Opening up a can of tuna yesterday I was wondering ‘where has the rest of this tuna ended up? How long will it be before the whole fish is eaten, and how much will be wasted’?
Opening up a can of tuna yesterday I was wondering ‘where has the rest of this tuna ended up? How long will it be before the whole fish is eaten, and how much will be wasted’?
Are you sure there was only one tuna in the can? I don’t eat cans often but have you ever gotten a different batch of tuna? Like different sizes of chunks, different curl? I wouldn’t be surprised if into one can a sorted batch of similar patches from different tunas was packed. “To ensure the quality of experience”
Possibly, but it’s always been quite hard to tell. Whenever I get cans it’s always in tiny flakes so I guess that could be from multiple tunas if one can needed a top-up etc.
If you get the more expensive brands or varieties it’s more likely to be solid pieces vs a slurry.
If you buy more expensive tuna, you’ll get cuts that are clearly from one fish. Albacore, for instance, I’ve never seen come in that shredded form.
Also, if you’re interested in sustainability, look for line-caught tuna. It’s not the only sustainable fishing practice, but it’s an eat one to remember. In the US, there’s an MSC certification on the can that’s a reasonably indicator that the company practices sustainable fishing.
If you’re getting cans full of flakes, it’s probably not all from the same fish, or even the same kind of tuna.
Hmm looking at the can I got from Aldi in the UK, it says ‘responsibly sourced’ (whatever that means) but doesn’t have an MSC certification. I’ll see if I can find cans that do in future!
I think the MSC certification may only apply in the US. The UK probably has different certifications.
Ah no, I’ve seen the logo before and there’s a report about it here: https://www.msc.org/docs/default-source/uk-files/msc-uk-tuna-shopper-report-2023.pdf?sfvrsn=5309aa2f_7
It feels like you’re imagining a system where people are loading cans from sides of tuna, when in reality it’s probably much closer to the cans being filled by a machine loaded with a hopper just packed full of large batch tun chunks.
This video seems to suggest that quite a lot of the process is manual: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt3SbqYAbf4
People deboning, sorting it and so on. It’s not entirely clear but yeah they seem to load hunks of meat in which I guess a machine then places into cans.
Yeah they don’t show the actually canning step it seems, but it looked like they were sorting them into different batches and from my limited experience on packing lines things get big batched.
Why is tuna like that? As opposed to say canned salmon which is immediately identifiable
No idea. But isn’t it that salmon meat more sticks together when tuna meat more often breaks apart?
Did some googling.
Tuna is massive and lean by default and has more denser muscle and less fat. Fat holds it together and stops it falling apart. The lean muscle makes it taste dry. Tuna has to be chunked to get anything into a can.
Salmon is way smaller (typically can sized), very fatty and has fast-twitch muscle, all of which lead to a juicier more cohesive fillet.
To think, one shower is all it takes to explore the flesh of fish :D
Shower?
According to OP, that question was a showerthought