Do You Know The Danger In The Fish Food We Eat?

Do you know that there is danger in the fish food that we eat? Well, this is hidden in the variety of guises which the ordinary consumer may not be wary of.

This is at the centerpiece of “Food fraud in the fisheries and aquaculture sector,” produced by the Food & Agricultural Organisation (FAO) through cooperation between its Fisheries and Aquaculture Division and the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture.

This offers an incisive portrait of the complex field of fraud and a review of how novel analytical techniques can help detect it in fish food.

According to the report, there is no official estimate of how prevalent fraud is in the $195 billion global fisheries and aquaculture sector, but empirical studies suggest that 20 percent of the trade may be subject to some type of fraud, notably higher than for meat and fruits and vegetables, largely due to the vast diversity of species in the sector.

According to it, fish fraud is defined in the report as “a deliberate practice intended to deceive others” and, depending on the type of deceit it can pose risks to biodiversity, human health or economic systems.

First, it identifies the main categories of fish fraud to include:

1. adulteration (adding coloring to make tuna look fresher),
2. counterfeit (imitation shrimp made from starch-based compounds),
3. simulation (packaging surimi to seem like crab meat),
4. diversion (distributing legitimate products outside of their intended markets),
5. misbranding (such as incorrect claims about sustainability), overrun (involving overfishing), species substitution (selling tilapia as red snapper), tampering and
6. mislabeling (involving origins and even expiry dates), and theft.

But then it goes further to advocates harmonised labelling requirements, the mandatory inclusion of scientific names where possible, and better traceability systems.

READ ALSO: Lose Weight Harmlessly, With Two Natural Nutrients –Scientists

READ ALSO: What Social Media Exposure Does To Your Health -Experts

It says that the use of advanced techniques ranging from enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, stable isotope analysis and nuclear magnetic resonance can be effective, although not available to all, while portable X-ray fluorescence and machine-learning models are innovations that can aid regulation.

Fish Food Consumption Globally

“Although thousands of fish fraud studies have been carried out, demonstrating the widespread nature of the problem in every continent save Antarctica, there are no solid baseline studies to estimate its prevalence.

“The global scale of fish consumption, targeting over 12,000 seafood species, the diversity of fraud types, and the lack of standardized regulatory or legal definitions of fraud, make global estimations difficult to obtain”.

According to the organisation, some studies suggest that up to 30 percent of fish food products may be mislabeled in restaurants, citing cases from around the world, from ceviche stands in Latin America and seafood eateries in China to canned tuna products in the European Union.

It states that while as much as a third of aquatic products sold in the United States may not be what is written on the packaging, less than one percent of imports are tested.

READ ALSO: Reproductive Health Expert Comments On Oyo’s Female Genital Mutilation (FMG) Situation

READ ALSO: Health Professionals Warn Of Danger Of Non-Communicable Diseases

The human welfare risks of some seafood fraud are evident, as some fish pose risks when eaten raw, while re-freezing seafood increases the risk of bacterial growth. However, economic incentives are the most widespread driver of fish fraud.

Selling Atlantic salmon, almost all of which is farmed, as Pacific salmon, most of which is wild caught, delivers a nearly $10 benefit per kilogram. Farmed seabass branded as local to Italy sells for two to three times as much as the same fish originating from Greece or Turkey, and even more if sold as wild-caught.

Adding water to unprocessed fishery products to bolster weight and price is another common practice, also widespread in land-based meat production.

Some fish fraud is done to mask the geographic provenance of a product or to suppress evidence of above-quota landings. Such practices may pose risks to the sustainability of fishery stocks.