The ban on breeding puffer fish or wild live fish has not been lifted.

Original title: Puffer fish is poisonous

"Eating puffer fish is illegal" or history

Three ministries and commissions plan to lift the ban conditionally

Illustration Notice on Conditional Release of Production and Management of Cultured Puffer Fish

A few days ago, the Ministry of Agriculture, the State Health and Family Planning Commission and the State Food and Drug Administration entrusted relevant units to hold a hearing on the Notice on Conditional Release of Production and Management of Cultured Puffer Fish, which is to be jointly issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, the State Health and Family Planning Commission and the State Food and Drug Administration. The China Fisheries Association has publicly stated that China will have the conditions to liberalize the production and operation of cultured puffer fish, and "eating puffer fish is illegal" may soon become history.

Why are there conditions for release?

Since ancient times, there has been a good story in China that "Artemisia sinensis is full of short buds, which is when puffer fish want to go up". In real life, puffer fish is cute in appearance, but it is extremely harmful. "Ten seconds can paralyze nerves, ten minutes can kill people", in 2015, the country publicly reported at least 7 cases of puffer fish poisoning, puffer fish body toxins are not only enough to kill people, and there is no antidote for this toxin in the world. For the past 26 years, puffer fish has been excluded from legal food. However, many restaurants around the country still cook and sell this dish openly or secretly.

In April this year, the Ministry of Agriculture, the State Health and Family Planning Commission and the State Food and Drug Administration issued the Notice on Conditional Release of Production and Management of Cultured Puffer Fish, but there are strict regulations on listed varieties, which are not fully open to the market. At the same time, it also stipulates that "the sale of wild puffer fish is prohibited, the sale of live cultured puffer fish is prohibited, and the sale of unprocessed whole cultured puffer fish is prohibited."

A person in charge of the China Fisheries Association said that there are many conditions for allowing puffer fish to enter the market circulation field. First of all, in terms of species, there are more than 40 kinds of common pufferfish along the coast of China, but only red-fin oriental dolphin and dark-striped oriental dolphin are allowed to be cultured and operated, because the toxicity of these two kinds of pufferfish has been very low after many years of breeding experiments,"even reaching non-toxic level". In addition, production and operation enterprises must be audited and filed before they can sell the processed two kinds of puffer fish to the market. That is to say, the legal circulation in the market can not be puffer fish live fish or unprocessed puffer fish whole fish, wild puffer fish is explicitly prohibited to operate.

The personage inside course of study introduces, red fin oriental dolphin in the north of the Yellow Sea breeding quantity is relatively large, dark striped oriental dolphin is mainly in Jiangsu, Guangdong, Fujian and other places breeding, at present the national breeding puffer fish is about 50,000 tons. Xu Quan, secretary-general of the Puffer Fish Professional Committee of Jiangsu Province Catering Industry Association, said that because the market has not been opened for a long time, puffer fish can not be sold, but exported abroad. Japan and South Korea are very smart. They know that it is not good to sell in your country. They keep the price low, which hurts the enthusiasm of fishermen.

How can people eat at ease?

It is understood that the red-finned oriental dolphin and the dark-striped oriental dolphin, as the two largest varieties of domestic exports, have a very high market share in Japan and South Korea, such as the red-finned oriental dolphin reaching US $20/kg in the Japanese market. The Japanese make the puffer fish into fresh sashimi, many Chinese diners go to Japan will eat specially. In order to ensure safety, Japanese puffer fish chefs must undergo strict training and obtain a nationally recognized license. So once the domestic puffer fish market is opened, how to ensure the safety of our diners?

Xu Quan believes that, first, puffer fish cooks should undergo professional training, work with certificates, and operate under a license. In the processing process, it should be handled according to the control process; second, the relevant enterprises operating puffer fish should set up franchise stores, not that any enterprise can sell them in the future.

The reporter learned that enterprises that breed puffer fish and process puffer fish must pass the expert assessment organized by the China Fisheries Association and the China Aquatic Products Circulation and Processing Association, and be filed and publicized in the Ministry of Agriculture in order to obtain production and operation licenses.

For 26 years, puffer fish has not been completely banned,"desperate to eat puffer fish" this desire, but also gave birth to a variety of "edge ball" underground puffer fish market, but also let puffer fish breeding and eating gradually to a safer way to develop, and in the process also promoted the relevant laws and regulations changes. Cai Ping, executive chairman of Jiangsu Province Branch of "Asian Puffer Fish Culture Research Association" in Yangzhong City, Jiangsu Province, said that in 1998, Gong Qingli, professor of aquatic products of Ocean University of China, opened a "Qingli Puffer Fish Hotel" in Taiping Bay, Qingdao, Shandong Province, equivalent to a pilot institution to explore safe eating methods of puffer fish. Since then, some areas of Liaoning Province have set up similar institutions for six times. Cai Ping said, Yangzhong do puffer fish has a series of specifications, For example, after the puffer fish is done, First the chef try to eat once, Wait 10 minutes after the food delivery staff try to eat again, After 20 minutes there is no problem to serve the guests on the table. He also said that in the past 10 years, there have been no accidents in Yangzhong City due to puffer fish cooked in restaurants, and only two cases of poisoning caused by outsiders eating abandoned puffer fish roe and internal organs.

Cultured puffer fish can only enter the domestic market circulation after processing and packaging according to certain steps by processing enterprises, clear identification and traceability. According to the official website of the China Fisheries Association, the Ministry of Agriculture issued a notice on the filing of puffer fish source bases, saying that puffer fish should be labeled according to relevant regulations, and the label should include: provincial administrative region code, breeding puffer fish source base code, culture pond code, fishing time, identification sequence number, etc. "That is to say, future pufferfish sold can be traced back to which fish pond they came from." Xu Quan said that the whole process should be traceable. Including which ring, which level, including fish transportation, to the slaughterhouse, the final packaging are traceable. (Central Broadcasting)