by Udo Pollmer / January 17, 2021

Shark fins are considered a delicacy in many parts of the world. Europeans find the soup boring because it is completely tasteless. Udo Pollmer explains the different preferences with a drug in the shark fins.

Vegetarians and vegans suffer from a conflict of conscience in this difficult viral time: There is...

...a lack of vegan vaccines. For their production, animal material is usually needed, such as fertilized chicken eggs or the kidneys of dogs and monkeys. The monkeys have since been replaced by Henrietta Lacks, an American woman from whom malignant cancer cells had been removed. These cells, because they are immortal, are now used to obtain vaccine.

The discussion is currently focusing on adjuvants, i. e. those additives that control the effectiveness of the vaccine. In particular, the debate is about squalene, an oily substance extracted from shark livers. It not only modulates the immune system, but also has a bactericidal effect. Now, vegans and marine conservationists alike want to save sharks from being slaughtered for vaccination.

Shark conservationists claim it would take about 500,000 animals to produce enough squalene for the billions of doses of corona vaccine for all of humanity. Regardless of whether the calculation is correct, about 3 million sharks per year have long been slaughtered for squalene. Besides the pharmaceutical industry, the cosmetics industry is the biggest customer: it needs the shark chemical for makeup and skin care products such as lip gloss, moisturizers, or as a fixative in perfume.

Squalene could also be obtained from olive oil waste. However, this is rather costly - i. e. environmentally harmful. The substance is also produced by the human body itself and secreted by the sebaceous glands. It provides the skin's protective coating, keeping it moist and elastic.

Great cinema: Great species extinction

According to National Geographic, 100 million sharks are caught every year - both legally and illegally. For shark conservationists, this is a good opportunity to warn: "Unnoticed by the public, an ecological catastrophe of immense proportions is unfolding in the world's oceans. As the demand for shark products increases dramatically worldwide, nothing seems to be able to stop the extinction of the animals." Yes 90% of the sharks are already extinct - so it sounds from the net.

Who pretends to know how much disappears, should know what was there before. But here there is a pause: It is completely impossible to count all the sharks. There are far too many. They are in all seas and all depths on the way. Some are barely 20 cm long, others reach a length of 20 meters. There could be a billion. Maybe it's several billion, who knows. The sea is big, deep and dark. As dark as the activities of the NGOs.

So why are the animals disappearing from formerly shark-infested waters in some places? It's simple: when fishermen cut off the sharks' fins, the predators die. Sharks avoid waters with dead conspecifics. Then there are no more left. Great species extinction! Great cinema!

The shark is just as edible as wild boar. An exception is the Greenland shark with its high levels of urea in the meat. But it too is eaten in Iceland after fermentation. Popular with us are schillerlocken, the smoked belly lobes of the spiny dogfish. Its back fillet is prized as sea eel because it is boneless. Meanwhile, steaks from the shark are also very popular.

Again - Much ado about nothing

Now conservationists are warning that shark meat is "extremely toxic". The EU limit value for mercury would be exceeded again and again. Shark meat also contains arsenic. True. Seawater and thus its inhabitants have always naturally contained mercury and arsenic. Shellfish, in particular, can serve with the toxins of the oceans. Peoples whose food comes from the sea have been confronted with them since time immemorial. They still exist.

In Asia, the shark is very popular. Fins and skin are considered particularly noble parts. Many Westerners do not understand this. Because, if you do not spice up skin and fin the soup will taste like nothing at all, they say. They imply that therefore one could easily do without them.

Why on earth do Asians spend a lot of money on something boring and hardly nutritious like fin soup? We know this from saffron. It's also sinfully expensive and disappointing in taste – it’s called “pharmacy’s smell”. For centuries, saffron was called “the opium for children”. However, twelve grams are already lethal. But those who have enjoyed saffron rice a few times, begin to love the taste of the drug.

The peoples of the north love the skin of whales. For them, it is considered a delicacy. In our culture, too, there is no lack of culinary appreciation of strange skins. The toad also owes its reputation as a witch animal to the fact that some species produce a morphine-containing secretion.

A hair in the flying fox soup

Maybe there is something comparable in the shark fins? For example, BMAA, a neurotoxin produced by cyanobacteria. And this is exactly what has been detected in the fins of sharks. BMAA is also found in tropical cycas palms and accumulates in fruit bats looking like flying foxes that eat palm fruit. On the island of Guam, those flying foxes are considered a delicacy - according to neurologist Deborah Mash of the University of Miami, they are as sought after there as if it were cocaine. The skin is particularly popular. The animals are cooked alive - with fur and claws - and served in coconut milk soup. As an aside, humans (after having taken drugs) also excrete drugs through their hair. This is how their consumption can be detected.

So why don't the locals prefer to eat the fruit of the palm trees? In the body of the flying foxes, the BMAA is metabolized, apparently into a more potent drug. An analogous example of this kind would be the fly agaric: The peoples of Siberia preferred to drink the urine of mushroom eaters rather than chew fresh fly agarics. Only after metabolization did the mushroom poison develop its full hallucinogenic effect.

The next trail in the ocean leads to the fugu: In Japan, deaths from eating the puffer fish occur again and again. Despite the danger to life, the Japanese do not give it up. The taste is boring, as bland as white fish. After eating it, a deep relaxation sets in - if dosed correctly. That is why it "tastes" good. The drug in fugu is called tetrodotoxin. Dolphins sometimes play water polo with fugus - until the frightened puffer fish have released enough toxin in their defense so that the dolphins are high and chill peacefully in the ocean.

Among sharks, there is one species whose fins are not only particularly popular, but which also like to eat fugu and thus accumulate particularly high levels of tetrodotoxin. It is the tiger shark, a powerful predator of the seas. By the way, fugu is eaten by most shark species. Hence people's love of sharks, especially in those regions where the fugu is also native.

The enjoyment of shark fins is therefore neither mysterious nor absurd. There is no reason to despise other peoples or to want to re-educate them just because one does not want to understand their actions out of ignorance and arrogance.

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