Newsday, Sylvia Carter
Published January 12, 2007
All-you-can eat shrimp at a restaurant buffet may seem like a swell bargain.
Money-wise, that could be true. But the real costs may be hidden. Plentiful, farm-raised shrimp come with a price tag to our health and the environment, according to Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Washington, D.C.-based Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit consumer- rights group that challenges corporate control and abuse of food and water resources.
"Consumers should be outraged that most of the shrimp served in the United States is produced in polluted, artificial ponds," Hauter said. Much of the shrimp we eat has been exposed to sewage that pollutes the water used by shrimp facilities, antibiotics that are used to control disease, parasites and more than a dozen types of pesticides, Hauter said.
Shrimp is America's most popular seafood, and 80 percent of it is imported, typically from Thailand, Vietnam, Ecuador and other tropical countries. Average consumption, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service, is 4.2 pounds a person each year. (I eat far less than my share, so some people have got to be eating more than theirs.)
In the United States, at least in theory, the federal Clean Water Act calls for shrimp farms to operate "closed" systems that do not allow any waste water to enter the surrounding environment and contaminate aquifers.
Andrianna Natsoulas, campaign coordinator for the Wild Ocean campaign of Food & Water Watch, said, "The majority of shrimp that is imported is farm-raised, and usually not in a closed system." Natsoulas said that Central and South American branches of Food & Water Watch "do not want Americans to be buying this stuff because it is destroying their communities" by polluting water.
A new report from Food & Water Watch, "Suspicious Shrimp," contains the following recommendations:
The Food and Drug Administration must significantly increase physical inspections and testing of imported seafood. To make this happen, Congress must increase funding for inspections. The FDA only inspects about 1.2 percent of all imported seafood, according to the report.
Loopholes in country-of-origin labeling rules should be closed, so that seafood at restaurants and stores is labeled. Natsoulas said about half the seafood sold in grocery stores does not have to be labeled, despite U.S. Department of Agriculture rules about labeling, because it is processed and falls into a loophole in the law.
Consumers should look for wild-caught domestic shrimp, or shrimp farmed in the United States by environmentally responsible operations. (Of course, how can we do this if shrimp is not labeled by origin?) However, if you trust the source of your seafood to be truthful, one way to gauge whether or not shrimp is wild-caught is by price. Wild-caught shrimp will usually cost more.
Mostly, I buy only wild seafood. But I am not entirely immune to the charms of cheap shrimp. I was lured one day by a delicious-smelling sample of shrimp in a garlic-tomato sauce. The taste test was so convincing that, when I learned that these imported, frozen black-tiger shrimp were shelled (tails on) and deveined and cost only a little more than $7 a pound, I succumbed. I brought them home, but they are still in the freezer. I can't quite bring myself to cook them.
The Organic Standards Board, which helps the USDA set standards for organic foods, is expected to come out with standards for organically farmed fish, including shrimp, later this year.
The more I find out about shrimp and other seafood, the more I am convinced that we must, as consumers, demand that the problems behind contamination be cleaned up. It is absurd that seafood, such a valuable source of protein and healthful omega-3 fatty acids, has been trashed and now, along with so much else, we are afraid to eat it.
Even FDA recommendations for fish consumption by expectant mothers are not strict enough and could result in their consuming enough mercury to put the health of their fetuses at risk, according to a computer analysis of FDA data released by both the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a federation of state and public interest groups.
Problems also may occur with children's development and learning later on, according to the same analysis. The government regulations, to take one example, suggest that the average woman can safely eat the equivalent of 76 cans of tuna during her pregnancy. But eating more than one can a month during pregnancy is risky, according to Jane Houlihan, research director of the environmental group.
According to the report from the two groups, the FDA recommendation that pregnant women eat 12 ounces of fish a week is based on calculations that would safeguard a 150- pound man. Half of American women weigh less than that, however, and a developing fetus is more sensitive to the health impacts of mercury than a grown man would be.
Yet these two groups suggested that among the "safer choices" are shrimp and farmed trout or catfish. What should we believe? What should we do? "The more consumers ask, the more the retailer is going to respond," Natsoulas said.
But suppose the retailer doesn't know the whole story behind what is being sold? I don't have the answers, but asking questions is a start. I know that as this new year begins, we should all be vigilant and ask where shrimp and other food come from. If we don't like the answers, we can say, "No thank you."
Visit shrimpactivist.org, or, to see the report, go to foodand waterwatch.org/fish/pubs/ suspicious-shrimp.
