Salmon - Disguised as Healthy, Is This One of the World's Most Toxic Foods?

It should be one of the healthiest foods you can eat, but in recent tests it showed up about 5 times more toxic than any other food tested. Please be ultra-careful.

An Inside Look Into the Fish Industry Reveals Disturbing Facts That Could Threaten Your Health

April 30, 2016

Story at-a-glance

• Salmon farming is a disaster both for the environment and for human health, and tests show farmed salmon is about five times more toxic than any other food tested
• In animal feeding studies, mice fed farmed salmon developed obesity and diabetes — effects researchers believe are related to toxic exposures
• Besides pesticides and antibiotics used in fish farming, the most significant source of toxic exposure is the dry pellet feed, which contains dioxins, PCBs, and other toxic pollutants

By Dr. Mercola

Nicolas Daniel’s documentary “Fillet-Oh-Fish” takes a critical look at the fish industry, featuring exclusive footage from fish farms and factories across the globe. Many still have a rather romanticized view of fishing, but when it comes to large-scale food production, the picture is actually rather grim.

Today’s fisheries are faced with a range of severe problems, from overfishing to chemical pollution and genetic mutation from toxic exposures. As noted by the producers of the film, “through intensive farming and global pollution, the flesh of the fish we eat has turned into a deadly chemical cocktail.”1

Despite that, the fish business is booming, in part due to efforts to keep the dirty underbelly of modern fisheries from public sight.

Aquaculture promotes itself as a sustainable solution to overfishing. But in reality, fish farms actually cause more problems than they solve. There’s really little difference, in terms of environmental pollution, between land-based feedlots and water-based ones.

Farmed Salmon — One of the Most Toxic Foods in the World?

The film starts off in Norway, looking at the chemicals used in fish farms. Kurt Oddekalv is a respected Norwegian environmental activist, and he believes salmon farming is a disaster both for the environment and for human health.

Below the salmon farms dotted across the Norwegian fjords, there’s a layer of waste some 15 meters high, teeming with bacteria, drugs, and pesticides. In short, the entire sea floor has been destroyed, and since the farms are located in open water, the pollution from these farms is in no way contained.

A salmon farm can hold upwards of 2 million salmon in a relatively small amount of space. These crowded conditions result in disease, which spreads rapidly among the stressed salmon.

According to Oddekalv, sea lice, Pancreas Disease(PD)2 and Infectious Salmon Anemia Virus (ISA) have spread all across Norway, yet consumers are not informed of these fish pandemics, and sale of these diseased fish continue unabated.

A number of dangerous pesticides are used in an effort to stave off disease-causing pests, one of which is known to have neurotoxic effects. Fish has always been considered a health food, but according to Oddekalv, today’s farmed salmon is one of the most toxicfoods in the world!

Toxicology researcher Jerome Ruzzin has confirmed Oddekalv’s claims. He’s tested a number of different food groups sold in Norway for toxins, and indeed, farmed salmon contains the greatest amount of toxins of them all, and by an incredibly large margin.

Overall, farmed salmon is five times more toxic than any other food product tested. In animal feeding studies, mice fed farmed salmon grew obese, with thick layers of fat around their internal organs. They also developed diabetes.

Ruzzin notes that a theory gaining traction is that rising rates of obesity is related to the increasing number of toxins and pollutants we’re exposed to through our environment and food. In light of his own studies, Ruzzin has stopped eating farmed salmon.

Genetic Mutations and Other Crazy Facts

Besides keeping pests like sea lice in check, the pesticides used also affect the fish’s DNA, causing genetic mutations. Disturbing examples of deformed cod are shown in the film.

What’s even more disturbing is that, according to Oddekalv, about 50 percent of farmed cod are deformed in this fashion, and female cod that escape from farms are known to mate with wild cod, spreading the genetic mutations and deformities into the wild population.

Farmed salmon suffer less visible but equally disturbing mutations. The flesh of the farmed salmon is “brittle,” and breaks apart when bent — a highly abnormal feature.

The nutritional content is also wildly abnormal. Wild salmon contains about 5 to 7 percent fat, whereas the farmed variety can contain anywhere from 14.5 to 34 percent.

Many toxins accumulate most readily in fat, which means even when raised in similarly contaminated conditions, farmed salmon will contain far more toxins than wild.

Shockingly, research reveals that the most significant source of toxic exposure is not actually the pesticides or the antibiotics, but the dry pellet feed! Pollutants found in the fish feed include dioxins, PCBs, and a number of different drugs and chemicals.

What Makes the Fish Feed so Toxic?

So what’s wrong with the fish feed? Why is it so toxic? In one Norwegian fish pellet plant, the main ingredient turns out to be eel, used for their high protein and fat content, and other fatty fish from the Baltic Sea.

That’s where the problem begins, as the Baltic is highly polluted. Some of the fish used have toxic levels of pollutants, which then simply get incorporated into the feed pellets.

In Sweden, fish mongers are now required to warn patrons about the potential toxicity of Baltic fish. According to government recommendations, you should not eat fatty fish like herring more than once a week, and if you’re pregnant, fish from the Baltic should be avoided altogether.

Swedish Greenpeace activist Jan Isakson reveals some of the sources of all this pollution. Just outside of Stockholm, there’s a massive paper mill on the bank of the Baltic that generates toxic dioxins.

