Catfish from Vietnam
We just bought a bag of fillets, and being curious, I had Googled to find out what they were before they became cheap fillets. I wonder now if we should eat them, perhaps in small pieces spaced a month apart, or treat the local cats and raccoons?
Wonder if China is any better? Not really wondering about that.
Wonder if China is any better? Not really wondering about that.
There's more than just Vietnam imported catfish that you should be wary about. We used to have visitors from Vietnam who would give food as gifts, you know, something from the homeland. Or my cousins would send over cultural food that the supermarkets may not carry here in the States. Now, we usually say, thank you, but no thanks. Of recents years, there are stories of the many contaminants and poisonous level chemicals in the food. Chinese and Vietnamese food imports, hmmm.....can't die from occassional consumption. But daily? I don't think so. It's not as if America doesn't have enough problem with contamination in our food. :rolleyes:
Come on, a little Agent Orange never hurt anybody....
No thank you. I'll stick to eating kippered snacks.
We get it over here labled as Bassa. We choose not to eat it, but plenty of people do. At least it's usually labled correctly which is something.
I was watching a show called How It's Made, last night. One of the segments was a fish plant in Nova Scotia. They were making frozen breaded fish sticks and several types of frozen breaded fillets. They were using frozen fish from China. I'll bet they are labeled "product of Nova Scotia", with no mention of China. I tried to catch a glimpse of the brand, but they hid that well.:(
I always tell J that the title of the show is "How It's Made in Quebec" but it appears they are willing to go further East.
Quebec? How It's Made, on the Science channel?
Yeah every time I watch it, I see little things that say eastern Canada.
I guess they have to use Quebec or eastern Canada, nothing is made in USA anymore.:smack:
I don't eat fish, Ive never really liked it. Tuna's about it usually. However, I keep thinking that it would be a good idea to incorporate more of it into my diet for health reasons, but then I see this kind of report and I just shake my head. I think fish is one of the more contaminated foods around nowadays.
I love seafood, all of it, but I've cut wayyy back on it... as much or more so than beef. I don't buy either for home consumption anymore.
I have a rule against buying anything that was caught in the Mediterranean. The med is an evaporating sea - more evaporates from it than flows in from rivers, so there is a steady inflow through the Straights of Gibraltar. So all the contaminants from the Rhone, Danube, Volga and Nile (i.e. most of the crap from former soviet states), as well as things added directly to the sea (lead from boat paint, radioactive waste dumped illegally by the mafia etc etc) has no where to go and gradually concentrates.
The open ocean is better, but frankly, the whole damn planet is polluted and the best we can do is choose the less polluted food sources. Or be like Griff, but I hate goats.
I don't eat fish, Ive never really liked it. Tuna's about it usually. However, I keep thinking that it would be a good idea to incorporate more of it into my diet for health reasons, but then I see this kind of report and I just shake my head. I think fish is one of the more contaminated foods around nowadays.
That's pretty funny, I've eliminated about 95% of fish from my diet for health reasons.
The best fish comes from McDonald's, doesn't it?
The open ocean is better, but frankly, the whole damn planet is polluted and the best we can do is choose the less polluted food sources. Or be like Griff, but I hate goats.
It is easier to cut their throats if you hate them.
I love seafood, all of it, but I've cut wayyy back on it... as much or more so than beef. I don't buy either for home consumption anymore.
That's pretty funny, I've eliminated about 95% of fish from my diet for health reasons.
Just goes to show how far out of the loop I am. I've always seen diets recommending fish as a good source of lean protein and felt badly that I resisted because I didn't like it. Now, not so much.
It still is, you just have to be more selective where it comes from. We farm a fair amount of fish in this country.
There was a great discussion on NPR yesterday about fish farming.
There are some issues with salmon as they are being farmed too close (so says the interviewee) to the wild salmon and there is a great risk of transference of infection, disease ....
They also discussed some things about Catfish and mentioned a couple different names from overseas. Asia, I believe. They are basically catfish, but the commercial fish lobby fought them on the use of the name "catfish" here in the US so they are called something else. One was their Latin name ... can't remember.
He did say that fish farming, specifically those that are NOT carnivores are tyhe safest/best way to go.
If you've ever seen the ponds they farm the catfish in in Asia, you'd never eat it.
Just eat wild caught deep sea fish and you'll be better off. Most pollutants stay pretty close to the surface.
That's a great point Ali. For the past decade or so, I rarely eat any seafood that I or someone I know personally hasn't caught.
That's what the OP was about, Vietnam ponds. If we don't use the pond farmed fish we grow here, we won't be eating anything soon. The rate we are taking fish is unsustainable for many types.
Theres a similar warning for US shellfish. One industry practice is to harvest shellfish from contaminated waters and them park them in cleaner waters to decontaminate.
The difference in US inspection between meat/poultry and fish/seafood is mind-boggling. If seafood were held to the same standards as meat and poultry, we'd be having a recall a day.