Stuff You Should Know - What's the What with Fish Fraud?

Episode Date: October 18, 2016

Fish fraud, misrepresenting a fish as a more expensive one, costs Americans $25 billion a year. And because less than 100 inspectors check for fraud in the US and everyone from wholesalers to sushi restaurants are free to rip off their customers. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

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from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's to my right. Everything's rolling, feeling easy. So this is Stuff You Should Know. Is that really Jerry? Or is it just Jerry the Toothpitch?

Perhaps we've been fooled this entire time. Yeah. I mean, we'd have to do a DNA test. Yeah. Jerry, I just made air quotes, everybody. Can we swab your mouth? I don't think we need to. Her spittle is all over this room.

She spits on our microphones when we leave every day. I'm sure she does. I'm, I've never been more convinced of anything. Some days more than others. Well, that was just a little play acting. What? I was all in. Jerry's a real human.

She's not a Toothpitch. Oh yeah, but you know what is a Toothpitch? Yeah. Chilean sea bass. That's right. Dude, we've said that before. I feel like it was in our... It's in the TV show.

So like eight people, at least heard it there. Let's see, my wife, your wife. Yeah, we for sure mentioned it on the TV show, and I feel like we've mentioned it before. Everyone knows by now, right? Cause that's one of those facts that people love to drop at a dinner party. Sure, like you know what you're eating.

Filth. Yeah, it's delicious. Toothpitch is what it is, you know? Yeah, but I mean, like if a fish is called a Patagonian Toothpitch, but it tastes delicious, then yeah, there's really nothing wrong with just changing the name. Correct, the problem comes when people get ripped off

for paying more money for something they think it is. Yes. And it's not. That is actually a surprisingly enormous problem, it turns out. Yes. It's called fish fraud or seafood fraud. Yep.

And there's some sheriffs on the case. They're called Oceana. Yeah, they're a great organization by the way. They're fantastic. They did this big study led by a woman named Kimberly Warner in 2012 because they knew, everyone knew, this was no surprise that fish are purposefully mislabeled a lot of times by, well, it kind of depends.

I mean, it could be the fisher person, could be the company they work for. It could be the people that they sell to at the docks, the wholesalers. Yeah, could be distributors. Yep, could be the restaurateur or the grocer you're buying from who goes in the back and like stifles a chuckle because you just paid seven times

what that fish is actually worth. Yeah, I'm sure it happens. So you thought it was something else. It does happen and so like you said, everybody knows that this happened, but the Oceana study was, it revealed just how widespread it was. Yeah, they reported that 33% of the fish it tested

in restaurants and markets were not the fish that the fish said they were. It gets worse. That's everything they tested. That was the average, right? So fully a third of all the samples and they took like 1247 samples. Not bad.

675 restaurants in 21 states across the U.S. They found that in sushi restaurants in particular, Oh boy. 74% of the food samples were mislabeled and so you say, well, 74% of sushi restaurants do that. No, 74% of the samples. 95% of the sushi restaurants sold mislabeled fish. Yeah, like this isn't mackerel, it's ground beef.

Right. And 100% of the hamachi, the yellowtail was mislabeled. None of it was actual yellowtail. Really? And just at the sushi restaurants. 100%. 100% of hamachi. Wow.

There's a new place in Atlanta that I went to recently called Brush, did I already mention this? No. It's the best sushi I've ever had. Probably. Really? And it's the most expensive sushi I've ever had. It's called Brush.

Yeah. Where is it? It's in Decatur and it's, I mean, it's really pricey. Have you been to Umi? No, so I've been there. Okay. But like. I've been to the city compared to.