Nine other industrialized countries surrounding the Baltic Sea also dump their toxic waste into this closed body of water. Dioxins bind to fat, which is why herring, eel, and salmon are particularly vulnerable, and end up accumulating higher amounts than other fish.

As a result of being deemed unfit for human consumption, some of these fatty fish are now primarily used as fish food. In this way, toxicity in the farmed salmon is allowed to build up even higher than in the wild.

One of the Best Kept and Most Dangerous Secrets of the Fish Industry

But there’s yet another problem, and it stems from the manufacturing process of the pellets. The fatty fish are first cooked, resulting in two separate products: protein meal and oil. While the oil has high levels of dioxins and PCBs, the protein powder further adds to the toxicity of the end product.

To the protein powder, they add an “antioxidant” called ethoxyquin. According to the filmmaker, this is one of the best kept secrets of the fish food industry. Ethoxyquin was developed by Monsanto in the 1950s — as a pesticide. Its use is strictly regulated, so why is it being added to fish pellets?

A couple of years ago, a Swiss anti-fraud laboratory was surprised to find extremely high levels of ethoxyquin in farmed fish — some 10 to 20 times higher than the 50 mcg per kilo allowed in food in the European Union — and that discovery began to unravel the secret. Ethoxyquin was designed for use on fruits and vegetables, but the fish feed industry discovered another novel use for it — they add it to the feed to prevent the fats from oxidizing and going rancid.

However, the fish feed manufacturers never informed health authorities of their use of the chemical. As a result, the EU strictly regulates ethoxyquin levels in fruits, vegetables, and meat — there are even standards for kangaroos and reptiles — but not for the fish people consume. What’s more, the effects of this chemical on human health have never been established.

The one and only study ever done on ethoxyquin and human health was a thesis by Victoria Bohne, Ph.D. a former researcher in Norway who made a number of disturbing discoveries, including the fact that ethoxyquin can cross the blood brain barrier, and may have carcinogenic effects. Bohne, as many other researchers who have made unpopular findings, was pressured to leave her research job after attempts were made to falsify and downplay her findings.

Others have linked the secret use of ethoxyquin in Norwegian fish farming, and the lack of scientific investigation into its effects, to the Norwegian Minister of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs, Lisbeth Berg-Hansen, who also happens to be a major shareholder in a commercial salmon farm, and has held many high-ranking positions within the fishing industry.

The Rise of Panga Exploited Fish Consumption

In France, fish consumption has more than doubled in the past five decades, now surpassing consumption of both beef and chicken. To meet demand, fish is being imported from around the globe. Rarely will you find a fish caught off the coast of France. Nearly half of all fish sold in France is raised in fish farms. Lesser known and less expensive species have also been brought to market.

Panga, which is now one of the 10 most consumed fish in France, was relatively unknown a decade ago. Its low price has also made panga a top seller in the school system. The questions asked in the film are, how can this farmed fish be sold at such low prices, and what’s actually in these fish that children are now eating on a regular basis?

The investigation begins in southern Vietnam, where panga is part of the culinary tradition. However, behind this cultural image, there’s a more disturbing reality. Over the past 15 years, panga exports have become a major source of income for the region. In fact, 95 percent of the global production of panga comes from southern Vietnam, and this success has resulted in both environmental and human exploitation.

Farmed panga grow twice to four times as fast compared to those in the wild, allowing them to reach adult size in about six months. The fish are then harvested and processed, which includes washing the fillets in big vats filled with water and polyphosphates — chemical additives that facilitate freezing.

The chemical also allows the fish to soak up water, which artificially increases their weight. After this process, the fish lack both taste and odor, and will take on the flavor of whatever spices you add to it during cooking.

Environmental Pollution Poses Risks

Many panga farms are plagued with disease, courtesy of the polluted waters in which they’re raised. Mekong River, where many panga farms are located, is one of the most heavily polluted rivers in the world. In 2009, the World Wide Fund for Nature placed panga on their “red” list of products that pose a danger to environmental and human health.

Millions of Vietnamese households dump their waste directly into the Mekong River each day. Pesticides used in rice cultivation also migrate into this waterway. Green algae and bacteria release toxins into the water and reduce oxygen levels in the water, which adds further stress on the fish’s immune systems, making them more prone to disease.

To address disease, farmers add industrial quantities of drugs into their fish ponds, including a wide array of antibiotics. The side effect is drug resistance, which forces the farmers to keep increasing the dosages. The panga are not the only thing affected by this strategy, of course. Antibiotics spread through the river systems, are absorbed into the fish’s tissues and excreted through feces, which redistributes the drugs into the environment — and to those who eat the fish.

Are You Eating Fish, or Fish Waste?

Fish can be one of the healthiest foods you can eat, but in the industrial age you have to be ultra careful about choosing the right type of fish. If you needed another reason to avoid processed foods, watch this film to the end, where it describes how fish waste has become a “highly valued commodity” used in processed foods. At less than 15 cents per kilo, these fish heads and tails, and what little meat is left over after filleting, is a real profit maker.

Virtually nothing actually goes to waste anymore. Fish skins are recycled for use in the cosmetics industry. The remainder of the fish waste is washed and ground into a pulp, which is then used in prepared meals and pet food.

