Sad news, folks: about a third of the fish you ate last in the two years was probably not what you thought it was. According to a new study, this huge oceanic conspiracy was pulled on pescatarians nationwide, but Northern Californians were especially hard hit. In the Bay Area, 58 percent of fish sold in restaurants was mislabeled or misidentified. It's like restaurants don't even care about ichthyology.

The Chronicle, details the study conducted by seafood truthers at activist group Oceana:

Genetic testing of 1,215 fish taken from 674 retail outlets, grocery stores and sushi bars throughout the United States between 2010 and 2012 found that 33 percent of the samples had been mislabeled, according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines.

Researchers with Oceana, a group dedicated to preserving the ocean ecosystem, reported finding seafood mislabeling in all 21 states where they tested, including retail outlets in San Francisco, Monterey, Los Angeles, Seattle and Portland.

Whether this is because all fishermen are prone to lying to begin with, or this is a large-scale conspiracy by the seafood industry (or more likely: a quality control issue) is still unclear. What we do know is we're not getting the right fish: "Fish labeled snapper turned out to be rockfish 34 times at sites in the Bay Area, Monterey and other sites in Northern California, according to the watchdog group."

Can you imagine? Accidentally getting rockfish, when you really wanted snapper? The mind reels, remembering all the times we were desperately craving snapper. To think, all those times we could have been unknowingly eating rockfish. It's as if all the parts in our lives when we were eating fish have been a complete lie.

There's hope for the future, at least: mislabeling food for profit is illegal under California and federal law, so we can probably curb this fishy labeling epidemic just as soon as the state can come up with the cash to create some kind of Fish Investigation Agency. On the other hand, mislabeled fish might be a product of confusing bureaucratic bullshit to begin with: "California law allows 13 species of rockfish to be sold as Pacific red snapper, but FDA guidelines allow only one."

Things only get worse when we start talking Tuna though: The FDA includes 14 species that can be called "tuna," but eight out of nine pieces of tuna sushi sampled in Los Angeles were actually escolar, which is not one of those 14 official tunas. Fish Biologists — as in real people with advanced degrees in this sort of thing — call escolar the "ex-lax fish" because of its "purgative effect on the digestive system." And we wonder how Los Angeles stays so slim.

There are some other unexpected benefits to mislabeled fish too: shark meat has been found in fish tacos sold across California, so it's kind of like we've been getting an added bonus this whole time.

[Chron]