Saturday, July 26, 2008

Nippon and woo

The amount of woo and magic in Japanese daily life amazes me. I should probably do a post on it somewhere along the lines. There's magic water, palm readings, blood type astrology, wish boards at shrines, nutrition woo up the wazoo...the list goes on.
So it just doesn't surprise me to see this headline courtesy of the Times.
Acupuncture used to improve flavour of tuna for sushi - Times Online
Their prized terriers are given samba-dancing lessons, their choicest beef herds are treated to daily massages and now, in an effort to produce the most delicious sushi in the world, Japanese tuna are to be given acupuncture.

What possible use is accupuncture for a fucking fish?
The company in Osaka that patented the technique claimed that calm tuna thrashed about less in their death throes. Once the fish have received the brief treatment the blood becomes purer and the flesh has a better flavour, Toshiro Urabe, the president of the Osakana Planning Company, said.

The tuna do not need to be dosed with chemicals to keep them tasting fresh during transportation.

The acupuncture can be used on bream and the company plans to begin testing it on salmon.

Oh, hell.
This comes at a time when the procedure has been shown again to not really do a fucking thing, this time for IVF. Since it seems that acupuncture works primarily as a placebo, and fish likely don't respond to a placebo what are the odds that any sushi improvement is basically wishful thinking?

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