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Anatomy of a fish rigging
Anatomy of a fish rigging

Video: Anatomy of a fish rigging

Video: Anatomy of a fish rigging
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Eighty percent of fish marketed as "chilled," according to the Fisheries Agency, is counterfeit. A whole segment of defrosted products has appeared on the Russian fish market, which is sold under the guise of chilled.

… And you don't have to go to the circus. The specialist has something to laugh at: we go into one of the most expensive and prestigious supermarket chains. We are moving to the fish department. Beauty! It's quite smart here. Attention is drawn to the spacious counter with a wide assortment. 27 types of fish and seafood are neatly laid out on the ice. This is where the pleasant experience ends.

First of all, let me remind you that the phrase "chilled fish" is a very specific commodity term, a technical condition with a very specific GOST 814-96. That is, this is one of three generally possible options for selling fish. In the store, it can be either live in aquariums, or frozen in freezers, or chilled on so-called glaciers.

Chilled fish is called the temperature of which in the thickness of the meat ranges from -1 to +5 and is constantly maintained at this level. Only live, freshly caught fish is suitable for cooling. It is very important! That is, according to GOST, it is impossible to make chilled fish from frozen fish. Only from the living! Small chilled fish is transported and stored in the indicated temperature regime for 7-9 days and gutted and large fish up to 10-12 days. Chilled fish is an extremely delicate product, and only under such conditions, within a few days, it makes its short journey from the moment of catch to sale.

Anatomy of falsification
Anatomy of falsification

To be convinced of the quality of the chilled fish, it is not at all necessary to ask the seller a question, who most often will answer that "the fish was brought in in the morning." How long the fish spent on the way from the place of catch to the counter, he will not say for sure. Moreover, you will not understand this even if you look into the documents accompanying the fish. But a superficial knowledge of geography and fishing will help not to run into falsification. It is enough to look at the fish itself and touch it.

Pro tip: the easiest and most intuitive signs of how to tell fresh from stale fish

The surface of the fish must be clean, without damage, only slight crumbling of the scales is allowed. The scales on the body of fresh fish are of natural color, shiny, adhere tightly, there is no mucus. The body of a stale fish is tarnished or completely dull, the scales are knocked down in places, does not hold tightly, easily falls off.

An unpleasant fishy smell should also alert you. Fresh fish of normal quality smells like sea, fresh clean water or ozone, or has no smell at all.

We look into the mouth, eyes and under the gills of the fish. The mouth should be closed. If it is slightly open, or even more open, then the fish is not fresh. The eyes should be protruding with a transparent cornea. Sunken, dull, worse, sunken, dull eyes indicate that the fish is already stale. In fresh fish, the gill covers fit snugly against the odorless, bright red gills. If they are loosely covered, gray with mucus and a pungent odor of dampness or a sour smell, and even more so dark brown in color with mucus with a musty, putrid smell - such fish is usually called rotten.

The back and muscles of fresh fish are firm to the touch, the finger pressure dimple quickly aligns without leaving any marks. The meat of the stale fish is darkened, easily separates from the bones, the fossa from the pressure of the finger is sluggish and slowly levels out. We look at the abdomen. It is not swollen in fresh fish. In stale ones, it is more often burst with loss or without loss of viscera.

And now the simplest thing is to put the fish on your hand or put it in the water. If the fish does not bend in the palm of your hand and drowns in water, it is fresh. If it does not drown in water, but if it is placed on the arm bends in an arc, then the fish has died. You can use a spatula instead of a palm. It is from this absolutely exact point of view of GOST that we continue to examine and touch the goods.

"ZAKOS" FOR SEABAS AND DORADO

"Seabass (sea wolf) Mediterranean Sea". "Dorado (sea carp) Mediterranean Sea". Great choice! Well, we are considering. First, according to all of the above features, this chilled fish spread out on the glacier is stale. Secondly, she is not from the Mediterranean. Remember, neither wild sea bass nor wild sea dorado is imported to Russia! They bring to us exclusively fish grown in aquaculture farms, which is much smaller in size and much cheaper. For example, the length of a wild sea bass reaches 1 meter, and its weight is 12 kg. Such a fish is five times more expensive than an artificially grown one.

Anatomy of falsification
Anatomy of falsification

I will repeat again, not a single kilogram of seabass, not a single kilogram of dorado caught in the Mediterranean Sea has been imported to Russia over the past 23 years, according to the Federal Customs Service. We look further. “Chilled ice fish. Arctic Ocean at 149 rubles per 100 grams. Everything on this price tag is false, except for the price. It may sound like a revelation for commodity experts at other supermarkets, but Russian fishermen do not catch ice fish. And it is mainly mined by fishermen in Spain, Australia, Canada and not in the Arctic Ocean, which is actually called the Arctic Ocean, but on the opposite, southern side of our planet, in the distant Antarctic, in the southwestern part of the Atlantic Ocean.