Since food manufacturers are not required to tell you their products contain fish pulp rather than actual fish fillet meat, this product offers a high profit margin for food manufacturers. One tipoff: if the product’s list of ingredients includes a fish without specifying that it’s made with fillet of fish, it’s usually made with fish waste pulp.

Fish fraud is also commonplace. Investigations have shown that 1 in 3 fish labels are false or misleading. Typically, an inexpensive fish is mislabeled as a more expensive one. Some farmed fish are also passed off as wild. Since traceability is more complex in the processed food industry, due to the mixing of ingredients, that’s where most of the fish fraud occurs. It’s somewhat more difficult to pass off fillets of fish as another species, although that also occurs.

Best Seafood Options: Wild Alaskan Salmon, Sardines and Anchovies

It’s become quite clear that fish farms are not a viable solution to overfishing. If anything, they’re making matters worse, destroying the marine ecosystem at a far more rapid clip to boot ... So what’s the answer? Unfortunately, the vast majority of fish — even when wild caught — is too contaminated to eat on a frequent basis. Most major waterways in the world are contaminated with mercury, heavy metals, and chemicals like dioxins, PCBs, and other agricultural chemicals that wind up in the environment.

This is why, as a general rule, I no longer recommend getting your omega-3 requirements from fish. However, I do make two exceptions. One is authentic, wild-caught Alaskan sockeye salmon; the nutritional benefits of which I believe still outweigh any potential contamination.

The risk of sockeye accumulating high amounts of mercury and other toxins is reduced because of its short life cycle, which is only about three years. Additionally, bioaccumulation of toxins is also reduced by the fact that it doesn't feed on other, already contaminated, fish.

Alaskan salmon is not allowed to be farmed, and is therefore always wild-caught. My favorite brand is Vital Choice Wild Seafood and Organics, which offers a nice variety of high-quality salmon products that test high for omega-3 fats and low for contaminants. Canned salmon labeled "Alaskan salmon" is a less expensive alternative to salmon fillets. 

The second exception is smaller fish with short life cycles, which also tend to be better alternatives in terms of fat content, such as sardines and anchovies, so it's a win-win situation — lower contamination risk and higher nutritional value. A general guideline is that the closer to the bottom of the food chain the fish is, the less contamination it will have accumulated. Just make sure they’re not from the Baltic Sea.

Other good choices include herring and fish roe (caviar), which is full of important phospholipids that nourish mitochondrial membranes.

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/04/30/salmon-fish-farming.aspx?

MUST WATCH: Lee Kuan Yew Vietnam War Interview

This is the 1967 Meet The Press Interview with Lee Kuan Yew talking about the Vietnam War

This post is on Healthwise

Interview with Lee Kuan Yew

by National Archives

Published 1967

Usage CC0 1.0 Universal

Topics archives.gov, public.resource.org

National Archives - Interview with Lee Kuan Yew - National Security Council. Central Intelligence Agency. (09/18/1947 - 12/04/1981). - This film is footage of an interview in which the Prime Minister of Singapore spoke on the Vietnam War and the problems of Southeast Asia. - DVD Copied by IASL Scanner Jeremy Baron. - ARC 652377 / LI 263.2042

https://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.652377

Go to Healthwise for more articles

• on Lee Kuan Yew

Vietnam releases dengue-blocking mosquito

By MARGIE MASON November 5, 2013 3:05 AM                            

In this photo taken on Sept. 2, 2013, specimens collected from traps are
 taken back to the lab in Pasteur Institute in Nha Trang city

TRI NGUYEN ISLAND, Vietnam (AP) — Nguyen Thi Yen rolls up the sleeves of her white lab coat and delicately slips her arms into a box covered by a sheath of mesh netting. Immediately, the feeding frenzy begins.

Hundreds of mosquitoes light on her thin forearms and swarm her manicured fingers. They spit, bite and suck until becoming drunk with blood, their bulging bellies glowing red. Yen laughs in delight while her so-called "pets" enjoy their lunch and prepare to mate.

The petite, grandmotherly entomologist — nicknamed Dr. Dracula — knows how crazy she must look to outsiders. But this is science, and these are very special bloodsuckers.

She smiles and nods at her red-hot arms, swollen and itchy after 10 minutes of feeding. She knows those nasty bites could reveal a way to greatly reduce one of the world's most menacing infectious diseases.

All her mosquitoes have been intentionally infected with bacteria called Wolbachia, which essentially blocks them from getting dengue. And if they can't get it, they can't spread it to people.

New research suggests some 390 million people are infected with the virus each year, most of them in Asia. That's about one in every 18 people on Earth, and more than three times higher than the World Health Organization's previous estimates.

Known as "breakbone fever" because of the excruciating joint pain and hammer-pounding headaches it causes, the disease has no vaccine, cure or specific treatment. Most patients must simply suffer through days of raging fever, sweats and a bubbling rash. For those who develop a more serious form of illness, known as dengue hemorrhagic fever, internal bleeding, shock, organ failure and death can occur.

And it's all caused by one bite from a female mosquito that's transmitting the virus from another infected person.

So how can simple bacteria break this cycle? Wolbachia is commonly found in many insects, including fruit flies. But for reasons not fully understood, it is not carried naturally by certain mosquitoes, including the most common one that transmits dengue, the Aedes aegypti.