A single piece of sushi is like 12 bucks. Sushi for 12 bucks? Sushi sandwich, you know? Yeah, that's pretty expensive sushi. Yeah. I mean, we dropped for a regular meal, way too much money. But do you, when you walked out of there, this is the key, when you walked out of there,

did you feel like you had gotten your money's worth or were you slightly irritated? No, it was, it was the most delicious sushi I've ever had. Cool. But here's the deal, they just give you, I thought we talked about this, maybe not. You're confusing me with your other podcast co-hosts. I love to over-soy my sushi.

That's how I like it. Yeah. But they don't let you do that. They don't give you soy sauce at all. Oh, good. And then if you ask for it, that good. You know my views on taste. Yeah, do it the way I say it.

But if you request it, they give you a little spray bottle. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow, they're serious about it. Any little spray bottle that you can spray on your thing. So did you like get a cramp spraying soy sauce on your sushi? No, I unscrewed it and. Did you really?

Sure. That's awesome. If I'm gonna pay $200 for a meal. Sure, you should be able to eat it how you want, I agree. Exactly. That's like, I don't know, go to a hot dog place and you're like, you really don't think you should put ketchup on there.

So we're not gonna have that for you. Right. You know? Or they give you a spray bottle of ketchup. It won't work. That's right. Okay, well, there's some good free buzz marketing for Brush. Frankly, I think you owe us both a gift card.

Yeah, but my point was, you would think, I mean, their wasabi was real, you would think that everything was as advertised when you go to a place that nice. The problem is, man, they may believe that and the people that they bought it from may believe it. But I was reading this Oceana study and they said that 50%,

I think even more than 50% of the seafood imported into the US. And that's most of the seafood in the US. We import almost all of it. 90%, yeah. Is processed at sea. And I was like, what does that mean? And I went and searched like fish processing at sea.

And I found this little 12 minute like janky documentary about I think like Norwegian or some sort of Scandinavian fisher trawler where they start with the catch, have this huge net of, I'm not quite sure what kind of fish it was, but it was generally the same fish. They prey on that.

They, what? That you didn't know what kind of fish it was. Right, right. Yeah, I'm getting to that. Then they dump them into like the fish sorting things, right? And then they start processing, they have a whole processing plant on the boat. And so by the time these guys get to shore,

these things are already frozen, solid and blocks packaged in boxes. So the people who are buying it have to be like, okay, it says on the box this, I'm gonna trust you and give me half a million or a million pounds of that stuff. Cause I'm a distributor. And if they're not truthful,

the fisher people aren't truthful, then the whole supply line is infected. And it's very tough to verify. It is. Oceana has a map, by the way, if you go to their website and just Google fish fraud, Oceana, it'll go right there. And they have a handy map where you can click on,

it's all over the world. This is not a US problem. Right. And you can click on like Atlanta, Georgia, if that's where you live. Okay. And what it will do is link to, if they don't have a study from the restaurants,

they will link to other source studies that they've compiled. And there was one that was a link to AJC, our newspaper year had an article about local restaurants, you know, when they do that, the expose thing. We visited eight local restaurants. Right. And they called them out by name.

And of course these people are like, well, I didn't know. Right. And I think a lot of times they probably don't know. I would guess probably most of the time they don't know. Yeah. You know, I mean, if you're dealing directly with the end consumer, you're probably going to be less likely to engage in fraud.

You know? Yes. And if this sounds like a not big deal, it's a $25 billion fraud annually. Say that again. $25 billion annually in fraud. In America alone. Yeah.

Just the United States. That's right. So yeah, the reason why it's $25 billion worth of fraud is because we spend a lot of money on seafood. Yes. It's good for you. Right. And the number one driver of seafood fraud

is misrepresenting something like as an expensive fish, in replacing it with a fish that's much less expensive. Yeah. That's kind of the nuts and bolts of it. Yeah. The FDA does have laws, but the problem is, one of the problems is less than 1% of all the fish that are imported, less than 1% is inspected.

So 1% of 90% of all the fish and seafood eaten in the United States is inspected for fraud. Yeah. And the 10%, I mean, one of the tips that we'll give you later, I'll go ahead and say now, is if you buy local fish or fish from the United States, you're far less likely to be frauded. Defrauded.

