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When does bloating indicate poor quality or old fish? 

The sentence embolded below bewilders me. 


>Most rockfish share a certain characteristic: a swim or air bladder. This is 
a gas-filled organ that allows the fish to carefully control its buoyancy. When it 
deflates the bladder, the fish will descend, 
and it can reverse the process by inflating. 
This can give the fish a somewhat strange, 
bloated look if you happen to see it sold 
whole. **This is not a sign of poor quality or 
old fish, though bloating can sometimes 
be an indicator of these problems.** When 
cleaning the fish, simply remove that blad- 
der and it will return to looking normal. 


![](https://i.imgur.com/6ShUYRh.jpg)

[John Bil's *Ship to Shore: Straight Talk from the Seafood Counter* (2018)](https://www.cbc.ca/books/ship-to-shore-1.4922815). p 192.