In the past, cardiothoracic surgeon and TV personality Dr. Mehmut Oz has misspoken about seafood, including barramundi and methylmercury, on his poplar daytime program, The Dr. Oz Show, which pulls in an average of 3.5 million viewers daily.
But this time around, Dr. Oz helped advance the battle against seafood fraud when a guest plugged the Better Seafood Board (BSB), a group set up in 2007 by the National Fisheries Institute.
As part of a segment called Shocking Supermarket Secrets, Dr. Oz interviewed consumer advocate Peter De Lucia of the Westchester County Department of Health. After addressing the problem of seafood species substitution, Dr. Oz asked De Lucia what consumers can do to ensure that they’re getting what they’re paying for.
“You need to talk to your supermarket and see if your supermarket purchases fish from a member of the Better Seafood Board,” said De Lucia. “That board actually strives to make sure there’s proper fish labeling and sell correctly labeled fish to the supermarkets. So you’ve got to speak up. You’ve got to talk to your supermarket, find out where they’re getting their fish. So you get the right fish.”
“Members of the BSB have differentiated themselves from others in the industry. Whether it’s in the Boston Globe, NPR or on a talk show that reaches millions of households every day, more and more, we’re seeing our members highlighted as ones who are doing the right thing,” said BSB Secretary Lisa Weddig.