The germ has fascinated scientist Scott O'Neill his entire career. He started working with it about two decades ago at Yale University. But it wasn't until 2008, after returning to his native Australia, that he had his eureka moment.

One of his research students figured out how to implant the bacteria into a mosquito so it could be passed on to future generations. The initial hope was that it would shorten the insect's life. But soon, a hidden benefit was discovered: Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes not only died quicker but they also blocked dengue partially or entirely, sort of like a natural vaccine.

"The dengue virus couldn't grow in the mosquito as well if the Wolbachia was present," says O'Neill, dean of science at Monash University in Melbourne. "And if it can't grow in the mosquito, it can't be transmitted."

But proving something in the lab is just the first step. O'Neill's team needed to test how well the mosquitoes would perform in the wild. They conducted research in small communities in Australia, where dengue isn't a problem, and the results were encouraging enough to create a buzz among scientists who have long been searching for new ways to fight the disease. After two and a half years, the Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes had overtaken the native populations and remained 95 percent dominant.

But how would it work in dengue-endemic areas of Southeast Asia? The disease swamps hospitals in the region every rainy season with thousands of sick patients, including many children, sometimes killing those who seek help too late.

The Australians tapped 58-year-old Yen at Vietnam's National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, where she's worked for the past 35 years. Their plan was to test the Wolbachia mosquitoes on a small island off the country's central coast this year, with another release expected next year in Indonesia.

Just getting the mosquitoes to Tri Nguyen Island was an adventure. Thousands of tiny black eggs laid on strips of paper inside feeding boxes had to be hand-carried inside coolers on weekly flights from Hanoi, where Yen normally works, to Nha Trang, a resort city near the island. The eggs had to be kept at just the right temperature and moisture. The mosquitoes were hatched in another lab before finally being transported by boat.

Yen insisted on medical checks for all volunteer feeders to ensure they weren't sickening her mosquitoes. She deemed vegetarian blood too weak and banned anyone recently on antibiotics, which could kill the Wolbachia.

"When I'm sleeping, I'm always thinking about them," Yen says, hunkered over a petri dish filled with dozens of squiggling mosquito pupae. "I'm always worried about temperature and food. I take care of them same-same like baby. If they are healthy, we are happy. If they are not, we are sad."
___

Recently, there have been several promising new attempts to control dengue. A vaccine trial in Thailand didn't work as well as hoped, proving only 30 percent effective overall, but it provided higher coverage for three of the four virus strains. More vaccines are in the pipeline. Other science involves releasing genetically modified "sterile" male mosquitoes that produce no offspring, or young that die before reaching maturity, to decrease populations.

Wolbachia could end up being used in combination with these and other methods, including mosquito traps and insecticide-treated materials.

"I've been working with this disease now for 40-something years, and we have failed miserably," says Duane Gubler, a dengue expert at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore who is not involved with the Wolbachia research.

"We are now coming into a very exciting period where I think we'll be able to control the disease. I really do."

Wolbachia also blocks other mosquito-borne diseases such as yellow fever and chikungunya, O'Neill says. Similar research is being conducted for malaria, though that's trickier because the disease is carried by several different types of mosquitoes.

It's unclear why mosquitoes that transmit dengue do not naturally get Wolbachia, which is found in up to 70 percent of insects in the wild. But O'Neill doesn't believe that purposefully infecting mosquitoes will negatively impact ecosystems. He says the key to overcoming skepticism is to be transparent with research while providing independent risk analyses and publishing findings in high-caliber scientific journals.

"I think, intuitively, it makes sense that it's unlikely to have a major consequence of introducing Wolbachia into one more species," O'Neill says, adding that none of his work is for profit. "It's already in millions already."

Dengue typically comes in cycles, hitting some areas harder in different years. People remain susceptible to the other strains after being infected with one, and it is largely an urban disease with mosquitoes breeding in stagnant water.

Laos and Singapore have experienced their worst outbreaks in recent history this season. Thailand has also struggled with a large number of patients. Cases have also been reported in recent years outside tropical regions, including in the U.S. and Europe.

Vietnam has logged lower numbers this year overall, but the country's highest dengue rate is in the province where Yen is conducting her work.

At the area's main hospital in Nha Trang, Dr. Nguyen Dong, director of infectious diseases, says 75 of the 86 patients crammed into the open-air ward are infected with the virus.

Before jabbing his fingers into the stomach of one seriously ill patient to check for pain, he talks about how the dengue season has become much longer in recent years. And despite the government's increased education campaigns and resources, the disease continues to overwhelm the hospital.

If the experiment going on just a short boat ride away from the hospital is successful, it eventually will be expanded across the city and the entire province.
____

The 3,500 people on Tri Nguyen island grew accustomed to what would be a bizarre scene almost anywhere else: For five months, community workers went house-to-house in the raging heat, releasing cups of newborn mosquitoes.

And the residents were happy to have them.

"We do not kill the mosquitoes. We let them bite," says fisherman Tran To. "The Wolbachia living in the house is like a doctor in the house. They may bite, but they stop dengue."

Specimens collected from traps are taken back to the lab for analysis to determine how well Wolbachia mosquitoes are infiltrating the native population.

