Workers tend to a fish farm in Jiaonan, China. Industry experts and others in China that say melamine has been routinely added to fish and animal feed to artificially boost protein readings.Posted on 12/26/2008 9:07:04 AM PST by BGHater
Industry experts and businesspeople in China say that the industrial chemical has been routinely added to fish and animal feed to artificially boost protein readings.
Reporting from Los Angeles and Shanghai--Melamine in Chinese-produced milk powder has sickened hundreds of thousands of children and added to a growing list of made-in-China foods banned across the globe.Now, some scientists and consumer advocates are raising concerns that fish from China may also be contaminated with the industrial chemical.
China is the world's largest producer of farm-raised seafood, exporting billions of dollars worth of shrimp, catfish, tilapia, salmon and other fish.The U.S. imported about $2 billion of seafood products from China in 2007,almost double the volume of four years earlier, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But industry experts and businesspeople in China say that melamine has been routinely added to fish and animal feed to artificially boost protein readings. And new research suggests that, unlike in cows and pigs, the edible flesh in fish that have been fed melamine contains residues of the nitrogen-rich substance.
Melamine, commonly used in plastics and dishware, can lead to urinary problems such as kidney stones and even renal failure.
Last year, pet foods made with melamine-laced ingredients from China sickened or killed thousands of dogs and cats in the U.S. This year, infant formula tainted with the chemical has been linked to illness in 294,000 small children and six deaths in China, according to China's Ministry of Health.
In the U.S., fish from China can be found in the frozen food aisle in supermarkets and is served in posh restaurants.
Workers tend to a fish farm in Jiaonan, China. Industry experts and others in China that say melamine has been routinely added to fish and animal feed to artificially boost protein readings.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
No more tilapia for you!
Anyone who would buy a package of Chinese seafood needs to have their head examined.
I’ve noticed boxes of frozen talapia bearing “Produce of China” being unloaded into Walmart seafood display cases.
What is it with China and melamine? Is it like global warming and all those billion plus Chinese producing the stuff? Where does all this melamine come from?
I am sure we will get our resident Free Traders on here to tell us “how good free trade with Commie China is”
Wealth redistribution can kill you...in so many ways
China’s war plan: Poison the world, especially Americans.
Even at the seafood counters of larger supermarkets, much of the shrimp, etc. are coming from China.
We only eat fish we catch (but we live near the Gulf and catch a lot, so it's not a problem for us.)
I wouldn't know how you'd verify fish served in a restaurant was not coming from a Chinese source.
“China’s war plan: Poison the world, especially Americans.”
__________________________________________________________
It is working.
It is a damn shame the liberals ruined the concept of eating locally.
Because it is just about the healthiest option there is.
People, if it doesn’t have country of origin, don’t buy it. And if it is from China, you’d have to be suicidal to buy it. If you can, buy/grow locally, get to know your small local markets who know where they are buying. It’s what you eat: it’s important.
“No more tilapia for you!”
The best way to buy Tilapia is to go to the Asian market and pick a live one out of the tank. Here in Ohio, the Tilapia come from a company in Erie Pa.. They’ll off it, gut it, and scale it for you. Leave the head and tail on the fish. Take it home, stuff the inside cavity with slivers of carrot, ginger, and green onion. Put some of that same mix on top of the fish. Pour some Chinese cooking wine over it, preferably Chinkiang Vinegar. Let it set for 15/20 minutes, then steam it. It’s done when a chopstick pokes into it easily.
ABDO-LUTELY DELICIOUS!
Agreed — avoid fish from China.
Years ago we got a package of frozen salmon filets. We found what looked like abscesses in the meat. Package said they were farm raised from China, where they can also use antibiotics that are banned here. Ick. I didn’t even feed it to the chickens, it was so gross.
Now we read labels. Unless someone we know catches the fish and gives it to us, about all we eat is canned salmon from Alaska and-or stuff from Canada.
I’m vegan. I am not going to deal with a fish w/the head on. I don’t even like fish and didn’t eat it before becoming vegan. My son (skywalk) is lucky that I simply pan fry the tilapia for him. While your recipe probably tastes pretty good, it also sounds like a lot of trouble for something he should just stop eating anyway.
Well, I am free to buy or not buy. For some USA products it is now a marketing tool. I bought some frozen shrimp earlier this week. The bag says: “Certified Wild American Shrimp.” They were caught off the coast of Alabama. Since I was 17 and worked at a seafood shop, I have been obsessed with the origins of my fish. I quit buying shrimp from one store once they started importing from Mexico and Central America.