Yeah, defrauded. Which doesn't make any sense. It's like inflammable. Yeah. But apparently the US internally does a pretty good job right keeping it above board, but like you said, 90% comes from elsewhere. So that's the issue.

And one of the reasons why it's the FDA or the United States, I should say the federal government has so much trouble inspecting imported fish, it's because there's apparently like 90 agents tasked with inspecting all of the fish that's imported into the United States, 90 people. Yeah, and that's the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA.

NOAA. Is who's doing this, and they're doing the best they can, but 90 people, it's like, I didn't get numbers on how much 90% of our imported fish is, but I mean, it's gotta be like 400, 500 pounds. Maybe even up to 1,000. So there's no way they can test all these fish. Right.

What's funny in this Oceana study, and I should say this is from 2012, I think. This made the news several years ago, and we're bringing it back. Yeah. The worst offenders as far as seafood fraud go were Thailand and Vietnam, but Canada was mentioned in there.

What? Yeah. Oh, Canada. I know, that's what I say, too. Yeah. They apparently don't have nearly as stringent aquaculture laws as we do in the US. Huh.

I know, that's what I said, too. They're such nice people, though. I would've thought it'd be the opposite, you know? Yeah. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe they're like, we don't need laws, of course we're not gonna defraud you, we're Canadians. And maybe it's just a mistake.

They're like, looks like a cod to me, eh? You know, like they're not intentionally defrauding people. Right. Because Canadians don't do that. No. Uh, all right, well, let's take a break and we're gonna talk about kind of how this is done

right after this. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slipdresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point,

but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster?

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Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

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All right, so I promise to tell you how this is done. One of the big ways and reasons this can happen is that a lot of the time these fake fish, they're real fish, fraudulent fish. Unless it's that fake crab stuff. Right, which is still fish. Oh yeah, it is, isn't it? It's like white fish, isn't it?

Yeah. It's like string cheese crab. It's still delicious, I love it. Do you like it? I'm not big on it. Yeah, I mean, of course, I'd always prefer the real thing. I had too much when I was a kid, I think. Yeah?

I do a pretty good kind of rednecky crab dip with it. Oh yeah? It's just delicious, just like mayonnaise and Worcestershire and stuff. It sounds pretty good. It is good. I will say this is like as rednecky as it is. When I have it at places, like parties, people,

like it's like crack. Even high society types? Yep, they can't get enough of it. Wow. They're like, what's in this? And I go, Duke's mayonnaise and fake crab. What? All right, so what was I saying?

Their monocles pop out? They do. Oh yeah, the reason why this happens is a lot of these fraudulent fish are they come to you as fillets. They don't have the head and the tail and the skin and all those things and you can't, or maybe the skin, but people don't know.

This really, this goes to that processing, right? So like these guys just dumped a net full of fish down these chutes and the first thing they did was the things went perpendicular down a conveyor belt, right? So rather than facing the direction that the conveyor belt was going, they were perpendicular to that direction.

And it just so happened that along that conveyor belt was a big circular saw that was exactly where their head was placed. So it just cuts their heads right off, right? Can't identify that fish very easily. Then it goes into the body splitter and gutter, then the fillet-er and seriously, I was watching this and I'm like,

that is not the same kind of fish. And yet they were ending up in the same like batch of fish that was being sold and packaged together. So I was looking around to see like, who's keeping up with this? And again, at sea, nobody's keeping up with it. Of course not, right? So like in the United States and in other countries,

there are people who are overseeing this stuff and sorting fish, it's a big deal, but it's also a pain, right? Because you get what's called bycatch in your catch. Yeah, in your nets, like you don't, if you're shopping for tuna. You don't want dolphin. No, if you're fishing for tuna

and you haul in a big net, you're like, you're gonna have all kinds of stuff in there. Yeah, and apparently we read this little Mother Jones article too. Did you read that, the XX fish? Yes. So apparently this is a fairly recent phenomenon, bycatch, right?