Therefore, icefish comes to Russia exclusively frozen. In the old days, when Soviet fishermen fished all over the World Ocean, ice fish was very popular with us and, along with pollock and blue whiting, belonged to the lowest price category. But never, n-and-k-o-g-d-a, ice fish did not lie on the shelves of our stores in a chilled form. This cannot be by definition. Due to the geographical remoteness of the fishery and the impossibility of supplying it chilled according to the standards. Even if retailers called their chain "the world's best grocery supermarkets."

Anatomy of falsification
Anatomy of falsification

Attention! Chilled shrimp fish from New Zealand cannot be sold in Moscow. There can't be chilled Indian Ocean tuna fillets here. There can be no chilled catfish. Imagine a technological refrigeration chain according to standards from fish catch to sales with tight deadlines … Now tell me, can a chilled halibut fillet lie on a glacier in Moscow?

Given that this fish is caught in the area of the Spitsbergen archipelago, from where it takes four days for the ship to reach Murmansk ?! Fishermen generally go fishing for a month, for two … There cannot be in our capital, even if it is called the port of the seven seas, neither chilled turbot from the Atlantic Ocean, nor perch, nor red mullet, nor swordfish from the Indian, nor coho salmon from Chile, no barramundi from Vietnam, no mackerel from Iceland, no black cod from the Far East. Especially for the commodity experts of this market, I will inform you that yellowfin flounder is not harvested at all in the Barents Sea.

All this is a lie, falsification. The scale of which is difficult to imagine. I suggest readers to independently assess this problem, and if something happens - not to be lazy, but to send their application to Rospotrebnadzor. I also ask you to consider this publication as an official appeal to this supervisory authority.

UNDER THE GUIDE OF "COOLED" SELL FALSE

German Zverev, Chairman of the RSPP Commission on Fisheries and Aquaculture:

- A whole segment of defrosted products has emerged on the Russian fish market, which is sold under the guise of chilled. A careful study of Rosstat reports shows that approximately 350 thousand tons of fish sold as chilled fish are not confirmed in origin. A significant amount of “chilled” is nothing more than a former frozen fish, which has increased its status at the behest of the seller. Importers give a lot of fish falsification. For example, in 2013, a unique phenomenon emerged on the Russian fish market: the production of chilled fish increased, despite the fact that external supplies of chilled raw materials decreased, while domestic supplies remained almost unchanged. The question arises: where are the raw materials for a significant increase in production from? The answer is simple - frozen fish.

AT THE PRICE OF A CAST IRON BRIDGE

Valentin Balashov, Chairman of the Board of the Interregional Association of Coastal Fisheries of the Northern Basin:

- In Moscow, at the Danilovsky market, they praised me ice-covered chilled squid fillets produced on a ship, which I know very well. I know that this ship is fishing for squid … in the Bering Sea, about three days' sail from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and a week's sail from Vladivostok. Anyway, chilled squid fillets could have been delivered from there only by helicopter. And next to it lay chilled cod fillets, which, according to the seller, were made at sea, right on the ship. It would be better if he didn’t say that, because everything produced on board the fishing vessels of the Northern Basin cod fillets are immediately frozen. I responsibly declare: most of those who like to buy chilled fish and seafood and enjoy their consumer properties and high quality do not even realize that they buy frozen fish at the price of, as they say, a cast-iron bridge. Greedy traders earn colossal money on total fish falsification and simultaneously promote the brand of imported, mainly Norwegian fish. Unfortunately, in Russia it is most often disguised as chilled.

WHERE IS FRESH, WHERE IS NOT VERY

Even a layman can determine the freshness of a fish. The surface of the fish should be clean, without damage, slight chipping of the scales (natural color, shiny, without mucus) is allowed. The body of a stale fish is tarnished or completely dull, the scales are knocked down in places, easily falls off. Fresh fish of normal quality smells like the sea, fresh clean water or ozone, or it has no smell at all, and its belly is not swollen, while in stale fish it is more often burst, with entrails falling out.

WE CHECK THE QUALITY "MANUALLY"

The mouth of the fresh fish is closed. If it is slightly open or uncovered, then the fish is stale. The eyes should be protruding with a transparent cornea. The sunken cloudy eyes indicate that the fish is already stale. A simple freshness test: place the fish on your hand or submerge it in water. Fresh fish does not bend in the palm of your hand and sinks in water. If it does not sink, but bends in an arc on the arm, it means that it has died. You can use a spatula instead of a palm.

NUMBER

80 percent of fish marketed as “chilled,” according to the Fisheries Agency, is counterfeit!

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