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Restaurant bites back when customer video shows worm in fish

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posted on Aug, 1 2018 @ 02:29 PM
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originally posted by: seagull
...and y'all really don't wanna know what goes into fishsticks. Oh, no, you do not.



Spill the beans please? Hell, I fished for years, freshwater, and usually any summer fish I caught other than pan fish went into a brine and then in the smoker. Too many worms in them in the summer. Kinda thinking fish sticks are like hot dogs? lol

To be honest, I love fish and therefore refused to even watch the video! lol But I have felt thru many fillets of fish I have caught and threw plenty out for the raccoons to eat because I felt the bumps/worms.



posted on Aug, 1 2018 @ 02:59 PM
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a reply to: seeker1963

OK, don't say I didn't warn you...

Now, realize that this information is something like 15 years old. I've been away from it for a while now...it's most definitely a young persons game...or a person with good knees.

Anyway.

Your typical Pacific cod weighs in at between 4 to 10 pounds...when it's run through the filet machine--the ones we used were made by Baader Food Processing--you get between 15 to 20 percent recovery, sometimes more, sometimes less, the rest is turned into fish oil, fish meal, and bone meal.

Now, that raw unprocessed filet is sent to trimmers, usually human, though there was some work being done at the time to develop machinery to do that. But the filets aren't even close to uniform in size, texture, and various other issues cropped up constantly--or so I was told.

So, the filet is in the hands of the human trimmer, who is usually cold, tired, and just wants the day to end. Been there, done that...

First thing to go is the belly flap, usually heavily stained by the gall bladder which is invariably damaged by the rough usage they get in the unloading process--they're vacuumed off the bigger boats, and hand pitched off the smaller ones. There's technique to it called a J-cut, that removes most, if not all, the pin bones, and any backbone that's left.

Second thing done is a rough check for, and trim, of bones and skin. If that's too bad, it'll be sent back through the skinner at the end of the machine. That's one of the things we always had to check constantly, as the skinners would get out of whack very easily if the fish came in partially frozen. Alaska. Winter.

Then whatever is left of the tail section trimmed, then it's sent to the candling tables.

But, the trimmings are sent to a grinder that has a sieve that separates out the bones and skin. Supposedly... Most of the time, the sieve works fine, and catches most of it. The mince that results from that process, which includes those aforementioned belly flaps, is smoothed into rings to be placed in plate freezers, then frozen. That's the entirety of the process at that end. Trust me when I say, it can look nasty. I love me some fishsticks, or did. It's been nearly thirty years since I've had one...
.

After they're frozen, they're cased up, and sent to Gortens and other end processors. Where I worked, Gortens was our second largest contract--our finished filets and the mince went directly to them. While our whole fish went to Japan, monstrous market, and Norway, almost as massive.

The mince is then unfrozen, run through two or three cleaning/bleaching cycles, then pressed and cut into those yummy fishsticks we all loved as kids. If buy fishsticks you must, buy the ones made from filets. It'll say on the box.

The process is almost identical for fake lobster and crab...though much more thorough and painstaking. Pollock is used for that...though, again, that might have changed in the past decade or so.

So there you are...fish sticks are made from the leavings of a rather nasty fish.



posted on Aug, 1 2018 @ 03:05 PM
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originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: seeker1963

OK, don't say I didn't warn you...

Now, realize that this information is something like 15 years old. I've been away from it for a while now...it's most definitely a young persons game...or a person with good knees.

Anyway.

Your typical Pacific cod weighs in at between 4 to 10 pounds...when it's run through the filet machine--the ones we used were made by Baader Food Processing--you get between 15 to 20 percent recovery, sometimes more, sometimes less, the rest is turned into fish oil, fish meal, and bone meal.

Now, that raw unprocessed filet is sent to trimmers, usually human, though there was some work being done at the time to develop machinery to do that. But the filets aren't even close to uniform in size, texture, and various other issues cropped up constantly--or so I was told.

So, the filet is in the hands of the human trimmer, who is usually cold, tired, and just wants the day to end. Been there, done that...

First thing to go is the belly flap, usually heavily stained by the gall bladder which is invariably damaged by the rough usage they get in the unloading process--they're vacuumed off the bigger boats, and hand pitched off the smaller ones. There's technique to it called a J-cut, that removes most, if not all, the pin bones, and any backbone that's left.

Second thing done is a rough check for, and trim, of bones and skin. If that's too bad, it'll be sent back through the skinner at the end of the machine. That's one of the things we always had to check constantly, as the skinners would get out of whack very easily if the fish came in partially frozen. Alaska. Winter.

Then whatever is left of the tail section trimmed, then it's sent to the candling tables.