Because in like the 60s or 70s, they started using much longer lines. So they were catching much deeper fish. And they were also bycatching fish that they didn't normally catch before, including the Patagonian tooth fish. Yeah. So these guys were bringing up so much bycatch

and it's such a pain to just sort this stuff and then basically throw it away. They're like, we should rename this thing and like create a market for it. So they did, so they renamed Patagonian tooth fish, Chilean sea bass, and all of a sudden there's a big market for it. The irony is, now they're overfishing Chilean sea bass.

Patagonian tooth fish. They need to change the name back. Right, so people would be disgusted again. All right, well here's a list and we're gonna get to that other, I know if you tease someone with something like XX fish, it's always good to come back to that. But we will list out a few of the things

that are most often substituted Pacific cod or Alaskan cod. A lot of times you're gonna be getting Asian catfish or maybe a Threadfin slickhead or maybe even tilapia. Threadfin slickheads or a dime a dozen. Pacific halibut, you might get Atlantic halibut. Atlantic cod, you might get Pacific cod. Yeah.

Groupers of big one. Yeah, groupers apparently the most swapped out fish, the most fraudulent fish of all. Yeah, I think because the markup is so great. The markup is great, but also because the FDA is doing some weird stuff. Oh yeah. The FDA determines what's food in America.

And there's like 1200 species of fish that qualify as food, that marketable food, right? Yeah. A grouper, there's something like 66 species and 12 different geni of fish that can be sold as just grouper in America. So not only is it expensive, but it's also, there's a lot of confusion.

So most restaurant tours won't be like, well, that's not grouper, that's... Asian catfish? Yeah. They'd be like, well, that's a type of grouper. Oh, okay. But it's not. Right.

In that case. Yeah. But yeah, you're right. If there are that many kinds of one fish, it's probably harder to regulate. And I think the markup they said is like four times, if you're selling Asian catfish, it's gonna be a four times markup for grouper.

Right. So if you're an impoverished fisher person, you'll say, maybe this shipment, grouper? Red snapper? Right. You wanna see if you see like a box with grouper and a question mark after it, be wary of that one. Red snapper, be aware you might be eating

crimson snapper instead. That's a big, big problem. Yeah. Or tilapia. Yeah. And then salmon, of course, there's a wide range of salmon and a wide range of prices, according to what kind of salmon it is.

And it's all farmed Atlantic salmon. It could be. Apparently, that's what they switch all of them out with. Yeah. Like if you think you're getting a Copper River salmon, it's probably Copper River salmon, because that's here in the US. Sure.

But if you think, oh, look at that sockeye over there, it's beautiful, that filet, don't see his face, but it's probably Atlantic salmon farmed. Yeah. And at first I was like, I don't understand how they could swap out salmon, because it's so distinctive, but now I get it. Because you think it's like a wild caught Alaskan salmon

and it's, it was farmed in some guy's backyard in Louisiana, you know? Yeah. And I was looking to see what the difference is between wild caught and farmed fish. Right. Apparently for every pro on one side, there's a con as well.

And if you kind of go down the list, they pretty much even out one another. Oh yeah. A lot of the old unsustainable practices, like get this. So to feed fish, they will go out and catch smaller fish and then feed the smaller fish to the bigger fish, which is stupid because you're going and getting all of the babies from fish nurseries

and they won't grow up any longer. So when you feed them? They figured out that you can feed them a combination of worms and algae. Okay. And it has basically the same amount of nutrients. But it's what, too expensive or not as easy or something? They're not set for that.

I don't know. I don't know. But similarly, right? They're like, well, you know, there's a lot of runoff in farms and stuff that can pollute the fishery. But the same thing can be true for like actual, like wild caught fish as well.

