If you bought fish any time this year, whether from a grocery store or a restaurant, there’s a chance that the fish you thought you bought is not actually the fish that you ate.
Oceana, an international advocacy group focused on ocean conservation, releases annual reports on the mislabeling of seafood. This September was their worst yet. Oceana released a report discussing their findings after testing over 25,000 samples of seafood from 55 countries. And it’s not good news for seafood lovers.
For at least 65 percent of the samples, the reasoning behind the mislabeling was clear; there was an economic motivation—customers would pay more money because they thought they were purchasing an expensive fish. What they did in reality was put down a lot of cash for a cheap substitute.
Here’s where things get scary. The fish that replaced the fish you thought you were buying may actually be hazardous to your health, or one on the verge of extinction.
Of the samples tested, 58 percent posed a health risk to consumers. If you found yourself getting sick after you ate catfish last week, there’s a chance i’s because it wasn’t catfish.
This is bigger than a national issue. Oceana also released a map showing the regions suffer from the worst fish substitution rates and practices. In Italy, 82 percent of the 200 grouper, perch, and swordfish samples tested were mislabeled. And half of those substituted fish are under threat of extinction.
In Brazil, 55 percent of the shark samples tested were sawfish, which is designated as a critically endangered animal. In Brussels, 98 percent of the bluefin tuna tested at restaurants was not found to be bluefin tuna at all.
The good news is that the United States is already trying to do something about it. The President’s Task Force on Combating Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing and Seafood Fraud proposed a rule this year that would address the traceability of 13 high risk types of seafood. While it’s a nice start, Oceana is calling on them to do more, they want the rule to extend to all seafood and follow fish from boat to farm to plate.
And that’s totally possible. In 2011, the European Union cracked down on their seafood industry after reports were released confirming an average EU fish fraud rate of 23 percent. Oceana reported that, by 2015, the EU rate had shrunk down to eight percent.
The United States needs to crack down, too. While the task force is certainly determined to take steps moving forward, there are more than 13 types of fish commonly mislabeled across the country. Oceana is calling for us all to urge the task force to issue the strongest rule in traceability possible.
Maybe then I will finally trust my sushi again.