I've been hearing about issues with seafood labeling (and mislabeling) for years. As it turns out, if you don't have a PCR machine in your kitchen, there's no way to know if the red snapper you picked up at the store is actually tilapia. It's disheartening--but very important--to learn that the issue isn't going away.

A few years ago, my grad school pal (and now professor!) Cheryl Logan published a paper on the mislabeling of red snapper on the West Coast, and now Oceana has released a similar report for the East Coast.


Both of these studies focus on fish, and just a few species at that. Research into the accuracy of squid labeling is pretty limited, but given how impossible it seems to be for people to tell the difference between giant squid and Humboldt squid, I would not be the slightest bit surprised to find mislabeled squid in the supermarket.


I don't buy seafood myself, but I know I would be pretty irritated to find out that my seitan steaks were actually just mislabeled tofu.


[Alternate title: In Which I Link To A Dozen Things I've Already Written. But they're all relevant, I swear!]