Tainting of seafood and marine pollution

A number of studies on deviant flavors of marine fish and crustaceans are discussed to show the main causes of such impairments. Cases include fish caught in marine, coastal and freshwater environments or exposed to industrial effluents and oil spills. Regulations and testing procedures for the evaluation of chemicals capable of inducing foreign flavor or odor are described. Tainting of seafood caused by industrial chemicals has been observed after groundings of seagoing tankers. For cases other than those of long-term or accidentally large volume discharges, “natural” reasons could be established for flavor impairments. There have been no reports of discharges from tank washings in the open ocean spoiling the flavor of seafood. Reports from production platforms show chemical contamination, in most cases, however, not associated with any impairment of fish flavor. In the regulations for marine transport, the tainting risk seems to have been overestimated.