Mental Health

Seafood Fraud in U S, Oceana Says a Third of all Seafood Mislabeled

By Affirunisa Kankudti | Update Date: Feb 23, 2013 02:38 PM EST

A third (33 percent) of all seafood available in the U.S. market has been mislabeled and is not up to standards described by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to a study report released by Oceana- an International organization focusing on ocean conservation.

Oceana said that it conducted a nationwide study of all seafood available. Their study included over 1,200 seafood samples from 674 retail outlets in 21 states in the country.

The U.S. is second only to China in seafood consumption rates in the world. The country now imports 90 percent of its seafood. However, just one percent is checked by government to track fraud, according to the report from Oceana.

DNA analysis of various seafood samples showed that mislabeling was highest in commonly eaten fish like snapper and tuna (87 and 59 percent, respectively). Just seven of the 120 samples of red snapper fish were actually snapper while the rest were some other kind of fish. More than 80 percent of all tuna samples were actually found to be escolar, a species that can cause an upset stomach.

The study even found that 44 percent of the sushi restaurants in the country sold mislabeled fish.

Oceana said that seafood needs to inspected by the federal health agencies to stop this seafood fraud in the country. Also, a system that tracks the seafood from boat to plate can effectively check the fraud.

The samples for the study were drawn from all over the country. However, certain areas like Austin, Houston and Boston had significantly higher rates of fish mislabeling than others. In Southern California, 52 percent of all seafood was mislabeled, fox news reported.

"Our government has a responsibility to provide more information about the fish sold in the U.S., as seafood fraud harms not only consumers' wallets, but also every honest vendor and fisherman cheated in the process--to say nothing of the health of our oceans," Oceana said in a statement.

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