The strain of bacteria used on the island blocks dengue 100 percent, but it's also the hardest to sustain. At one point, 90 percent of the mosquitoes were infected, but the rate dropped to about 65 percent after the last batch was released in early September. A similar decrease occurred in Australia as well, and scientists switched to other Wolbachia strains that thrive better in the wild but have lesser dengue-blocking abilities.

The job is sure to keep Yen busy in her little mosquito lab, complete with doors covered by long overlapping netting.

And while she professes to adore these pests nurtured by her own blood, she has a much stronger motivation for working with them: Dengue nearly claimed her own life many years ago, and her career has been devoted to sparing others the same fate.

"I love them," she says, "when I need them."
____

On the Net: http://www.eliminatedengue.com/

http://news.yahoo.com/vietnam-releases-dengue-blocking-mosquito-051346042.html

The Unsavory Aspects of Farmed Shrimp

Disturbing News May Make You Think Twice About Eating This Seafood

The latest research shows this seafood favorite may be wildly contaminated. Even though less than 2% is inspected, it makes up over 25% of all seafood rejected for contamination. Don't eat it unless it comes from these locations...

14 August 2013

Story at-a-glance

• Farmed shrimp tends to be far more contaminated than wild-caught shrimp. Despite that fact, less than two percent of shrimp imported into the US gets inspected by US regulatory agencies
• Farmed shrimp can contain a wide variety of contaminants, including hazardous drugs, chemical residues from cleaning agents, pathogens like Salmonella and E.coli, along with other contaminants like mouse and rat hair
• Imported shrimp accounts for 26 to 35 percent of all shipments of imported seafood that get rejected due to filth
• The joint NOAA/FDA Gulf seafood testing program claims majority of seafood samples have no detectable residues of oil or Corexit. But other scientists have raised concerns that the residue limits established are too high
• When farmed in non-native waters, shrimp are raised in underwater pens built along the coastlines, where native mangrove forests are frequently sacrificed to make room for them

By Dr. Mercola

For the past several years, I’ve increasingly recommended avoiding most seafood due to widespread contamination, primarily by mercury, PCBs and other environmental pollutants. 

Shrimp, however, due to their small size, have generally been considered to be one of the safer kinds of seafood. But a recent article¹ may make you think twice about eating shrimp, unless you know it’s wild-caught from a clean source. 

A major part of the problem is farmed shrimp which, like farmed fish, tends to be far more contaminated than its wild-caught counterparts. Aquatic farms of all kinds also pose grave dangers to ecological systems. Another problem is lack of inspection and oversight of imported seafood. 

According to the featured article:

“90 percent of the shrimp we eat has been imported, but less than two percent of that gets inspected by US regulatory agencies. What's the big deal?

Imported shrimp, more than any other seafood, has been found to be contaminated with banned chemicals, pesticides... and it skirts food-safety authorities only to wind up on your plate. The number one reason for all that: the dirty conditions in which farmed shrimp are raised.” 

What You Need to Know About Farmed Shrimp

As a result of declining seafood stocks of all types, aquatic farms of various kinds have become big business. Unfortunately, aquatic farming has turned loose all sorts of environmental hazards, all of which ultimately threaten your health.

The featured article highlights several disturbing facts about farmed shrimp:

1. Contamination is rampant. Farmed shrimp can contain a wide variety of contaminants, including chemical residues from cleaning agents, pathogens like Salmonella and E.coli, along with other contaminants like mouse and rat hair. According to Food and Water Watch, imported shrimp “accounts for 26 to 35 percent of all shipments of imported seafood that get rejected due to filth.”
Another concern relates to chemicals purposefully used on shrimp. Back in 2009, scientists discovered that 4-hexylresorcinol, a preservative used to prevent discoloration in shrimp and other shellfish, acts as a xenoestrogens and can increase the risk of breast cancer in women and reduce sperm counts in men. Xenoestrogens have been associated to a number of human health effects.
A toxicology study² by the University of Surrey School of Biological Sciences showed that 260 mg/kg of 4-hexylresorcinol was lethal to all cats used in the study, and they also found it was carcinogenic in both the 13-week and two-year long studies. It also caused a high incidence of nephropathy (an autoimmune disease that affects your kidneys) in mice.
While astaxanthin is one of the most profoundly effective antioxidants, farmed shrimp have very little to no astaxanthin and are given synthetic astaxanthin,³ to provide the right color because astaxanthin-deficiency in shrimp produces specimens that look blue rather than pink.

In fact, so-called “blue shrimp syndrome” was a persistent and alarming problem of earlier shrimp farms. It is important to know that synthetic astaxanthin is made from petrochemicals that are not approved for human consumption.

2. Shrimp-packing plants are filthy. As reported by Rodale:

“A report published in the November 2012 issue of Bloomberg magazine⁴ revealed some truly disgusting facts about the conditions in which shrimp are packaged and shipped.

At one particular facility in Vietnam, the magazine's reporters found processing-plant floors littered with garbage, flies buzzing around, and shrimp that wasn't being stored at proper temperatures.

The shrimp itself was packed in ice made from local tap water, which public health authorities warned should be boiled before using due to microbial contamination, potentially exposing the shrimp (and eaters) to more bacterial contamination.

