Comment by acslater00 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by acslater00 | Hacker News Reader

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_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.

So the headline is definitely misleading. But there is some shady stuff going on

>> Have you ever eaten something called White Tuna? Neither have I. It's a fairly unpopular sushi fish sold sparsely around the country.

Well. Not really. One or two people might eat this:

http://www.bumblebee.com/products/1/bumble-bee-solid-white-a...

"White tuna" is actually canned albacore. As the article says, "All 16 grocery store samples were labeled correctly." So tuna bought in a can from your local store is Albacore legally and "accurately" named "white tuna." That stuff is ok.

The study goes on to say sushi restaurants are the problem, where escolar is sold as "white tuna."

"The majority of the tuna samples in this study were labeled as “white tuna.” Of the 66 white tuna samples, 62 were mislabeled (94 percent). Eighty-four percent of the white tuna samples were actually escolar (52 of the 62) (Figure 10). The remaining white tuna mislabeling (16 percent) came from the substitution of one type of tuna for another or the use of a non-acceptable market name. A fish product referred to as “white tuna” is only acceptable as a market name when sold in a can."

In restaurants and stores, tuna sold as "tuna" ended up being... tuna.

To be honest, I don't know the prevalence of "white tuna" in sushi restaurants, but a google search of "white tuna sushi san francisco" returns dozens of menus with white tuna on them.

I also don't understand why they chose the misleading "tuna" headline rather than focusing on snapper, of which 100% of sushi restaurant "snapper" was not snapper, as was a large percentage of other restaurants' and grocery stores' supplies.

"More than nine out of every 10 snappers sold in sushi venues were mislabeled (92 percent). Eighty-nine percent of the snappers sampled from grocery stores were found to be mislabeled as were 77 percent from restaurants."

TLDR: Don't eat anything in a sushi place called "white tuna" and your "snapper" is probably not snapper.

Terrible headline for sure. But in sushi restaurants, this mislabeling is actually very common. More often than not, escolar is labeled white tuna. You know it is escolar when it's a pure white and opaque fish with a buttery taste, which although mislabeled, is not at all unpleasant. Rumor has it that of you eat too much, it also gives you diarrhea but fortunately I've never had enough of it to test that theory.

As for real white tuna, there is such a thing and it's called albacore. Aside from being found prevalently in cans, it can also be had at many finer sushi restaurants and it's delicious. White but lightly translucent and often served with a bit of horseradish.

I followed the link about the "olestra fish". You have to eat over 6 ounces. You eat two days worth of meat in one meal, you get what's coming to ya'.

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.

Also known as "shiro maguro" (白鮪) which also means white tuna.

So are you saying that the researchers went to Sushi shops and only tested sushi that was labeled as "white tuna" and deliberately avoided samples that were just labeled "tuna"?

The study claims that 95% of tested sushi places were selling mislabeled seafood, but you claim that selling "white tuna" is not common. Can you give us a bit more to go on here?

I really wish tacking CSV files of the raw data onto the end of papers was more of a thing... Charts are such a royal pain in the ass if you are trying to find information that the authors aren't intentionally spoon-feeding you with them.

I wouldn't say it's terribly uncommon, but by far the most common fish served in US sushi are: tuna (one of the red kinds), salmon, and yellowtail (+ imitation crab in rolls). Still popular, but less common, are mackerel (chub), eel, shrimp. Only after that comes things like 'white tuna', snapper, salmon and flying fish roe, sea urchin, Spanish and Japanese mackerel, real crab, and so on.

I don't each much sushi, but in the grocery store "White Tuna" is common. However, it's usually marked "Albacore White Tuna" to signify that it is not escolar but in fact albacore tuna.

For example, from Trader Joe's: http://yeastfreeliving.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/4-8-10...

Several years ago, every sushi restaurant I frequented (in South Florida) stopped mislabeling Escolar as "White Tuna". I thought it was a legal crackdown since I'd already read about the fact that "there's no such thing as White Tuna".

Personally, I don't care what it's called, it's still my favorite (raw). The name Butterfish is new to me, but it makes sense as I always thought it tasted like Mozzarella! (my sister agrees) Thankfully, I've never suffered from eating it either, but then I never have meals with more than a few ounces of it (I typically have at least 3 different fish when I have sushi or sashimi).

Albacore, for comparison, is only white after it's cooked. Before that it's more translucent and slightly pinkish (Escolar is opaque white).

Oddly enough, I've never had cooked Escolar. I wonder how it is. :)

This whole thing reminds me of the Basa/Tra thing (real Basa is so much better than Tra, but they were selling the latter as the former to get a higher price for years).

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