Although teens have been in the news lately because of a university-lead push for a lower drinking age (yikes, I say!), that’s not what this particular blog post is about.  This is the tale of two teenagers who decided to take a love for good seafood to another level.  They tested the honesty of the labels of fish at various supermarkets—and restaurants—in New York.

The results are a little shocking, actually.  I’ve read on an off about mislabeled seafood, but this little experiment turned up a surprising percentage of mislabeled fish.  Though their test was admittedly small (60 samples), they found that a quarter of all their samples were mislabeled.  Two of the four restaurants they bought fish from sold mislabeled seafood, and six of the ten supermarkets they sampled also sold mislabeled seafood.

They got all that information (and a feature in the New York Times, no less) simply by sending samples off to a lab where the DNA “bar codes” of the samples were compared to the “bar codes” of known species.  They found such trickery as tilapia mislabeled as much pricier white tuna, and fish labeled red snapper that was actually an endangered species of redfish.

The young ladies say that the fish could have been mislabeled anywhere from sea to table, so they aren’t laying blame.  But it makes me wonder who is responsible, and who has the responsibility to verify the species of fish being sold.  How do you know what kind of fish your restaurant is buying to cook up and sell?  How do you assure that you are getting what you pay for?  If you’re not sure, it might be time to check the honesty of your chain of supply.  (And then serve your brilliant seafood creations on some great seafood plates!)