A Fishy Deal in the Freezer

By Anastasia Toufexis

Surimi is a) slices of raw fish, b) George Bush's designated chief of staff, c) a tidal wave, d) a new compact car, e) a form of self-defense. The correct answer: none of the above. Few people recognize the name or know the product when they see it, but surimi is one of the hottest foods in the U.S. today. And though it sounds like an exotic delicacy, surimi is in fact the most pedestrian of edibles: a processed fish paste that serves, with a bit of doctoring, as an all-purpose seafood. Surimi now masquerades -- often illegally -- as crab, shrimp, lobster and scallops at salad bars, restaurants and supermarkets across the U.S. Knowingly and unknowingly, Americans will consume about 125 million lbs. of surimi this year, 20 times the amount eaten in 1980.

Long a staple in Japan, where it was developed nine centuries ago, surimi has become a fixture in the U.S. diet because of the growing popularity of fish as a health food. But since many kinds of seafood have become pricey, surimi is the cheaper alternative for restaurants and grocers. Fresh crab, for example, goes for $15 to $20 a lb., compared with $5 to $6 for surimi look- alikes.

Making surimi is fairly simple. Fish flesh, usually from the plentiful Alaskan pollack, is minced and washed in chilled water until it becomes a thick mass. It is then mixed with flavorings, preservatives and stabilizers -- among them, sugar, salt, starch, monosodium glutamate -- and shaped into blocks and frozen. To create crab or lobster look-alikes, slabs of surimi, sometimes laced with a few dollops of actual shellfish, are artfully molded into sticks and chunks and streaked with red food coloring to mimic the real thing. Discerning taste buds, however, can tell the difference. Surimi tends to be salty-sweet, and its texture is rubbery.

Critics charge that surimi is a fishy deal. Declares Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based consumer group: "It just isn't as nutritious as regular seafood." A study by the National Food Processors Association found that surimi is lower in fat and cholesterol than many fish. But it also has less protein and is much higher in sugar and salt. A typical surimi product weighing 4 oz. has 735 mg of sodium, about four times what a similar amount of scallops contains and nine times the level in flounder. Moreover, the manufacturing process washes out a lot of vitamins and minerals, as well as oils like omega-3 fatty acids that are now thought to protect people from heart disease.

Producers acknowledge surimi's nutritional shortcomings compared with other seafood. "It is a processed convenience food," says Lee Weddig of the National Fisheries Institute, a Washington trade group. "It is the same as Velveeta is to natural cheddar." Still, Wedding stresses that surimi is not inferior to many other foods. "It has more protein than eggs, yogurt and processed meat," he says.

Aside from nutritional concerns, critics fret that consumers are being misled. According to a 1985 ruling by the Food and Drug Administration, packaged surimi must be labeled "imitation" unless it has been fortified to be nutritionally equivalent to crab, scallops or whatever. But the regulation is frequently ignored by groceries and fish markets. Patrons of fast-food eateries, delis and restaurants, meanwhile, must look out for themselves. The only state to require that dishes made with imitation seafood be so identified on menus is Maine, where the real thing still remains supreme.

With reporting by Wendy Cole/New York