But, the trimmings are sent to a grinder that has a sieve that separates out the bones and skin. Supposedly... Most of the time, the sieve works fine, and catches most of it. The mince that results from that process, which includes those aforementioned belly flaps, is smoothed into rings to be placed in plate freezers, then frozen. That's the entirety of the process at that end. Trust me when I say, it can look nasty. I love me some fishsticks, or did. It's been nearly thirty years since I've had one...
.

After they're frozen, they're cased up, and sent to Gortens and other end processors. Where I worked, Gortens was our second largest contract--our finished filets and the mince went directly to them. While our whole fish went to Japan, monstrous market, and Norway, almost as massive.

The mince is then unfrozen, run through two or three cleaning/bleaching cycles, then pressed and cut into those yummy fishsticks we all loved as kids. If buy fishsticks you must, buy the ones made from filets. It'll say on the box.

The process is almost identical for fake lobster and crab...though much more thorough and painstaking. Pollock is used for that...though, again, that might have changed in the past decade or so.

So there you are...fish sticks are made from the leavings of a rather nasty fish.


In other words, fish hotdogs...



posted on Aug, 1 2018 @ 03:06 PM
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a reply to: seagull


Thanks for the detailed explanation! However, I can honestly say I am not surprised.



posted on Aug, 1 2018 @ 03:17 PM
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a reply to: Edumakated

Yep. Though, at that time, hot dogs were much more regulated. I have no idea whether that's the case or not now.

There is an industry standard for amount of extraneous stuff, such as skin, bone fragments, etc... Much more stringent than the FDA regs. Or it was. Like I said above, I'm a decade plus out of the game.

Sometimes I miss it, but I'm a tad bit too old, and busted up, to deal with the work conditions involved. I don't do office work well, I'm much more a hands on down in the dirt sort. Or fish guts...
.



posted on Aug, 1 2018 @ 04:47 PM
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originally posted by: oldcarpy
a reply to: paraphi


Agreed. You only need to look on TripAdvisor where you always get a few tossers giving bad reviews. We have been to some apartments in Greece which are lovely, been several times now which is unusual for us to go back to the same place. A recent review complained about the pool being concrete with no tiles. Which is just untrue, it is a lovely pool. This sort of thing affects people's livelihoods.

We once stayed at Keith Floyd's old place in Devon - the Maltsters Arms - and one review complained about a run of gloss paint behind a radiator!

Some people, eh?


Each time you have to let a bad worker go, like one we caught stealing recently, they will have their friends make fake bad reviews.



posted on Aug, 1 2018 @ 07:07 PM
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a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

I worked at a Long John Silver's one Summer on school break. I hated cleaning out the fryers at night, and trying not to get burned.

One day when the manager was cutting fish (cod); one of them had worms. He threw the fish out, and I had to clean and sterilize the entire back room with bleach. One of my co-workers commented that we had a good manager/store because they had worked at another location where the manager would have rinsed the fish off and prepared it to serve it anyway.

After that, I rarely eat fish anymore. It really really grossed me out.



posted on Aug, 1 2018 @ 09:23 PM
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originally posted by: seagull
That's why most, if not all by now, fish are what's called IQF frozen. Stands for Instant Quick Freeze. Filets such as the cod we're speaking of, are placed on trays between layers of plastic, and rolled into a blast freezer that runs at -50 degrees F, or thereabouts, takes about 10-20 minutes to freeze, but the trick is not to freeze 'em too long or the product get dried out and the quality rapidly declines.

There are other things that have to be factored in, as well, for the sake of quality... It's sometimes a bit tricky trying to balance speed and quality. Especially when you're the quality control guy (me), getting yelled at by the production guys because I won't let 'em start early, or hold frozen product in warm air. It can get loud!


I usually buy the IQF cod loins when I buy cod. I keep about four packages in my freezer all the time to make Kalamojaka when I want it. I also buy cleaned whole cleaned whitefish from the fish house here, they get it from the nets every day. It costs about four fifty a pound that way, but they charge eleven bucks a pound around here for filets of whitefish. cutting it myself and vaccuum packing it raises the filet cost to about six bucks a pound. It is still expensive, but better than paying eleven. Occasionally at the fresh fish sales they will have filets on sale for eight ninety nine a pound, that is better than eleven.



posted on Aug, 1 2018 @ 11:00 PM
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a reply to: rickymouse

Don't you love those prices??

Would you like to know how much the fishermen who risk life and limb to catch those hideously expensive fish get paid??

This year it was around 2500 dollars per metric tonne, this was during the winter, what they used to call the A season. During the B season (sept. - Nov), it'll be a bit less. Roughly 1.25 dollars a pound. Quite the mark up, eh?
edit on 8/1/2018 by seagull because: (no reason given)



posted on Aug, 1 2018 @ 11:04 PM
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a reply to: fastfred

They didn't need to bleach it, at least not because of the worms.

