Oilfish

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with oily fish.

For the Baikal oil fish, see Golomyanka.

Oilfish

Drawing by Dr Tony Ayling

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Perciformes
Family:	Gempylidae
Genus:	Ruvettus
Species:	R. pretiosus

Binomial name

Ruvettus pretiosus
Cocco, 1833

The oilfish, Ruvettus pretiosus, is a snake mackerel, the only species in the genus Ruvettus. It is found in tropical and temperate seas of the world, at depths of between 100 and 800 m. Its length is between 80 cm and 2 m.

The oilfish is similar to the silver gemfish but has a smaller mouth and eyes and a lower more jagged first dorsal fin. It is covered with small spiny scales and there is a row of small pores between each scale row.

Coloration is dark purple-brown on the back with a pale belly, and the pupil of the eye is brightly phosphorescent.

The flesh is very oily and although edible, the oil actually consists of wax esters, which are not digested like traditional oil. The flesh has an oil content of around 25%, and with serving sizes of several ounces and upwards commonplace, some people experience a laxative side effect from such a large amount of wax esters.

Olfish is pleasantly rich in taste and can be substantially cheaper than some other fish species, leading to some fish sellers to intentionally mislabel it as butterfish or even codfish despite the utter lack of relation. This leads the consumer to often eat large servings, as they assume it is a fish they are familiar with, and then some may experience a laxative effect. Because of this, Japan and Italy have imposed an import ban on oilfish and Australia has banned oilfish from being sold as food. The US FDA has warned consumers about potential mislabeling of oilfish, but has concluded that any laxative side effects that occur are at worst, uncomfortable, but pose no health risk.

[edit] Hong Kong Oilfish controversy

Hong Kong's PARKnSHOP supermarket was selling oilfish as "cod fish (oilfish)" in its stores. Consumers ate the fish believing it is codfish, then suffered oily diarrhea as a result. Afterwards 14 complaints were filed against the supermarket chain, leading to an investigation by the Centre for Food Safety. ParkNShop has denied responsibility, claiming the fish is safe for human consumption. Nonetheless, the chain has since stopped selling the fish product.^[1]^[2]^[3]
On 30 January 2007, the commercial attache from the Indonesian consulate in Hong Kong confirmed that the export health certificate Mr Peter Johnston, ParkNShop's Quality Food Safety and Regulatory Affairs General Manager, had used in its media conference several days earlier was doctored. The attache explained that its fisheries department, under a request from the Hong Kong importer, had changed the product name, by including "Cod Fish" alongside its scientific name, on the certificate.

This controversy was also a subject of investigation by TVB Newsmagazine.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported (Feb. 23, 2007) on several cases in Canada where mislabelled oilfish was sold at Chinese supermarkets. Canadians fall ill after eating mislabelled oily fish^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7]

Many other supermarkets, shops and restaurants were also found selling oilfish as "codfish". The Democratic Party is helping consumers to sue the retailers.^{[citation needed]}

In the United States, oilfish is becoming common, or even popular, in Chinese and Vietnamese supermarkets during the last few years. However, most of them mislabel and sell oilfish as "bass" or "sea bass."^{[citation needed]}