Seafood Raised on Pig Feces Approved for U.S. Consumers
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
It discusses the unsanitary conditions at a seafood exporter, specifically the unsafe water that's used to create the ice used for packing shrimp, and a tilapia farm that feeds its fish with manure that could be "contaminated with microbes like salmonella."
"The manure the Chinese use to feed fish is frequently contaminated with microbes like salmonella..."
"... packs shrimp headed for the U.S. in dirty plastic tubs. He covers them in ice made with tap water that the Vietnamese Health Ministry says should be boiled before drinking because of the risk of contamination with bacteria"
Beef contaminated with even small quantities of feces would not pass USDA inspection, so how could shrimp grown in pig feces be considered safe? (Yes, the shrimp are grown in water that has pig feces in it; there's no other way to get a shrimp to eat something.)
That article doesn't sound in the least bit silly to me. It's saying that a large fraction of our seafood supply is dangerously contaminated with bacteria. Would you eat a shrimp that accidentally fell in your toilet and got rinsed off with water?
I agree gently with SamonellaEater. Food is not sterile, and some foods need to be carefully prepared, or the eater needs to be aware of and consent to the risks. But still, I'd like it if people could start with clean food and keep it that way, rather than start with something covered in fresh poo.
Too much manure, and environmental protection laws were causing a problem in some EU countries with "slurry lakes" and "manure mountains". Some regions were deemed to be nitrate vulnerable zones, and thus not suitable for too much manure.[2]
> until very recently in human history it was either decomposing trash
Untreated waste was probably the source of the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak in the UK. This cost the UK £8bn.[3]
> The consensus today is that the FMD virus came from infected or contaminated meat that was part of the garbage being fed to pigs at Burnside Farm in Heddon-on-the-wall. The garbage had not been properly heat-sterilized and the virus had thus been allowed to infect the pigs.
Animal manures can carry a number of pathogens. E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter, Yersinia, Cryptosporidium, Giardia, etc. Some of these kill people, so it's not trivial upset stomachs. Well rotted, or heat treated, manure should be safe. I'm pleased that regulatory bodies are taking this seriously.
(http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ynCJrnxolsUC&pg=PA30&...)
[2] (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1387466/Farmers-warn-...)
[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_United_Kingdom_foot-and-mo...)
Public outcry?
The agricultural industry needs to find new ways to make food more affordable or more efficiently. Until we find a way to bioengineer proteins from say bacteria, and keep a familiar taste like chicken, we will have to keep using animals.
Finding a way to recycle pig waste to reduce the carbon emission and also create seafood seems like a good idea to me.
What's the alternative? Letting the pig waste pollute natural resources and keeping seafood price up???
Why? We already have plenty of food. If anything, we have too much food.
Let's leave aside the recycling for a moment.
Some people on this planet (without internet access, and thus not on HN unfortunately) might disagree with the "too much food" statement.
(EDIT: Yes I know, distribution is the #1 problem, but lowering prices and increasing productivity is a favorable factor.)
(http://www.wfp.org/hunger/faqs)
> 1 - Is there a food shortage in the world?
> There is enough food in the world today for everyone to have the nourishment necessary for a healthy and productive life.
This is from the World Food Program, a United Nations organisation.
You mention protein. Lack of protein isn't a problem for many people. Lack of micronutrients is much more serious, affecting (killing or maiming) very many more people.
Pig manure is causing problems in this world. For example, some serious effort is made to find the best storage temperature to reduce methane emissions - see www.engr.usask.ca/societies/csae/protectedpapers/c0209.pdf for exemple.
So anything that will reduce or convert the amount produced is a good thing.
Again, all the context necessary is provided in the article. I'm not against finding a solution to the "pig waste problem." I don't think feeding it to food sources is a logically sound primary solution any more than feeding children radioactive waste is (for the "radioactive waste problem").
But the radioactive example is a fun one- wasn't there a plan to reduce the risk of radioactive materials by including them in construction materials, so that the emitted radiation would be lower? Some believed that it was safer than concentrating/burying them.
e.g. http://rense.com/general10/MDSS.HTM
It seems like a bad idea to me... (primarily from the unknowns, not the knowns)
So it was banned.
It'll probably culminate in a law suite requiring these products to be labeled as such, instead of slipping them in behind the scenes.
Google indicates that Islamic authorities are in disagreement as to whether shrimp is halal.
Crustaceans eat all kinds of nasty things in their natural environment, btw.
But the food an animal eats does not affect it's kosher status.
As a general rule species (except for fish) that [normally] eat other animals are not kosher, but even if they did eat other animals it wouldn't cause them to become not kosher.
As an example tuna eat things like octopus, yet are kosher. Chickens eat insects and are kosher.
Good article.
"Ngoc Sinh has been certified as safe by Geneva-based food auditor SGS SA, says Nguyen Trung Thanh, the company’s general director." "SGS spokeswoman Jennifer Buckley says her company has no record of auditing Ngoc Sinh."
In other words, Bloomberg is accusing Ngoc Sinh of having disgusting practices and lying about being inspected, which is a crime, while the title is instead accusing the inspectors of not doing their jobs, which would also be a crime but with a different party accused.
It's bad enough to eat pigs with parasites but probably worse to come in contact with their shit.
It definitely seems unsanitary on the front of it, but I wonder if it's actually unsafe, or if there is some step down the manufacturing process that makes it safe, such as cooking. On the front of it growing lettuce in pig shit would result in lots of deaths but it doesn't which makes me wonder if it's also a safe way to grow shrimp considering that they pretty much feed on the fish shit anyway.
The article is chalk full of experts who say something is unsanitary, but very light on data actually proving that whatever standards these operations have are resulting in unsafe seafood.
It would seem to me that shipping seafood covered in pig shit would make a lot of people sick really really fast and if it was unsafe would be REALLY unsafe and generally noticed by people concerned with such things.
So does that imply if the consumers were not in the U.S. this would not be newsworthy? Or am I reading too far into the title?