As if it weren’t enough that the oceans are being depleted of life and that the fish that are left are toxic with heavy metals…Now you’ve got a nearly 50% chance that the expensive tuna fillet you ordered at a restaurant will be escolar - the so-called “Ex-Lax” of fish because of what it can do to your digestive system – or some other type of inferior fish.
Over a five-month period, reporters at the Boston Globe purchased 183 pieces of fish at 134 restaurants and grocery stores throughout Massachusetts and had samples tested at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario – which houses a database called Barcode of Life Data Systems. BOLDS stores the DNA of nearly 115,000 species of plants, insects, and animals. What they found was that, in Massachusetts at least, there was a good chance that the fish you ordered would be substituted for a different and lower quality piece.
According to Boston Globe reporter Jenn Abelson, “Eighty-six percent of all the seafood that Americans consume is imported, and the FDA inspects less than about 2 percent of it.”
If it’s happening in Massachusetts, you can bet it’s happening everywhere else, too. If you’re still eating fish, you’re harming the environment, your health – and you’re being cheated and lied to for your trouble.
