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 think the law is misguided
It assumes US fish are safe.
Just because a catfish is harvested in the US
Does NOT mean it is safe to eat”
True, and the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that is the way to bet.
If someone places a plate of Chinese or Malaysian catfish down alongside the American grown, which would you choose to eat? Really, honestly,,when nobody is looking. Would you actually choose the open sewer society’s offering?
Hope you had a “non-Chinese” imported flame suit. Nobody, including yourself are backing your lame reasoning.
You have a good day, my FRiend.
But how about that some people want to eat only American catfish and some want to have access to international catfish and that you can’t put up simple trade barriers without retaliation?
Then labeling will help those crazed people find the Chinese and Vietnamese Catfish-like product they so enjoy, and then they can successfully avoid American Catfish?
How far down does the labeling and documentation have to go down before it is a realistic guarantee?
Sounds a lot like the European Union’s labeling schemes.
I always thought catfish were bottom feeders.........So what body of water that catfish inhabit aren't polluted to some degree?
Do you know what the question mark (?) is? I’m trying to dig a bit deeper into the issue. I do not see where expansion of government is the answer to any perceived problem, with all due respect.
I already said that there are too many unanswered questions. It appears that you don’t have the answers either by your responses, or you are refusing to answer same, which looks a lot like a nod towards government expansion; and just because it is at state level does not make it good (cf. Bloomberg, which is at municipal level, even smaller in scope).
Big government combined with protectionism is mercantilism, a type of trade much favored by extreme leftists—note Red China’s favoring of same. (I did not “reason” that conclusion; it is merely fact.)
I suspect the reason for this is the hidden secret of seafood and fresh water fish: that a lot of it isn’t what it is labeled to be.
For example, taking a cookie cutter to whitefish and calling it a scallop, or selling Escolar and Oilfish (snake mackeral) as “butterfish”, “white tuna”, or “cod” though they contain indigestible wax esters that give people diarrhea.
Red snapper is hardly ever actual red snapper. Only about 7% sold nationwide is genuine.
Farm salmon is sold as wild salmon. Pangasius is sold as grouper, sole, and cod, tilapia sold as red snapper and Atlantic farmed salmon sold as wild or king salmon.
Other bad fish sold as good fish include Ciguatera fish, frequently contaminated with toxic bacteria; good tuna, mackerel, skipjack, bonito, mahi mahi, bluefish, and marlin that are contaminated with scombrotoxin and salmonella bacteria.
And then there are otherwise good fish, that for some people can provoke an intense allergic response so must be very clearly labeled: pollock, salmon, cod, tuna, snapper, eel, and tilapia.
Most commonly foisted off as catfish is Asian pangasius (or ponga), which is also sold as sole, flounder, and grouper.
DNA testing has confirmed that one-third of the 1,215 fish samples collected from 674 retail outlets in 21 states were mislabeled, according to FDA guidelines.
No, then people who prefer to eat the cheaper Asian stuff can, because it will be on the market, while those who don’t want do can not, because it will be so marked.
Not a very good solution to the problem, IMO.
Then this is a matter of criminal fraud. We do have extant laws in place for this. If the retailers are not guilty of that fraud, they should not be treated as though they were perpetrating it; the crime fighters need to attack the fraud at the source.
Has to happen in lots of industries now. Yeah, something of a paperwork nightmare, and Bill and Suzie who just want to sell a few vegetables or whatever from their farm stand have to keep records too—though presumably they shouldn’t be going through too many distributors.
If the international food chain were safer or consumers weren’t interested in buying organic food and such, it wouldn’t be necessary.
Could distributors keep the records for retailers? With automation that should presumably be more easily done, but if you want to follow the chain for food poisoning, for example, you’ve got to track where everything came from, so yes, it would have to be to the retailer level.
Yes indeed, I rarely eat fish since seeing "Alaskan Salmon" in my market labeled in very fine print, "product of China."
Give me a good ol river catfish anyday.
Never had catfish. Are those the big guys on your FR homepage? Whatever they are, they sure look meaty. If that's the right word for fish???
Yep. If there weren’t rampant fraud through the fish distribution chain I’d be more sympathetic to claims of over-regulation.
They pass on the extra cost to Hangnjudge and anyone else who eats catfish.........So as the cost of catfish goes up, the bulk retailer gets blamed, and more hostility is generated towards those companies from the consumers.
Dats da plan, demonize the retailers while the growing govt and its ever increasing regulations get off scott free.............
One only has to look at the oil and coal companies to realize what this government has done to demonize them........
And the retail price goes up, resulting in fewer purchases, more product going past sell-by date in warehouses . . . sounds like a very Soviet plan to me.
What 'audit trail'? When a restaurant or retailer purchases seafood to sell or prepare for customers, the distributor from which they purchase it will have the information about the origin of the product. They can include that information on the invoice, thus the restaurant or retailer can pass this on to the consumer. I don't know why this would be difficult for them.
The commissioner may require that any person that prepares, stores, handles or distributes catfish or fish for retail sale maintain a verifiable record-keeping audit trail that permits the commissioner to verify compliance with this law and any regulations promulgated hereunder.
You DO know that farm raised catfish is a big business in MS, don't you? I used to find MS raised catfish up here in MA! It's GOOD!
Do you seriously think that the inspection of such product ends at the bulk retailer? And are you aware that all such govt. inspectors are SEIU members?
This is nothing more than an unnecessary bureaucracy created by the govt. to not only give legitimacy to these jobs but keep its SEIU members employed........
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