According to Bloomberg, FDA inspectors have rejected 1,380 loads of seafood from Vietnam since 2007 for filth and salmonella, including 81 from the plant the reporters visited.”

3. Imported shrimp may contain hazardous antibiotics. Scientists from Texas Tech University's Institute of Environmental and Human Health recently tested 30 shrimp samples for the presence of three classes of antibiotics. The shrimp were obtained from US grocery stores. Two samples of farm-raised shrimp imported from India and Thailand tested positive for nitrofuranzone.⁵
This drug can promote overgrowth of fungi, and has been found to cause breast cancer in female rats when given orally in high doses. Disturbingly, the shrimp were found to contain levels 28 and 29 times higher than allowable limits set by the FDA.
The antibiotic chloramphenical was also detected in some shrimp samples. Chloramephenical is banned in food production in the US due to potentially severe side effects, including aplastic anemia and leukemia. Shrimp may also be contaminated with penicillin, which can trigger allergic reactions in susceptible individuals who might never suspect shrimp as a potential source.

4. Domestic shrimp may be tainted with oil and/or Corexit. The 2010 BP oil spill temporarily closed down shrimp fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, but the fact that shrimp fishing has resumed does not mean the shrimp are 100 percent safe to eat. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) now oversees the Gulf seafood testing program,⁶ along with the FDA and Gulf states, to prevent tainted seafood from reaching the marketplace. NOAA and FDA developed a chemical test to detect oil and the oil dispersant Corexit in seafood, and claim that over 99 percent of samples have no detectable residue.
However, as reported by the featured article, scientists from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have raised concerns about the residue limits used, warning that they’re not low enough to protect pregnant women and their unborn children.

5. Non-native shrimp farms contribute to climate change. How’s that, you might ask? When farmed in non-native waters, shrimp are raised in underwater pens built along the coastlines, where native mangrove forests are frequently sacrificed to make room for them.
Mangroves serve many important functions in the environment, including providing a buffer against hurricanes and flooding, absorbing carbon dioxide (mangroves absorb more carbon dioxide than rainforests), and serve as the native habitat for a variety of fish, including snapper, tilapia, sea bass, oysters and crab. According to the featured article, as much as 80 percent of mangroves in the top five shrimp-farm areas (Thailand, Ecuador, Indonesia, China, Mexico and Vietnam) have been destroyed as a result of non-native shrimp farming    

If from a Clean Source, Shrimp Are an Excellent Food 

Barring contamination, shrimp, just like fish, can be an excellent nutritious food. The trick is finding wild shrimp harvested from the cleanest cold-water sources possible. For example, shrimp⁷ are a good source of: 

Tryptophan (an essential amino acid)	Vitamin B12	Healthful fats, including omega-3, saturated fat and cholesterol
Selenium	Protein	Astaxanthin

Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch⁸ rates various seafood sources based on sustainability and other parameters. While some of their “Best Choice” shrimp⁹ include farmed shrimp, which I cannot in good conscience recommend, some of the wild-caught shrimp on their good-to-best list include:¹⁰

• Northern shrimp, caught in US/Canadian Atlantic
• Pink shrimp from Oregon
• Wild-caught rock shrimp from the US
• Spot prawns from British Columbia (Canadian Pacific)
• California coonstripe shrimp (caught using submerged pots. To determine this, talk to your fishmonger or the fishery in question)

Buying Local Increases Food Safety and Food Security 

Ideally, you’ll want to buy wild-caught seafood. However, with environmental tragedies like the BP oil spill in the Gulf, and the still-leaking nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan,¹¹ not to mention the general pollution in waterways across the globe, merely being “wild-caught” is certainly not a guarantee of safety. If you want to eat seafood, I strongly suggest taking the extra step or two to determine how, and from where it was procured. If at all possible, get your seafood from a source that can guarantee its purity through independent lab testing.  

I believe that if you choose wisely, the health benefits of fish and other seafood can still outweigh the potential risks from contamination. 

Disease in farm animals is one of the biggest sources of epidemics in humans, and fish farms are the aquatic version of a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO), which is why I simply cannot recommend farmed seafood of any kind. Just like their land-based cattle and chicken farms, aquatic CAFOs are a breeding ground for disease and toxic waste, and produce food animals of inferior quality. Due to the dramatically increased disease risk—a natural side effect of crowding—these animals are further contaminated with drugs. 

Remember that farmed shrimp are also given synthetic astaxanthin¹² made from petrochemicals. When you eat wild shrimp, you get the benefit of natural astaxanthin, but not so with farmed shrimp... In the latter case, you end up eating a chemical that is not even approved for human consumption!  

In all, the ramifications of our large-scale, mass-producing, chemical-dependent food system are incredibly vast, which is why I urge you to become more curious about your food: Where, and how was it raised, grown, or manufactured? These things do matter; for your health, and the health and future of our planet. When it comes to seafood, whether we’re talking about fish or shrimp, there’s no doubt that aquatic farms are responsible for environmental damage of massive proportions while simultaneously producing inferior food animals, which is why, as a general rule, I recommend avoiding them.

