Posted on 07/06/2013 11:28:10 AM PDT by Olog-hai
The Mississippi (Catfish Marketing L)aw, which updates a 2008 law, requires every grocer and restaurant in the state to “provide the consumer with the country of origin and method of production of catfish” and, now, of other catfish-like fish.
While the 2008 law required groceries throughout the state to provide country-of-origin labeling for catfish alone, the new law expands the measure to include all catfish-like fish, which is mostly imported, at every “restaurant, cafeteria, lunch room, food stand, saloon, tavern, bar, lounge or other similar facility operated as an enterprise engaged in the business of selling food to the public.”
The law expands the state’s ability to require “any person that prepares, stores, handles or distributes catfish or fish for retail sale maintain a verifiable record-keeping audit trail.” …
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
I am in favor of this. Good to know what you are fixin to eat where it came from.
I’ve been paying more attention to fish products...
No, this law is way beyond that.
Agreed.
I fish for catfish, (see my profile).I rarely eat catfish in a restaurant, most of it is farm raised or comes from other countries. Give me a good ol river catfish anyday.
To paraphrase what a chinese waiter said to a friend who asked "what is this that am I eating?"
"Do you like things that taste LIKE catfish...?"
How you figure?
The required audit trail and the expanded state powers. Always a back door for government control when they claim to be protecting the consumer. Can you afford the paperwork?
Can you afford to ingest fish coming from polluted waters?
http://oceana.org/en/news-media/publications/reports/oceana-study-reveals-seafood-fraud-nationwide
http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/Map_of_National_Testing_Results_FINAL.pdf
http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/LA_Seafood_Testing_Report_FINAL.pdf
Fish, unlike most mammals absorb and retain any toxins that might be in the water they are caught in. I will not even think about eating fish caught in vietnam , thailand or other countries that have open sewers draining into the water, let alone toxins from industry.
What has that got to do with putting the onus on retailers, never mind expanding state power to bully them unnecessarily? There are other ways to achieve such goals. This is not one of them.
Why should the retailers be responsible for that? You think they can afford the extra paperwork, never mind the extra taxes that will be necessary for the expanded state powers?
Me too. Whenever I’m in a restaurant in Miss/La/Ark, and see on the menu that the fish are “local/state” farmed, I’m always much more apt to order it. It’s like a Good Housekeeping seal. Otherwise I assume it to be some steroid-filled, mutant Chinese product, and I avoid it like the plague.
So I’m not bothered when a state or locality makes such laws. Of course, sometimes laws aren’t even needed. I recall some scuttlebutt about some restaurants in Louisiana which opted to import and serve Chinese crawfish instead of buying from local crawfish farmers/suppliers. Some of those restaurants seemed to mysteriously burn down. Problem solved. No law needed.
I can think of a few very local waters that
I'd just as soon not get my catfish from....
http://www.tn.gov/twra/fish/contaminants.html
How many restaurants can afford an audit trail like this law is requiring?
Not sure why this writer thinks its “anti-competitive” unless he has some vested interest in China or Viet Nam poop pond raised “catfish like fish” being sold a safe.
I sure want to know the catfish I consume are not from polluted Asian waters AND are actually catfish, not some “catfish like fish”.
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