TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/011689/01168900.000

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 3.7 KB | 74 lines

                                                                                FOOD, Page 80

A Fishy Deal in the Freezer


Surreptitious surimi masquerades as choice seafood


    Surimi is a) slices of raw fish, b) George Bush's designated
chief of staff, c) a tidal wave, d) a new compact car, e) a form
of self-defense. The correct answer: none of the above. Few
people recognize the name or know the product when they see it,
but surimi is one of the hottest foods in the U.S. today. And
though it sounds like an exotic delicacy, surimi is in fact the
most pedestrian of edibles: a processed fish paste that serves,
with a bit of doctoring, as an all-purpose seafood. Surimi now
masquerades -- often illegally -- as crab, shrimp, lobster and
scallops at salad bars, restaurants and supermarkets across the
U.S. Knowingly and unknowingly, Americans will consume about 125
million lbs. of surimi this year, 20 times the amount eaten in
1980.

    Long a staple in Japan, where it was developed nine
centuries ago, surimi has become a fixture in the U.S. diet
because of the growing popularity of fish as a health food. But
since many kinds of seafood have become pricey, surimi is the
cheaper alternative for restaurants and grocers. Fresh crab,
for example, goes for $15 to $20 a lb., compared with $5 to $6
for surimi look-alikes.

    Making surimi is fairly simple. Fish flesh, usually from the
plentiful Alaskan pollack, is minced and washed in chilled water
until it becomes a thick mass. It is then mixed with flavorings,
preservatives and stabilizers -- among them, sugar, salt,
starch, monosodium glutamate -- and shaped into blocks and
frozen. To create crab or lobster look-alikes, slabs of surimi,
sometimes laced with a few dollops of actual shellfish, are
artfully molded into sticks and chunks and streaked with red
food coloring to mimic the real thing. Discerning taste buds,
however, can tell the difference. Surimi tends to be
salty-sweet, and its texture is rubbery.

    Critics charge that surimi is a fishy deal. Declares Michael
Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a
Washington-based consumer group: "It just isn't as nutritious
as regular seafood." A study by the National Food Processors
Association found that surimi is lower in fat and cholesterol
than many fish. But it also has less protein and is much higher
in sugar and salt. A typical surimi product weighing 4 oz. has
735 mg of sodium, about four times what a similar amount of
scallops contains and nine times the level in flounder.
Moreover, the manufacturing process washes out a lot of vitamins
and minerals, as well as oils like omega-3 fatty acids that are
now thought to protect people from heart disease.

    Producers acknowledge surimi's nutritional shortcomings
compared with other seafood. "It is a processed convenience
food," says Lee Weddig of the National Fisheries Institute, a
Washington trade group. "It is the same as Velveeta is to
natural cheddar." Still, Wedding stresses that surimi is not
inferior to many other foods. "It has more protein than eggs,
yogurt and processed meat," he says.

    Aside from nutritional concerns, critics fret that consumers
are being misled. According to a 1985 ruling by the Food and
Drug Administration, packaged surimi must be labeled "imitation"
unless it has been fortified to be nutritionally equivalent to
crab, scallops or whatever. But the regulation is frequently
ignored by groceries and fish markets. Patrons of fast-food
eateries, delis and restaurants, meanwhile, must look out for
themselves. The only state to require that dishes made with
imitation seafood be so identified on menus is Maine, where the
real thing still remains supreme.