[-] Sources and References

• ¹ Rodale May 14, 2013
• ² INCHEM.org 4-HEXYLRESORCINOL
• ³ Animal Nutrition and Health, The Role of Astaxanthin in Shrimp Pigmentation (PDF)
• ⁴ Bloomberg October 11, 2012
• ⁵ Drugs.com Nitrofurazone
• ⁶ NOAA.gov Seafood Safety
• ⁷ Whfoods.com, The World’s Healthiest Foods, Shrimp
• ⁸ Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch
• ⁹ Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, Shrimp
• ¹⁰ See ref 8
• ¹¹ Fukushimaupdate.com
• ¹² Animal Nutrition and Health, The Role of Astaxanthin in Shrimp Pigmentation (PDF)

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/08/14/farmed-shrimp.aspx?

NZ dairy giant issues global botulism alert

Posted on 3 August 2013 - 04:12pm
Last updated on 4 August 2013 - 10:36am

WELLINGTON (Aug 3, 2013): New Zealand warned international health authorities Saturday of exported dairy products, including infant formula, containing a bacteria that could lead to botulism -- a potentially fatal illness.

The government said the contaminated whey protein concentrate, or products using this ingredient, had been exported to Australia, China, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Dairy giant Fonterra, which manufactured the product more than a year ago, said eight customers had been advised and were investigating whether any of the affected product was in their supply chains.

If necessary, contaminated consumer products would be recalled, the company said in a statement.

There have been no reports of any illness linked to consumption of the affected whey protein.

New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser said health authorities around the world, including the World Health Organization, had also been alerted to the contamination.

"As soon as New Zealand authorities were notified of this risk, we immediately acted to inform relevant authorities around the world," Groser said.

"This has included formally notifying Infosan, the World Health Organization's international food safety regulators network. As more information on this issue is confirmed we will provide our trading partners with further updates.

"We understand that the markets to which contaminated whey protein concentrate, or products using this ingredient, has been exported are Australia, China, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Vietnam."

Fonterra said the affected product was used in a range of drinks including infant formula and sports drinks.

"We are doing everything we can to assist our customers in ensuring any product containing this ingredient is removed from the marketplace and that the public is made aware," Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings said.

Three batches of whey protein concentrate manufactured in May last year recently tested positive for Clostridium botulinum.

The batches have been used to form 870 tonnes of products sold in a variety of markets, the Ministry for Primary Industries' Acting Director General Scott Gallacher said.

The symptoms of botulism include nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, followed by paralysis, and it can be fatal if not treated.

Fonterra said the potential impact on someone consuming a contaminated product would depend on their age and the amount they consumed.

For an adult, a small amount of contaminated whey protein "would probably pass through unnoticed", Fonterra's managing director of New Zealand milk products, Gary Romano, told reporters.

Dairy exports are New Zealand's major earner and its products are particularly popular in Asia, where they are considered the gold standard.

According to government data the dairy industry contributes 2.8 percent to New Zealand's GDP and about 25 percent of its exports. It is worth NZ$10.4 billion (US$8.1 billion) annually.

New Zealand accounts for one-third of the world's cross-border trade in dairy products.

Fonterra, the world's largest dairy exporter, reported revenues of NZ$19.8 billion ($15.5 billion) in the 2012 financial year. – AFP

http://www.thesundaily.my/news/788025

6 Disgusting Facts about Shrimp

FARMED SHRIMP

Shrimp may be your favorite seafood—until you read this.  

By Emily Main 

Mmm...shrimp with a side of antibiotics,
 cockroaches and dead fish. 

Shrimp is the most popular seafood in the United States, but here's an unsettling fact that might keep you from ordering your next shrimp cocktail: 90 percent of the shrimp we eat has been imported, but less than 2 percent of that gets inspected by U.S. regulatory agencies.

What's the big deal? Imported shrimp, more than any other seafood, has been found to be contaminated with banned chemicals, pesticides, and even cockroaches, and it skirts food-safety authorities only to wind up on your plate. The number one reason for all that: the dirty conditions in which farmed shrimp are raised.

#1: It's filthy.

Banned antibiotics aren't the only unwanted sides you get with imported shrimp. Previous tests have found penicillin, an antibiotic that, while legal, could trigger allergic reactions in unsuspecting shrimp-lovers.

"Imported farmed shrimp comes with a whole bevy of contaminants: antibiotics, residues from chemicals used to clean pens, filth like mouse hair, rat hair, and pieces of insects," says Marianne Cufone, director of the fish program at the nonprofit Food and Water Watch. And that list doesn't include Salmonella and E. coli, both of which have been detected in imported shrimp.

In fact, imported shrimp is so dirty that it accounts for 26 to 35 percent of all shipments of imported seafood that get rejected due to filth, according to Food & Water Watch.

#2: Shrimp-packing plants are filthy, too.

A report published in the November 2012 issue of Bloomberg magazine revealed some truly disgusting facts about the conditions in which shrimp are packaged and shipped.

At one particular facility in Vietnam, the magazine's reporters found processing-plant floors littered with garbage, flies buzzing around, and shrimp that wasn't being stored at proper temperatures.

The shrimp itself was packed in ice made from local tap water, which public health authorities warned should be boiled before using due to microbial contamination, potentially exposing the shrimp (and eaters) to more bacterial contamination.

According to Bloomberg, FDA inspectors have rejected 1,380 loads of seafood from Vietnam since 2007 for filth and salmonella, including 81 from the plant the reporters visited.

#3: It's full of cancer-causing chemicals.

