WARNING: FAKE LOBSTERS

Next time you buy lobsters, make sure that you aren’t tricked into buying a phony substitute. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, supposedly the nation’s protector against deceptive labeling, has recently permitted sellers of surimi, a fish-paste product that looks like lobster or crab, to drop the term “imitation” from the label.

Twenty years ago, the FDA ruled that any surimi-based product that looks like lobster or crab or any other natural seafood must be labeled “imitation” if it is “nutritionally inferior to that seafood.” The agency went on to say: “To date FDA has not encountered any surimi-based product in which nutritional equivalency has been achieved.”

Our great protector has now changed its mind, after years of lobbying by elements in the commercial seafood industry. The label may now legally say, “Lobster-(or crab or shrimp or scallop) flavored seafood, made with surimi, a fully cooked fish protein.” It told the National Fisheries Institute that the word “imitation” could be omitted, but it said nothing about its earlier finding that surimi was nutritionally inferior.

That mouthful of words calculated to lure unsuspecting customers doesn’t tell the whole story. According to the Food and Wine Dictionary, most surimi sold in North America is made from Alaska pollock that is skinned, boned, rinsed and ground into an odorless white paste. Then flavoring is added, and the stuff is formed, cooked, shaped and colored to look like chunks of lobster, crab legs, shrimp or scallops. It is said to keep up to two months under refrigeration and up to six months in the freezer if unopened. Once opened, it should be used within three days. It is also cheaper than the real thing.

If that appeals to you, so be it. The Japanese have been eating it since 1100 AD. But the Maine Lobster Promotion Council calls the rule change an invitation to “deceptive marketing.” And David Cousins, president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, told The Wall Street Journal that the new labeling would just confuse consumers. He said the surimi imitations are cheaper and look like the real thing but “they don’t taste the same at all.”

A spokesman for Trident Seafoods Corp. in Seattle, which sells refrigerated and surimi products called “Lobster Delights” and “Sea Legs,” told the Journal, “Hopefully, people who were turned off by the word ‘imitation’ will take another look and give it a try.”

Actually, the surimi folks have been getting off easy. Instead of “imitation,” their look-alike lobster chunks and crab legs, could have more simply been labeled “fake.”