Yeah. So there's like this weird give and take and they seem to totally equal out. Yeah. So as far as the most mislabeled in the Oceania study at least, 87% of snapper samples that they found were mislabeled. And that was the number one mislabeled fish

in their study that year. Tuna was number two. There's like 54%. Yeah, 59. That's like close to 60% of the tuna. Almost there. Yeah. And white tuna is a big reason why. We've all probably had albacore, delicious albacore.

Sure. And white tuna is not even a fish. So if you go to anywhere, but a sushi place that says white tuna, say like, well, that's not a fish. What is this? They'll be like, it's white tuna. Stop asking questions.

Yeah. And they'll take your soy sauce away. Give you mustard instead of wasabi. And a spray bottle. But yeah, it's not even a real fish. So Escalar is the fish that we've been teasing this whole time, the X-Lex fish. Yes. And I love this fish. I do too.

Didn't realize it was that. I've eaten it as butterfish many a time. Yeah. What are the other names for it? Butterfish, white tuna. Hawaiian walu. Yeah. That's very misleading. Rutterfish. Rutterfish sounds inedible itself.

You think? Sure. I wouldn't eat it. Rutterfish. I'd be like, get this off the menu. I think Escalar sounds like very... Fancy? Yeah. Like it makes your pinky go up when you say it, you know? Yeah. Like Escalar.

Yeah. Cause it sounds like Escobar. And he was the best drug kingpin of all time. Sure. Yeah. He was the fancy drug kingpin. But I guess Escalar people know it's dirty little secret, which is that there is an oil, this wax ester that makes it taste delicious. And it's not digestible by us. So if you eat more, like in little tiny sushi portions,

it's okay. Right. But if you eat enough of it, you're gonna have the poopy pants. Buy enough of it, like a filet can do it supposedly. Probably. Yeah. Like anal seepage apparently is the result of eating this stuff, Escalar. Yeah. I had to say.

I didn't, he didn't though. I did. If people need to be informed, Chuck. Yeah. So what happened was people started Bluefin Tuna, as everyone knows, is very expensive now because there's not as much of it. So 1970, Bluefin Tuna was about 14 cents a pound on the wholesale market.

And it varies now. In 2015, it was eight to 12 bucks a pound. And in 2014, it was actually higher. It was 10 to $15 a pound. That's why you see these crazy reports like fishermen catches a tuna worth like $10,000 or more, because it's like hundreds and hundreds of pounds if you get a big one.

And so like you said, they started going deeper and that's when they started getting this bycatch and apparently Escalar dwell on the bottom because they're poopy fish. They're called a snake mackerel. Yeah. That's a good name. I'd eat a snake mackerel. Would you?

Sure. That made you poop your pants. It gave you anal seepage. Well, it doesn't say that on the menu. Although, since I mentioned that in 2004, the state of Washington, they issued a bulletin on it and they have, I think some restaurants, at least in the European Union,

like say on the packaging, it can cause poopy pants. Right. There's a picture of a guy holding the seat of his pants in alarm with the universal symbol. Snake mackerel coming out of his butt. Smoking a cigar. Oh boy. It is outright banned in Japan and Italy. So I love it in Japan, you know.

They're like, no, don't mess with our sushi. Get that stuff out of here. But people stand by it. There's, I mean, Chef Eric Repair, they mentioned this article like world renowned chef. He loves the stuff. Well, yeah, he cleans them out. But I guess you just don't serve it like too much.

He's like, you go spend a weekend in a chili cook-off, pound some Escalar on Sunday night. An Escalar shake. Gross. You have had it before, right? Yeah. Butterfish is the perfect name for it. It is really delicious.

It is amazing. Yeah. But yeah, apparently it gets you. And for the part of the US FDA, they said that they request manufacturers inform buyers about the purgative effect. Toothless. Tooth fishless.

