Fishy Stories About NYC Sushi

by StockJockey

Tuesday, December 02, 2008 - 12:26 am

NYC’s sushi restaurants might end up being the biggest losers from the death of Wall Street, and the bait and switch is on, and they fight for survival:

Two teenage girls used DNA bar coding to determine that some sushi on New York dinner plates was mislabeled with cheaper fish being passed off as a more expensive species.

Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss were not science majors or even college students when they decided to take 60 samples of seafood and use a genetic fingerprinting technique to see whether the fish were labeled correctly.

The graduates of Manhattan’s Trinity School in New York were inspired by Kate Stoeckle’s father, Mark, a scientist and proponent of the use of DNA bar coding, a technique that greatly simplifies the process of identifying a species.

“Growing up, bar coding was dinner conversation, so I was familiar with it,” Stoeckle said. “And then one night, while out to dinner, I asked, could we barcode sushi? Louisa and I love sushi, and we thought, why not apply the bar coding technology to see what food we’re eating?”

After collecting samples from four restaurants and 10 grocery stores, spending about $300, the teens sent them to the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, where the Barcode of Life project began and where a graduate student had agreed to conduct the genetic analysis..... The results showed that 25 percent of the girls’ samples were mislabeled: half of the restaurant samples and six out of 10 grocery store samples.

In every case, less desirable or cheaper fish was substituted for its more expensive counterpart, Stoeckle said. She and her father would not divulge the names of vendors, citing a fear of lawsuits. CNN

Half the fish is mislabeled? Whats next, Bordelais blending in Rhone wine to beef up the color and strength of red wine? Oops that has been done.

Wall Streeters will have to make the best of a bad situation. Although I would rather move to New Jersey than eat at Haru.

Oh, just kidding.

DNA testing uncovers suspect sushi
CNN
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