 According to a 2011 Government Accountability Office report, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tested just 0.1 percent of imported seafood for chemical residues.

Here's what the agency missed in that untested 99.9 percent: banned antibiotics that have the potential to cause cancer.

Recently, ABC News recruited scientists from Texas Tech University's Institute of Environmental and Human Health to test 30 samples of shrimp purchased from grocery stores for the presence of three classes of antibiotics.

Two samples of farm-raised (as opposed to wild) shrimp from India and Thailand tested positive for nitrofuranzone, an antibiotic that's a known carcinogen, at levels 28 and 29 times higher than those allowed by the FDA. Another antibiotic, chloramphenical, was detected at levels 150 times the legal limit. It's been banned in food production in the U.S. because of possible severe side effects such as aplastic anemia and leukemia.

One exposure to imported shrimp isn't likely to harm you, says study author Todd Anderson, PhD, professor of environmental toxicology. "It's the potential for chronic exposure that we're most concerned about."

#4: It's exacerbating climate change.

More often than not, these nonnative shrimp are raised in farms, rather than being caught wild.

Shrimp farms, essentially huge underwater pens, are built along coastlines, and to make room for them, shrimp farmers have to destroy native mangrove forests that provide a buffer against hurricanes and flooding.

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture have found that mangrove forests absorb and trap more climate-changing carbon dioxide than any other ecosystem on the planet, including rainforests.

Yet, over the past 50 years, anywhere from 5 to 80 percent of the mangrove forests in Thailand, Ecuador, Indonesia, China, Mexico, and Vietnam (the five leading shrimp-farming countries) have been destroyed to make room for more coastal shrimp farms.

#5: It's making the rest of the seafood menu a lot smaller.

  Those mangrove forests do more than just trap carbon dioxide. They provide vital habitats for other commercial seafood species that are important to local economies, including snapper, wild tilapia, sea bass, oysters, and crabs. According to Food & Water Watch, roughly 70 percent of commercially valuable seafood species in Ecuador, Honduras, and Mexico and 33 percent in Southeast Asia are dependent on mangrove forests, and for each acre destroyed, 675 pounds of commercial fish are lost.

#6: It's not domestic.

By this point, you're probably thinking that imported shrimp may be disgusting, but domestic shrimp is tainted with oil. The U.S. wild shrimp market did take a serious hit after the 2010 BP oil spill shut down dozens of shrimp fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico for a year. The shrimp populations there are still recovering, but money has been flowing into a seafood-testing program overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is partnering with the FDA and testing not just for oil but also for residues of Corexit, the chemical dispersant used during the spill.

One concern: Scientists from the Natural Resources Defense Council, another environmental nonprofit, have criticized the residue limits for oil and Corexit that the government is using, suggesting that they're not low enough to protect pregnant women and their unborn children. If you are pregnant, you always have the option of U.S. shrimp from the Pacific Northwest.

http://www.rodalenews.com/farmed-shrimp?cm_mmc=TheDailyFixNL-_-1291392-_-05142013-_-6_Disgusting_Facts_about_Shrimp_title

GM Crop Adoption In South East Asia To Take Off From 2012

Sameer Mohindru
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
12 Aug 2011 10:12 BST

SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--The adoption of genetically modified crops in South East Asia is likely to increase considerably over the next few years as a slew of initiatives involving corn, cotton, sugarcane, potatoes, rice and eggplant start to bear results, an industry executive said Friday.

The spread of GM crops in the region has been slow due to concerns over bio-safety, but there has been a gradual change in that view. Global cultivation of genetically modified crops hit one billion hectares in 2010 but bulk of it has been in North and South America.

Next year is crucial for transgenic crops in the region because commercial planting of new GM varieties is expected in Indonesia and Vietnam, said Randy A. Hautea, global coordinator of International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, an agency that tracks the adoption of GM crops worldwide.

The multi-location trials in both GM corn and GM sugarcane in Indonesia and GM corn in Vietnam are now complete and bio-safety approval for commercial use is expected in 2012, he said on the sidelines of the Asian Food Security Conference.

This will likely be the first commercial cultivation of GM sugarcane anywhere in the world.

Hautea said this is significant because global prices of agricultural commodities are on the rise and an improvement in yields through the use of pest-resistant varieties can limit the need for imports.

He cited the example of the Philippines, which imported 500,000 tons corn annually before it permitted transgenic corn eight years ago, making the country nearly self-sufficient in corn production. Around half the country's yellow corn crop is now the transgenic variety.

Both Indonesia and Vietnam import GM corn from the Americas and local cultivation will be a logical next step, he noted.

Hautea said a large body of research on GM crops in Southeast Asia is being done by government-run institutions as part of national efforts to boost agricultural productivity.

A case in point is developing drought resistance in Indonesia's sugarcane crop through genetic modification, crucial for many islands of Java, he said.

The Indonesian government has also launched field trials for GM potatoes to tackle the Late Blight Disease, using the same technology deployed in Bangladesh and India, Hautea said.

Meanwhile, research on transgenic rice, eggplant and cotton is being conducted in the Philippines.

Growers in Myanmar have been informally planting GM cotton for a few years and in 2010, the government officially allowed its use in the country. Around 75% of Myanmar's cotton growers now use transgenic seeds, Hautea said.