Yeah. Should we take a break? Let's take a break and then we'll come back and talk about why this actually matters and how to combat this. On the podcast, HeyDude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slipdresses and choker necklaces.

We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?

Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge

from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to, HeyDude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough

or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you.

Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael.

And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen.

So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. So Chuck, we mentioned like the big thing, $25 billion worth of losses or I guess ripoffs in the United States alone every year, right? So that's, I mean, that's the basis of why people fight

fish fraud, somebody's getting ripped off, whether it's you, whether it's the restaurant tour you're buying from, whether it's just the distributor, whether it's all of you combined, you're getting ripped off and that's not cool. Well, yeah, cause like we said, if you like the taste of the fish, just call it that fish, set the market price appropriately

and maybe that price will go up naturally. Well, that's what happened, I think with the Chilean sea bass. Yeah, I mean, they renamed it, but it wasn't fraud necessarily. No, demand drove the price up, you know? No, no, that wasn't, that was just marketing. Yeah, but the demand was driven

by the Bernesean marketing tactics, you know? No, agreed, but they weren't committing fraud, they were just committing PR, you know? Good one. So being ripped off is a big one. There's also health concerns too. In addition to anal seepage, there are plenty of other things that can happen to you

if you eat fish that is different from the fish that you're thinking you're eating. All kinds of seepage. All right, eye seepage, gum seepage? I know, but people are allergic to certain kinds of fish. So you might not know that you're eating something that's harmful to you. You'd be like, this is wahoo.

I thought it was tilapia. Good one, huh? Tilapia is one of those that's very much under fire for the farm raised practices. Oh, because it's not very well raised? Yeah, I don't know exactly the deal, but I know that tilapia is a very controversial fish to buy right now.

Here in the US or out of? I think in the US. Because everything I saw said like, fisheries used to be farm raised, fisheries used to be nasty in the US, but the Americans have really cleaned up our act lately. Yeah, I'll have to look it up. There are plenty of articles called

like the problem with tilapia and stuff like that. And they don't call it the rat of the sea for nothing. Do they? Sure. You just made that up. So one of the other big problems is that fish are always being monitored for being overfished. And so if you don't know what's being sold and eaten,

you can't get accurate numbers on what you're trying to protect. You might be eating an endangered fish. You might even be one of those people that carries a little card around in your wallet that says, eat these responsible fish, or I guess they're not responsible fish. Maybe they are.

Responsibly. Maybe they're the kind of family home that they provide for. But yeah, you might be eating something, you might be eating something that is seriously endangered and you don't even know it. Yeah, and this article I think makes a pretty good point that if you're pushing to save a fish species

from being fished to extinction, you usually need public sentiment behind you in those cases, right? To be effective. But if the public's out there like, dude, I'm seeing snapper everywhere. Everybody's got snapper. It's not endangered, you hippie.

Go home. Then your public relations thing is gonna fail. So that's another kind of indirect problem of an easily overlooked problem. The perception that fish are healthy or fish stocks are healthier than they actually are. Right. Apparently the bluefin tuna stocks are going up a bit,

which is good news. Yeah, that was that good thing about the bycatch, like starting to market bycatch, that it took the pressure off of the original target fish that they were going after. Yeah. So what can you do? They suggest buying whole fish.

If you're not creeped out by that. You don't mind looking those little fellas in the eyeballs. They're dead eyes. Buy the whole fish. Cause it's much easier to tell what kind of fish it is when it has a face. The thing is that you have to know what a fish looks like then.

Yeah, or have a computer hookup, an internet connection. Are you sure? Yeah. But I mean, are you gonna take the fish home, look it up and then take it back and be like, this doesn't match the picture. No, you take out your phone in the store. Okay.

Google red snapper. All right. And if you think that guy doesn't look like a red snapper or- It's a crimson snapper. You know what? I bet there's an app or there should be an app called Fish Watch.

