Safe "Engineered" Fugu, Sans Gene Manipulation 55
zlel writes "Did anyone figure that you could get clean, poison-free Fugu without genetic engineering? According to this story, a group of researchers at Nagasaki University managed to do just that - they bred Fugu by giving them poison-free feed. They tried to get Japan to modify its ban on the sale of Fugu liver - but authorities felt that this was too big a risk - so in the meantime, you gotta trust your chefs." Anyone willing to translate for the Japanese-impaired?
Yawn, old news. (Score:5, Informative)
My gf is a food engineer doing a master's on food safety and quality control, all I hear about every day is fugu this and tetradotoxin that.
Well from the babelfish and a quick google (Score:3, Informative)
Taking poision from your food is nothing special. Caterpillars take poison from the leaves they eat and use it to their own defence or rather their species defence. (the caterpillar who gave the bird a stomach upset is dead but the bird will think twice before eating an other caterpillar like it)
Anyway all they seem to have done is raised some pufu fish on a diet of food with no poison. Hence no poison in the fish. I read on article where someone living near the red sea had noticed the same thing. With the poison depending on where the fish was caught.
Oh and the reason the goverment is carefull is that their is no way to tell wich fish is without poison and wich isn't.
From other articles I read it might however be pointless. Part of the taste is the poison so a fugu without poison would just not taste the same. Kind of like alcoholless beer.
Also eating the fugu in a proper restaurant seems perfectly safe (if expensive) as no deaths have occurered in years. All the deaths related to fugu are because of amateurs preparing the fish.
Only thing I haven't found is someone describing the taste as nice or wonderfoul or even as okay. They al describe it as a unique experience but then so is sliding of the sadle of your bike. Looks like people just eat it for the risk, not the taste. Anyone here ever eat the fish and can tell me if it is really the taste?
Re:Yawn, old news. (Score:3, Informative)
clicky clicky [wikipedia.org]
What's the point? (Score:2, Informative)
The Fugu Experience... (Score:4, Informative)
What happens when you eat it, of course, is pretty normal for such a thing - nothing. It's a bit of an unusual texture, but if you're into sushi enough to want to try fugu in the first place, it's not so unusual as to be unique.
What IS unusual is the toxin. When taken in large doses (large, for example, being a whole fish, or even a chunk of liver) it's deadly. It doesn't actually take much toxin to kill; however, the trick is to have enough toxin in your fugu to make your lips and tongue just slightly numb. Fugu is a strange experience mostly because you're ingesting small amounts of poison.
That's why good fugu is so hard to find - what you're *not* looking for is fugu sans all toxin. What's worse yet is that it's very difficult to tell which fish will be incredibly poisonous, and which will not - there are people who have eaten chunks of the liver and had only mild effects; there are others who have eaten a sliver and died.
What's sure, though, is this: Should you die as a result of eating fugu, the man who prepared it will never work in a fugu restaraunt for the rest of his life.
Corrected Translation (Score:4, Informative)
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Can you now eat it with peace of mind?
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We want to try eating it. This is true, but we also fear the poison. The liver of Torafugu, which contains an irritant in food, may have reached a point where you can eat it. A research group at Nagasaki University has succeeded in the nonpoisonous conversion of
the liver of Torafugu. When a method of individually cultivating them is used, there is no poison. This works not just in the liver, but anywhere in the bodies. The town may be reassured, taking the "taste of withdrawal" from the dining table, in June it is proposed that Saga prefecture may allow the sale of Fugu outside of the Special Fugu Econimic District.
According to a group of honorary professors at the same Noguchi University, the globefish eats living things which have poisons, such as Hitode and the shellfish which are in the seabed, and ingests the poisons from them. Therefore, when the fish are raised since juveniles and fed nonpoisonous feed, such as agitation and krill, shouldn't there be no poison? Cultivation methods of the "nonpoisonous globefish" were researched with this idea in mind.
As a result, raising the globefish in a position 10 meters or more from the seabed, enclosed with net and using seawater which has been purified in a cultivating tank, was effective.
Using the same cultivation method as this group, people like Takashima of Nagasaki, in 7 places nationwide from the years 2000 to 2003 have measured the poison of 4,833 globefish and shown them to be nonpoisonous. The taste also shows no difference from those cultivated using former methods.
Among those who have their eyes on the nonpoisonous globefish are Ureshino and Saga prefectures. The Ureshino Hotspring Hotel aims to serve up "hot springs and globefish liver" and display this on their sign.
Sale of the poisonous regions of the globefish, such as the liver, is highly regulated to places with a proper hygienic method of serving it. In order to be able to eat the liver with ease (feeling at rest), the application of a "Fugu Special Economic District" it is in the works, with structural reconstruction of the country's Special Economic District. Simply, the nonpoisonous liver will be labeled to distinguish it.
'Flood Product' department Professor Arakawa Nagasaki of the same group states, "It is not the case that all cultivated globefish is nonpoisonous. I want to absolutely stop people from eating with amateur judgment."
There have been great results in the technology to convert nonpoisonous globefish.
However, it is not possible to distinguish with the naked eye which liver comes from natural globefish and it is not possible at this point to widely rescind the liver of the
cultivated globefish at present time.
Why not just read the English Version... (Score:5, Informative)
Real English version... (Score:2, Informative)
Asahi article translation (Score:4, Informative)
You want to eat it, but you're also afraid of the poison. Well, it looks like you may be able to eat Pufferfish Fugu liver, which has worried gourmets for so long. A research team at Nagasaki University succeeded in making Pufferfish Fugu liver non-poisonous. They report that there isn't any poison in the liver or any other part of the body when the fish are raised with their original method. Saga Prefecture is attempting to bolster the local economy by putting the "forbidden taste" on the dinner table. The prefecture is scheduled to propose a "Special Zone for Fugu" to the national government in June, which will ease the legal restrictions that prohibits selling and providing liver.
According to the Nagasaki University group, lead by visiting professor Tamao Noguchi, pufferfish eat poisonous things, such as starfish and mollusks on the seafloor, and accumulate poison in their bodies. He began researching a way to raise a "non-poisonous pufferfish," thinking it might be possible to raise a pufferfish without poison if he began to feed them non-poisonous food like mackarel and krill when they were still young.
As a result he discovered that raising pufferfish in a net over 10 meters from the seafloor and raising pufferfish in a tank with purified water were effective methods.
From 2000 to 2003, the group measured poison from a total of 4833 pufferfish and found no poisonous ones. These fish were raised with the special method under an original management scheme also devised by the research group in 7 locations throughout Japan, such as Takashima town, Nagasaki Prefecture.
Saga Prefecture and Ureshino town (located in Saga) are interested in the non-poisonous pufferfish. They aim to bolster the local economy through "hot springs and pufferfish liver" by serving it in the ryokans (traditional Japanese-style hotels) at Ureshino Hot Springs.
Selling poisonous parts of pufferfish, such as the liver, is restricted within the Food Hygiene Law. The plan is to apply for a "Special Zone for Pufferfish," using the national government's "Special Zones for Structural Reform" initiative, so people can easily and safely eat pufferfish liver. They intend to attach tags on non-poisonous liver for identification.
Osamu Arakawa, professor of fisheries at Nagasaki University, who is a member of the research group, told us "Not all farmed pufferfish are non-poisonous. Nonprofessionals should never eat pufferfish under their own judgment."
(A Statement from the Food Hygiene Department, Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare)
Technology that makes pufferfish non-poisonous is a great advancement. However, it is very difficult to make the liver of farmed pufferfish legal at this point, especially because they cannot be distinguished from natural liver by sight.