Fake Fish

On Nov 26, 8:15*am, georgecleveland wrote:
*One cool day in January 2006, eight students from Stanford University
went on a shopping binge—and not for the latest iPods or Levi’s. They
visited two dozen grocery stores, fish markets, and sushi restaurants
and brought home 77 fillets of Pacific red snapper.

Back at the lab, the students snipped off bits of flesh, digested them
with enzymes, and spun the DNA down in centrifuge tubes. They
identified the species of fish by sequencing segments of DNA. Their
results raised eyebrows all around.

Those generic strips of flesh might as well have been called marine
mystery meat. Sixty percent of them came from species other than what
was written on the label, including Pacific Ocean perch and tilapia.

http://www.conservationmagazine.org/...impostor-fish/

I recall hearing about this about a year ago. Distressing.....or
maybe disappointing is a better term, despite a lifetime of
expereience.....always, but never surprising. I am currently sitting
in a lovely little house in a tree farm in southwestern Wisconsin,
surrounded by a magnificent orchard of mixed hardwoods, leaning
heavily toward nut trees.....walnut, hickory, butternut, hazelnut,
heartnut, and American chestnut. Becky, and her brother, Tim, and I
are about to enjoy a meal of stuffed pork loin chops (well, actually,
Becky doesn't do pork products.....she'll have a small sirloin steak),
accompanied by sundry things that I won't bother naming right now, in
part because I am not certain of their provenance. Yeah, they LOOK
like Brussells sprouts and acorn squash (and, for that matter, pork
and beef), but......

En route here from Milwaukee last night, I stopped at a MacDonalds
(the only place open at 11:30 p.m.) in Wisconsin Dells (a desperate
need for fuel, for myself or my vehicle are the only inducements that
would cause me to stop in this particular slice of hell.....at any
time of day or year) to get something to eat. I noticed a sign that
claimed MacDonalds' burger are made with 100% beef. Well, yeah,
obviously, the beef in them in 100% beef. The other stuff,
presumably, ain't. Even MacDonalds corporate execs probably wouldn't
contest a claim that the buns are not made of beef. So, all you
really know for certain is that the beef in the patties is allegedly
100% beef. But then, the beef in anything is 100% beef....or it
ain't beef, ainna?

Caveat ****in' emptor.

The anecdotal stuff about where I am isn't mere filler. As I sit here
with no company but a dog and a fire and a jug of wine (not a bad
situation to be in, I think just about everyone would agree) while Tim
and Becky are in Sparta getting more supplies for supper, I am
cracking and eating walnuts, hickory nuts, heart nuts, hazel nuts and
American chestnuts (we are SO well stocked with the latter that we can
afford the admittedly guilty pleasure of consuming a critically
endangered species), and basking in the glory of knowing beyond a hint
of doubt the provenance of everything that I put in my mouth and chew
on........an exquisite pleasure that most Americans can never possibly
know. A pleasure and certainty that I must forsake as soon as Becky
and Tim return from the grocery store with stuff loaded with
putatively reassuring labels, telling us exactly what we are getting
(in nauseating detail) and what it is or is not full of and what it
will or will not do to us, or for us. "Angus," the au courrant labels
tell us today.....as if the term itself had some mystical meaning that
would further enlighten and nourish us if only we were sufficiently
enlightened and sophisticated to understand its import.

Whatever.....I see headlights coming up the drive......time to eat and
drink some more.

g.
who just talked to larry on the phone. he's coming tomorrow with the
remains of a 30 pound turkey carcass (growed by Brent and Ann.....so
we KNOW that its really turkey.....THAT is what is important in
life.....and my glass is empty.