Where you can take a picture of the fish in the store and then really annoy the fishmonger at your local market. Right. By challenging them with your app. When you catch them in the act of fraud, you go fish watch, spin and run off. The other thing they say you can do is if you go to a restaurant

and you want to pretend like you're in a Portlandia sketch, ask them about where the fish was caught or raised, how it was raised, how it was caught, what kind of nets were used, what area of the ocean. What's the name of the man who cut his head off? Yeah. They say that's a legitimate thing you can do. Do you remember that song, Fish Heads?

Fish Heads, Fish Heads. Yeah. Really poorly fish heads. What was that? Do you, so it was like this duo and I can't remember their names, but one of the duo, one half of the duo was little Will Robinson from,

what's the name of that TV show? Lost in Space. Yes. Yeah, I think I went down a internet rabbit hole on that song one time. It's a great song. But it wasn't just like it's sort of in the new wave era. It was like late 70s, early 80s.

It was more like the residents than anything, than new wave, you know? Yeah. Interesting. Did you ever see that episode of Chips where they basically spend the whole episode trying to explain the difference between punk rockers who are criminals and new waivers

who are just there to have fun? No, for real. It was good, yeah. Remember, you know the actor William Forsythe? Sure, yeah. He plays a punk with like a green mohawk who like, I think is taking pot shots of people on the highway, like an embankment with his rifle.

Yeah, because you know, punks are snipers in the weight. Yeah, it's pretty funny. And then Ponch is trying to date this new wave girl who's explaining to him the difference. It's a good episode. As usual with Chips, there was some angle with Ponch and the lady. Right, yeah.

Hey, I think you're kind of freaky, but let's date. I told you, I worked with him one time, right? Yeah, and he kept arresting people. Well, I asked him if he would arrest me for a photo. And he was like, yeah, sure. Put me up against the car. Like, why are your handcuffs fuzzy? He very much enjoyed being Ponch, though.

He was into it. Like, all the ladies came out in the neighborhood still, and they're like, Eric Estrada. He's like, that's right. And his hair quivered. He's like, do we have any punk or new waivers in the neighborhood? You got to see that up, man.

It's good. That was a great show. Maybe the best theme song of all time, too. Yeah, it's pretty good. Didn't we try to model our own TV show theme song after that, but then didn't? Wasn't that the original idea? It was like to make it like chips?

Oh, no, it was a different show. What was it? It was like, it was supposed to be like a takeoff on one of the great legendary TV shows openings. I don't remember what it was. Well, we did do the Laverne and Shirley Up and Down thing. But I don't remember what it was. Maybe Chad can tell us.

Yeah, we failed on so many levels there. It's pretty remarkable. Chad's the director of the show, by the way. That's right. In case you don't know Chad. So there was a task force that President Obama put together in December of last year that, and I always wonder about these when they say things like,

I'm going to call for better international cooperation and collaboration. Like, I know there are more details to that that probably make it seem like it has teeth, but when you hear that, it kind of feels like, is that really going to do anything? Sure. Like when rubber meets the road? No.

And these people are out there fishing in the deep ocean? Like, oh, I said we needed to cooperate and collaborate. So let's do it. Yeah. Like, enforcement is what we need. Well, there's these guys who are trying to get the enforcement end down, Chuck, down at the University of South Florida.

They've come up with basically a little module called Grupper Check. Yeah, their names are John Paul and Robert Ulrich, which I wanted to be Robert Ulrich so bad. Yeah, it's close. I kept thinking, wasn't that the guy's name? But I was mixing up Skeet Ulrich with Robert Ulrich. This is his second career.

