When you sit down to eat that plate full of shrimp, you are also unknowingly eating sewage, and many illegal drugs.
“… according to a new independent report, the Chinese aquaculture industry crams fish and shellfish into facilities to maximize production, generating large amounts of waste, contaminating water and spreading disease (Food & Water Watch 2007).” This quote was taken from a report on today’s shrimp toxicity, researched and written by Craig Weatherby. Mr. Weatherby also stated “China’s seafood farmers try to control the spread of infections, disease, and parasites by pumping the animals’ feed with antibiotics and filling the waters with pesticides and fungicides.”
Shrimp industry is destroying the environment, specifically the mangrove swamps where the majority of the toxic shrimp are grown. Indonesia, Thailand are also a prime location for these toxic seafood farms. Shrimp can be dangerous if you do not know where the shrimp are caught from. The United States oceans are often a better source for shrimp.
The following two quotes have been provided by Greenpeace on this topic:
“Over the last few decades shrimp farming has been a relentless destroyer of huge expanses of tropical coastlines, particularly mangrove forests. Mangrove forest roots are bulldozed into the mud to make way for the intruding shrimp farms. The coastal equivalent of terrestrial rain forests, mangroves are home to an incredibly diverse range of life. They are breeding grounds and nurseries for many fish, shellfish and other wildlife. Shrimp farming turns them into a barren and toxic prawn cocktail.”
“To grow as many shrimp as possible and maintain overcrowded populations, large amounts of artificial feed and chemical additives, including chlorine,are added to this destructive cocktail. Malathion, parathion, paraquat and other virulent pesticides are also sprayed on the pools.”
The consumer group, Public Citizen reports, “The story of farmed shrimp is also one that health conscious consumers should want to hear because if they knew more about what might be lurking in the flesh of farmed shrimp, they might think twice about eating too much of it, or about eating any at all. ”
A consumer advocacy group, Food and Water Watch has said ” With millions of shrimp crammed together in ponds, diseases can run rampant, in some cases severely enough to kill off entire ponds and even a country‚ entire shrimp industry. On average, an intensive shrimp operation only lasts for seven years before the level of pollution and pathogens within the pond reaches a point where shrimp can no longer survive,”;
“The negative effects of eating industrially produced shrimp may include neurological damage from ingesting chemicals such as endosulfans, an allergic response to penicillin residues or infection by an antibiotic-resistant pathogen such as E. coli.” This is a warning from Food and Water Watch.
Credits:Anya V, source
This site's content is licensed under a