Well that does it
Call your congress critter and demand we pay all our debt owned to china
In addition we will produce all our own stuff including gasp food
Or wait
No I think I will just whine on a website of my choice because critters know I don’t matter
Where is that O messiah gold coin web site I need to buy some I have no need for sanity anymore
I consider EVERYTHING from China having Melamine.
China SUCKS!
Remind me to just stop eating.
(Buy ammo, get your kids out of government schools, pray for the Republic.)
So you're a pro-gun, religious vegan who named his homeschooled kid "skywalk?"
You sir win my vote for most eclectic poster of the day.
Trade with China is the worst mistake we ever made. Clinton opened it up, but Bush just loves it too, apparently.
After the great dog food scandal broke out into public view, despite FDA efforts to hush it up, it became obvious that ALL FOOD, FOOD INGREDIENTS, SUPPLEMENTS, and MEDICAL INGREDIENTS, not to mention pet food, needed careful inspection by the FDA. THAT HAS NOT BEEN DONE. So Americans have been eating poison for another year, as I suspected was probably the case.
The food authorities are quick to shut down family farmers or others who don’t pay as big bribes to the pols as the factory farmers. How about turning a little attention to Chinese poison? How about requiring that labels indicate when ANY products from China or uncertified sources abroad have gone into our food and medical products?
Here is a list of things produced in China that have proven to be deadly:
Toys
Pet Food
Infant formula
Fish
How many things do we need to have on the list before we ban trade with China. I don’t blame our Government though, consumers just have to put safty before the dollar and the problem will be solved.
I don’t eat talapia.
I refuse to eat it.
My friend bought a bag of talapia from Aldi's and found out it was from Viet Nam.....she won't eat it either.
I recently needed some antibiotics...found out they're from Mombai, India.
I returned them and told him I wanted an American made product!!
Now I'm suspect of ALL foods...
..we occasionally buy Hormel frozen dinners...
..the beef is tasty, but I sure would like to know where it's from.
My local supermarket PUBLIX..has started putting on their packages of beef, chicken, etc...Product of US, Mexico and Canada.
I won't buy that anymore either!
I may soon become a vegetarian!
Someone tell me... don't we have enough fresh fish in our seas to feed Americans!!!?
China is a huge producer of melamine, along with urea fertilizers. Melamine is often produced in the same plants as urea and NH3.
Because melamine is so high in nitrogen, it is a cheap, easy way to boost the protein readings in foodstuffs. Since milk (and milk solids) as well as animal feeds are graded based (at least in part) on the amount of protein in them, you get a big bang for your buck by augmenting the feed with melamine.
Here’s an example of a legit and safe protein boost that is occasionally done in the US:
It used to be (years ago, before the greenies started banning everything) that the straw/stubble left in a field after rice was harvested in California was burned. Now it cannot be burned, so it has to be raked up into windrows and baled to get it off the field and out of the way of the next rice planting.
Well, straw isn’t exactly useful as animal feed - it is all fiber, has only a little carbs/sugars in it, and very little protein. Ah — but if you put the bales of rice straw into a closed container and you put in a bunch of anhydrous ammonia, the NH3 will bind with any water in the straw (which is typically 8% moisture) and boost the N level in the straw, thereby boosting the gain a cow will get off of eating the straw.
It also kills insects & mites, which is a nice side-effect.
So there you have it: the reason why China has this “melamine” thing going on is because a) they’re commies, and commies never cared a whit for how many people they kill, b) who want to game feed standards, so that c) they can get more money.
If it says “China” on the package, I don’t buy it, period.
Talapia is a garbage eating bottom fish and is loaded with fat, the bad kind of fat, you would be better off eating two big-macs than having Talapia, look it up, it’s true, it’s a disgusting fish, the only reason it made it to the menu is we’ve overfished everything else.
Your reaction is why US farmers wanted COOL — Country of Origin Labeling - years and years ago. You can’t blame the US farmer here — the US farmers saw this coming YEARS ago - because US farmers have seen the flagrant violations of animal feed regulations by the ChiCom’s (and Brits, Canadians and Mexicans) for years.
Sadly, the GOP has been the biggest obstruction to getting COOL passed. The GOP is in the pockets of the huge packing houses, who want to continue to pass off Mexican & Canadian beef as “American” and they don’t want COOL, because then they’d have to pay US beef producers more for their product, rather than playing currency arbitrage games while buying Canadian or Mexican cattle.