Yeah, might be the same person for all I know. But apparently, this little thing looks like an external hard drive plugged into a laptop. Sure, a module. And it can test four samples at a time. Even if they have sauce on them already. And it takes a. Which means that you're sitting at the table running a test,

a DNA test on your dinner. Yeah, that's what you do, you go in the restaurant and slip it. That's what this, that woman who led the Oceania study said that she, that was a great Atlantic article. She sneaks in and she goes into restaurants with little ziplocks and you know, just puts a little bit of fish in there. But the people who are with her,

like you don't have to put it in your mouth first, and spit it out, just put it in the bag directly. So the grouper check machine works in 45 minutes, which is the only thing it checks for is whether it's a grouper. It goes, ding, it's grouper. And then you go, oh no, my grouper's cold. Yeah, exactly.

It's been 45 minutes. Fish stew, that's your answer there. Oh yeah. But they are working on many other types of checkers for other types of fish. Right. The big problem with DNA sequencing is it takes at least 12 hours to do it, you know, through DNA.

So it's just not happening. No one's DNA sequencing for 12 hours on all these ships all over the world. Like fish fraud, I don't see how they can fix it. Get it down to 45 minutes. Get them in the hands of inspectors. And get like a thousand times more inspectors. We're gonna bust you, buddy.

Yeah. Hannah, you Canadian fraudulent fish guy. Is that the idea is that fear will be stricken into the hearts of these fisher people? I think so. And then they will say. Because you know them, fisher people scare really easy.

Yeah, that's true. I've seen jaws. Right. They buckle at the first sign of trouble. That's it. Anything else? No, I'm good, man. That was fish fraud.

Yeah. And shout out to that great article in the Atlantic appropriately. Yeah. And check out that bait and switch, I think. Yeah. That's a very clever title. Yeah.

Check out that Oceana map too. And go to your city and they will have some compiled studies from all over the world. And you can avoid those restaurants. Yeah. If you want. Right.

Or support it if you want. Sure. I feel like I love fish fraud. That's it. If you want to know more about fish fraud, type those words in the search bar at howstuffworks.com. And I said fraud,

so it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this hunting response. Remember we talked about hunting in what was it, polar bears? Yes. And we don't get it, but I certainly knew that there would be some good arguments from some of the back to nature folks.

Sure. Back to nature featuring guns. Hey guys, grew up in suburbia and moved to the big city for college and finally had the opportunity to move out to the sticks again when my wife finished grad school and took a job. We were committed to getting back to nature,

living more simply. So we raised pigs and chickens for meat and eggs in every autumn I hunt for deer and elk. Going on my fourth year here, and this is in Montana by the way, the meat I hunt is 100% organic and free range. It lived one to three years as a wild animal rather than in a cramped pin with a dung matted floor.

It was eliminated by a predator, albeit with the help of a rifle. But after pulling a trigger, it will stop breathing within two minutes. This is an extremely quick death for a prey animal that may otherwise be bled to death or jumped by a pack of coyotes. The winter will kill off many of these animals anyway

via the cold starvation disease or infection. And the hunting license that allows me to take an animal indicates a gender and species so the fish and game can manage herd numbers. Fawns and pregnant animals are never taken. Most often young males are, as they will have the least impact on herd population. It is a difficult thing to do to pull the trigger.

I get the shakes every time still, but I'm satisfied that my family will have a healthy and natural meat for dinner for the winter and grateful to the animal that provided it. I suppose I could just go down to my local megamart and buy the sterile white package from behind the glass that just doesn't feel right to me anymore. That is from Jason from Montana.

And those are very good points, Jason. Thanks a lot, Jason. Although, you could argue that he could just wait until winter comes and go collect the dead bodies of the deer and elk. I don't know that it works that way. I mean, they gotta fall over somewhere, right? Then everybody wins.

Blame it on mother nature. You just happen to be there when they fell over. Thanks a lot, Jason. And to everybody who wrote in to talk to us about hunting, you can get in touch with us, try to persuade us to see things your way by tweeting to us at S-Y-S-K Podcast, or you can hang out with me at Josh M. Clark.

You can hang out with Chuck on Facebook at Charles W. Chuck Bryant or facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us both an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, at stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,

visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back

into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

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