Is 'Tuna Scrape' the new Pink Slime?

Just when you thought the Pink Slime outburst subsided, another pink food imitation has reared its ugly head: tuna scrape. Geez, I've already seen how beef is mutilated and transformed until unrecognizable but leave my spicy tuna roll alone! This is a sad, sad day.

So what is tuna scrape and why am I crying over fish? Let me explain. Tuna scrape is "tuna backmeat", which is meat scraped directly off from tuna bones mixed into a ground product a.k.a. tuna hamburger (source). This fishy "hamburger" meat is then sold to restaurants and supermarkets in hopes become a spicy tuna roll or other recipe that includes ground or chopped fish, but this frog has failed to become a prince. 

This sad-excuse-for-a-tuna (Nakaochi Scrape AA or AAA) has caused 116 people in 20 states to become ill due to Salmonella Bareilly. It this particular case, it should be called Tunanella, too soon? According to public media source, WRVO, 58,828 pounds of this stuff has been recalled. Yikes! This is far from a small problem.

If it's Tuna Scrape, you may opt for the brains instead.

The FDA stated that they have traced the illness back to certain lots of tuna scrape from Moon Marine and there could potentially be more infected tuna meat out there (source). This whole situation sounds fishy to me, how about you? 

Given the whole outburst about pink slime (click here to read my post about Pink Slime), how does tuna scrape measure up regarding its danger factor. Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, gives his expertise about two things to consider when thinking about health and    ground fish meat: 

(1) "My rule of thumb is that raw food of animal origin should be cooked before it's eaten," and 

(2) does ground fish cause more health problems? "For chicken, turkey and beef, the ground product tends to be more contaminated than the whole cuts" That's been the issue with ground beef because one contaminated carcass can spread disease to the whole batch (source).

So what have we learned? Well, raw fish doesn't mean it's free of germs which alone makes me skeptic of sushi-- always be cautious of your food's history! I don't know about you, but I feel the only way to avoid any health issues regarding food is to becoming vegan. Instead, I'll resort to "pass the shrimp tempura roll, please".