper you enjoyed last evening at your neighborhood restaurant was not snapper at all. Perhaps it was Pacific Ocean perch, cloaked in a wine sauce to disguise its true identity.
Perhaps that sauteed snapper you enjoyed last evening at your neighborhood restaurant was not snapper at all. Perhaps it was Pacific Ocean perch, cloaked in a wine sauce to disguise its true identity. The same goes for that grouper you paid a handsome price for at your local fishmonger’s and cooked up at home. Instead, you may have been feasting on a plateful of whitefin weakfish and been none the wiser.
Seafood is the world’s most highly traded food commodity, and reports of seafood mislabeling have increased over the past decade. However, proof of the environmental effects of mislabeled seafood has been scant as has research. So, Arizona State University researcher Kailin Kroetz and her colleagues analyzed the impact of seafood mislabeling on marine population health, fishery management effectiveness, and habitats and ecosystems in the United States, the world’s largest seafood importer.
The results of the study were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study found that approximately 190,000 to 250,000 tons of mislabeled seafood are sold in the United States each year, or 3.4% to 4.3% of consumed seafood. What’s more, the substituted seafood was 28% more likely to be imported from other countries, which may have weaker environmental laws than the United States.
Read more at: Arizona State University
Photo Credit: Free-Photos via Pixabay