Cleaners like good ol' fashioned soap and water are sufficient. Bleach is generally used to kill the smell.



posted on Aug, 1 2018 @ 11:12 PM
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a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Not sure if you're familiar with what are called idiot fish? Picture red snapper, only better.

They're, in Alaska anyway, usually by-catch during black cod harvest on long-liners, another good fish, oily as all get out, but good eatin'.

I'm sure idiot fish have another name, but I'm not familiar with it... But it's an accurate name, they are a weird looking fish.



posted on Aug, 1 2018 @ 11:16 PM
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Ok wtf i love me some fish but might not eat any more fish after this thread.

I ussualy get mahi and even talapia, I know talapia is considered a crap fish but i like its texture and bland fish taste.

What about ahi tuna?

So what can you do to be safe from these worms when eating fish? Or whats the safest fish to eat?



I need to find john titor so i can go back in time just before i read this thread.

edit on 23831America/ChicagoWed, 01 Aug 2018 23:23:00 -0500000000p3142 by interupt42 because: (no reason given)

edit on 31831America/ChicagoWed, 01 Aug 2018 23:31:12 -0500000000p3142 by interupt42 because: (no reason given)



posted on Aug, 2 2018 @ 12:13 AM
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a reply to: interupt42

Sorry, 'bout that...

Tuna, in my experience don't have near the parasites that white fish have.

Nor do salmon. I'm sure there are other fish that don't either.

Talapia is good eating.



posted on Aug, 2 2018 @ 04:55 AM
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originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: rickymouse

Don't you love those prices??

Would you like to know how much the fishermen who risk life and limb to catch those hideously expensive fish get paid??

This year it was around 2500 dollars per metric tonne, this was during the winter, what they used to call the A season. During the B season (sept. - Nov), it'll be a bit less. Roughly 1.25 dollars a pound. Quite the mark up, eh?


I used to buy fish from a local Indian fisherman, he also sold to the fish house here. I got them for a buck fifty a pound. That was three years ago. Whitefish, trout, or salmon were all the same price. I had to meet him at the lakeshore when he got in. But he went and had a heart attack on me and died. Nice guy, it sucks when someone you know really well dies. I felt bad for his wife, she loved going out with him fishing. He had some of the best smoked fish I ever had and bottled smoked salmon too. He also made pickled whitefish. I need to find out who took over his area so I can buy directly from him.



posted on Aug, 2 2018 @ 04:57 AM
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originally posted by: interupt42
Ok wtf i love me some fish but might not eat any more fish after this thread.

I ussualy get mahi and even talapia, I know talapia is considered a crap fish but i like its texture and bland fish taste.

What about ahi tuna?

So what can you do to be safe from these worms when eating fish? Or whats the safest fish to eat?



I need to find john titor so i can go back in time just before i read this thread.



I like a good wild caught pollack better than talapia. I get those IQF too.
edit on 2-8-2018 by rickymouse because: (no reason given)



posted on Aug, 2 2018 @ 06:49 AM
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originally posted by: seagull
Not sure if you're familiar with what are called idiot fish? Picture red snapper, only better.

They're, in Alaska anyway, usually by-catch during black cod harvest on long-liners, another good fish, oily as all get out, but good eatin'.

I'm sure idiot fish have another name, but I'm not familiar with it... But it's an accurate name, they are a weird looking fish.


When I was up there that's what I knew them as also.



posted on Aug, 2 2018 @ 07:25 AM
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a reply to: dug88

As an ex fishmonger you will find it hard to find cod without some type of worm in them. Most you can not see but I used to butcher some cod and they are riddled with them because their fave food is seal poo.



posted on Aug, 2 2018 @ 07:31 AM
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ETA: I stand corrected-this is jersey.
edit on 2-8-2018 by Sparkitekt because: Mistake



posted on Aug, 2 2018 @ 11:08 AM
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a reply to: seagull





I'm sure idiot fish have another name, but I'm not familiar with it... But it's an accurate name, they are a weird looking fish.


I never heard of it but it looks like its called Shortspine thornyhead.



en.wikipedia.org...

The shortspine thornyhead (Sebastolobus alascanus) is a species of fish in the Sebastidae family. It is sometimes referred to as the "idiot fish" or "idiot cod" due to its large oversize head/eyes. It is found in Canada, Russia, and the United States.





posted on Aug, 2 2018 @ 03:09 PM
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That's the one.

Oh, bit of trivia, you see those spiny fins on the top? Do not, under any circumstances, step on those. Just don't.

One, it hurts, a lot. One b, it goes completely through boots, into your foot, between the bones, and kinda lodge there.

As I said, it hurts, a lot. Also, infection is virtually assured. Almost had to be medi-evaced by the Coast Guard.

They are good eating, though.




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