Bill Marler, of the legal firm specializing in food safety cases, lists his top 10 picks for the food safety scandals of 2008, beginning with globalization and ending with pet food.

And Food Chemical News (December 31) says the FDA will be testing for melamine in farmed fish and fish feed from China.  When Hong Kong officials said they found melamine at 6.6 ppm in fish feed, the FDA wondered whether melamine could accumulate in fish tissues.  Apparently, that is exactly what it does.  The Los Angeles Times  (December 24) says FDA testing found whopping amounts of melamine - 200 ppm - in catfish, trout, tilapia and salmon that had eaten melamine-tainted fish feed.  This is way higher than the maximum “safe” level of 2.5 ppm in food.  So put fish from China on your list of what not to eat.

Let’s hope the new president picks someone for USDA undersecretary and FDA commissioner who takes food safety seriously.  That’s my wish (well, one of them) for the new year. Peace to all.

The Washington Post says the FDA has breached the policy on fish consumption that it worked out with the EPA in 2004 and now proposes - in the last days of the Bush administration and without discussing the matter with EPA -  to increase the amount of fish considered safe for women and children.   Why?  Because, it says, the benefits of omega-3s in fish outweigh the risks of methylmercury contamination.  The EPA and environmental groups that work on fish safety are outraged, and with good cause, I’d say.  Check out the arguments.  You know this is about politics (translation: support of the fisheries industry) when the FDA says this is “science-based” policy (always a dead giveaway) and the Environmental Working Group says the FDA is nothing more than a “patsy for polluters.”

Actually, they are more or less here already, but the USDA National Organic Standards Board has just given them a big OK.   According to yesterday’s Food Chemical News, the Board approved (13 to 1) a rule to allow “farmed carnivorous fish to eat meal and oil derived from sustainably wild-caught fish — a practice to be phased out over 12 years until non-organic fish feed is no longer needed” (huh?).  It also approved a more controversial recommendation (the vote was 10 to 4) to “allow use of open net pens in organic aquaculture, but with restrictions to prevent escapes of farmed fish and recycling of nutrients. Net pens would only be allowed in specified areas to avoid lice contamination.”

USDA-approved agencies have been certifying farmed fish as organic for several years now, so the Board was forced to take a stand on this question.  As I have mentioned in previous posts on this topic (and written about extensively in What to Eat), organic rules are supposed to be about the conditions of production.

Since when is ocean water organic?   And isn’t feeding “sustainably wild-caught fish” to farmed fish something of an oxymoron? The producers of farmed fish are desperate to be able to market them as organic.  So isn’t this move more about marketing than about producing fish sustainably and healthfully?

While we are on the subject of marketing, I’ve just gotten a press release from a company selling what it says is the first certified organic bottled water.  Since when is water not organic?  And what’s so special about this one?

The National Organic Program says it welcomes feedback and comments.  Here’s where to send them.

As I explain in What to Eat, USDA’s National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) can’t figure out what to do about certifying fish as organic.  Organics are about production methods.  Wild fish eat whatever, wherever, and their production is uncontrolled.  Farm fish are fed whatever.  According to Food Chemical News (June 2), the NOSB held hearings on the use of fish meal and fish oil in organic aquaculture last month and postponed a decision until fall.  The issue:  is it OK for farmed salmon to “eat meal and oil derived from carcasses, viscera and trimmings from processed wild caught fish certified as ‘organic’ by foreign suppliers,”  when there are no U.S. standards for such certification.   I’d say no.  How about you?

Readers of the New York Times have lots to say about last week’s methylmercury-in-sushi article. One point is that Blue Fin tuna, the largest and therefore the most contaminated kind, are hugely overfished and disappearing from the oceans.  This is another reason not to eat this fish (vote with your fork) but also a reason to call for a moratorium on catching this fish (vote with your vote).

So yesterday’s New York Times report on methylmercury in sushi tuna–a shocker because the most expensive tuna has the most of this toxin (of course it does; it’s bigger and accumulates more)–is now experiencing the expected backlash. Sushi eaters don’t seem to care much, and the tuna industry is fighting back through its public relations agency, the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF). What is a tuna lover to do? If you aren’t pregnant, about to become pregnant, or a very young child (if you are, you should avoid big predatory fish like king mackeral, swordfish, tilefish, shark, and albacore tuna) the FDA and EPA say up to 6 ounces a week is OK. That leaves plenty of room for spending a fortune on sushi.

Here’s what Newsweek has to say about the CCF complaints. It’s great to see a news magazine blow the whistle on that group. Every word CCF says is paid for, and some tuna association pays it to say that methylmercury is not a problem.

I’m always surprised when people criticize the shallowness of USA Today when its reporters consistently write in-depth investigative reports that other newspapers ignore. This week, the paper is doing a series of reports on environmental toxins–lead, methylmercury, and endocrine disruptors. The one on the relationship of coal burning power plants to methylmercury in fish is particularly relevant to food issues (and is the subject of a chapter in What to Eat).

My latest interview with Eating Liberally is now posted. This “Ask Marion” delves into how to figure out the risks and benefits of eating raw fish: methylmercury (risk) v. omega-3 fats (benefit). It is also posted on Huffington, in the Living Now section.

Another question today: “I BUY FARM RAISED SALMON FROM SUPERMARKET IT IS FROM ASIA. DOESN’T SAY COLOR ADDED. I SEE ATLANTIC FISH SO CALLED, NATURAL COLOR ADDED. WHY WOULD THEY SAY THAT IF IT IS NATURAL?? DO YOU HAVE AN ANSWER FOR THAT ONE.. THANKS.
LOVE YOUR ARTICLES. AL.”

Weird, no? I discuss this problem in the Fish Quandaries chapter of What to Eat in the section called Label Quandary #3: Artificial Color. The bottom line: all farmed salmon is colored pink because otherwise it would be an unappetizing gray and nobody would buy it. The color, which is fed to fish in the food pellets, usually is a synthetic version of the natural pigment (which originates from krill) but is sometimes isolated from yeast. Is either “natural?” This could be argued either way but the real point is that the FDA has not produced a regulatory definition for “Natural.” It should, if for no other reason than to end the confusion. Food companies want everything to appear “natural” because they know it sells. The fish section is the wild west of the supermarket. Caveat emptor!

Wild salmon are a gorgeous salmon pink because the fish eat marine krill, tiny crustaceans loaded with pigments - mainly one called astaxanthin but also another called canthaxanthin. These get incorporated into the salmon’s flesh and can be identified by testing laboratories….

Farmed salmon, alas, are not fed krill. Instead they are fed pellets like the ones fed to cats or dogs. As a result, their flesh is an unattractive gray color. Research on the industry-important question of what best sells salmon demonstrates two things: the darker its pink color, the more likely you are to choose it over more lightly colored salmon; and if the salmon is gray, you will not buy it at all.

So salmon farmers resort to cosmetics.