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Crist asking why after 10Investigates uncovered fish you order may not actually be 'fresh'

Restaurant owner thinks so after receiving three-year-old lobster from a vendor.
Credit: Hin255
Canadian lobster food

When you order fresh fish, you expect it to be fresh!

Well, that wasn’t the case for a local restaurant who says her supplier tried to sell her 3-year-old lobster.

Now U.S Rep. Charlie Crist wants to know why.

This comes after 10investigates uncovered that there’s no requirement from the FDA for restaurants to put a timestamp on food stored in the freezer.

But, according to a chart on the FDA website regarding the quality of food stored in a freezer, no fish should be there any longer than six months.

That’s why Crist sent a letter to the FDA regarding safety concerns that included if lobster really is safe if it’s been sitting in a freezer for years. He also wants to know how the FDA and other federal groups store and handle frozen fish.

Crist Letter to FDA on Food Safety 5.24.18

When you go out to eat and you order something fresh, that’s what you want, fresh.

But what if that underwater delight had actually been sitting in a freezer for the past three years.

Would you still consider it fresh?

Well, the law does.

Three years. Three months old.

The sign outside Lisa’s Café advertises the crab cakes. But it won’t be advertising this 10-pound box of lobster tails anytime soon.

“That’s the date right there: 09-25-14,” says café owner, Lisa Ammons. Ammons says this box of lobsters is 'three years and three months old.'

You have to go back three calendars to find that date.

And that’s why Lisa is upset.

“They told me that was the date it was produced,’’ says Ammons.

She says she then reached out to her health inspector and the FDA.

“As long as it’s frozen, that’s fine, and to me, that’s not acceptable,” says Ammons.

What is the FDA Food Code?

But as 10investigates found out, it is.

In an email exchange with the Florida Department of Business Regulations, they tell us, "Per the FDA Food Code, the time safety clock stops when an item is frozen and restarts again when the item is taken from the freezer.”

But according to a chart on the FDA website regarding the quality of food stored in a freezer, no fish should be there any longer than six months.

“I am very upset and I think these rules and guidelines should change, because it’s very unacceptable to me,” says Ammons.

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