Since we now have a Democratic Congress, COOL will FINALLY probably get passed.
This is another example of the GOP shooting themselves in the foot and allowing the “Free Trade Uber Alles” clowns to run the GOP into the ground. The GOP is the last to get the memo that “free trade” is a myth, a chimera, and nonsensical piece of BS spouted by economists who don’t know anything about the real world and how the real world works.
The real world works like this: Commies will put poisonous materials into food, because they don’t care how many people die. They never did. They never will. There is nothing that the GOP’s “free trade” economists can do to change this fact of the world. Nothing. No inspection protocol here in the US will solve this problem, no regulation or trade regulation will solve this issue.
Allow the US consumer to know where the food comes from and the commies are going to lose sales - big time.
So now instead of carrying water for just the big packing houses, the GOP is carrying water for the commies.
When the GOP gets their head out of their plush and pompous posteriors, they might win elections again.
I was in the industry for 25 years and can tell you with no hesitation that known West Coast Mexican labels such as Ocean Garden are vastly superior to product packed by ANY U.S. packer.
(Fortified by most of a week I spent observing sloppy domestic American operations in the Texas Gulf coast area)
OH BOY! Another vegan who has a compulsion to tell anyone and everyone that they are a vegan...how rare! Why is it, vegan person, that a the first thing out of the mouths of vegans is that they are vegans? I don’t care what you eat, I don’t want to know about it, STFU and go eat your vegetables. Oh yeah, and the vegan diet is dangerous to your health, in case you didn’t know, humans are omnivorous.
No, we don't....far from it. Some has to do with overfishing, but a lot is regulatory conservation crap.
That's what I found out about peanut butter. Most made-in-Canada peanut butter is from peanuts grown in China. Sheesh.
Wal-Mart sell frozen Cod fillets, product of China!
It says: "Individually Vacuum-Sealed. Wild Caught. All Natural"!!
Cod live near the bottom of cold or temperate northern seas, at depths of 600 to 1200 feet. Cod are valued both as food and as the source of cod-liver oil!!!
It seems to me that farming cod is difficulty to do???
Well maybe the nuts in health food stores are local. They will grind it into peanut butter for you.
We as a nation should refuse to buy all the stuff from China. It is the only way to get corporations to change their orders.
It is a corporate problem. They are interested in paying the cheapest price possible to get the products they buy.
And Frankly to heck with the consumers.
I won't buy that anymore either!
But lately they are selling meat product under the label "Green Wise" labeled: "Raised without Antibiotics. Raised without added hormones. Vegetarian diet. No artificial ingredients. No preservatives." It cost a little more than the other meats and should be on the same grade as what you buy at Whole Food???
As for tilapia, what is that anyway, 'soylent green' fish? Never heard of it until a few years ago.
Yeah, I have a real problem with crawdad from China.
Damn, don’t we produce anything for ourselves these days.
We buy our crawdads from Louisiana.
They just have a fancier name than 'Carp'!
He claimed that the increased Alzheimer the last fifty years is not really Alzheimer's, but more likely as Jacob's decease stemming from eating lots of meat. After hearing this we don't eat meat in restaurants, and we buy the much higher priced Buffalo meat from Whole Food!!!
OK, I see. Thanks for the great explanation. It made lots of sense. The stuff must really be cheap and easy to make.
We get lot’sa crawdad during season. Man, a 5lb platter coated with swamp dust and a pitcher of beer.........man, that's the closest thing to heaven on earth.
But, off season it's hard to find frozen crawdad tails from the U.S. for etouffe and gumbo fixins.
The local grocery store has frozen lb blocks......labeled, “Wild Caught”.
Yuck, I've read stories about the water quality around the Chinese countryside. Wild caught....man, just doesn't even muster an appetite.
Just because they say it’s cod, doesn’t mean it’s cod.
They found it in baby formula too, but our government assures us ‘in safe levels’-no such thing. My niece has taken my Mom’s old baby formula recipe out of the family cookbook and is making her own formula. She can’t nurse. Be careful with Walmart, they don’t always tell you where something is from.
I saw on one of the news channels that they just sent four FDA people to China. Wow that will really help...not.
Wonder if I'm correct that Florida started labeling WHERE produce, meats, etc are from AFTER it got stuck with millions in lost revenue due to the tomato scare of last year.....(or maybe that's just a small part of it, or the last straw)
And as we found out, the real culprit was MEXICO
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