Shrimp's Dirty Secrets: Why America's Favorite Seafood Is a Health and Environmental Nightmare

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Jan 26, 2010 at 19:01:00 PM PST

A while back I posted a piece called "Why You REALLY Don't Want to Eat Shrimp." It was an account of one shrimp farming method in one province of one country (India). And it was disgusting. As I started listing off the chemicals used to farm shrimp to a friend, he replied "You had me at diesel." (FYI, that was just the third chemical mentioned in a very long list.)  

The shrimp issue continued to bother me. I see otherwise eco-conscious people eating shrimp all the time, and I have been to supposedly sustainable restaurants that serve it. Was it really that bad? Then I got wind of a soon-to-be-released report from the Monterey Bay Aquarium that would have some good news about shrimp. Great! Because, of course, ethical eaters will want to know all about that. So I got in touch with Monterey Bay and ended up speaking to a senior scientist there.

The shrimp picture wasn't quite as rosy as I had hoped. The GOOD news is that things are going in the right direction. The BAD news is that we aren't yet to a place where we can supply our demand with ethically-produced shrimp, nor are we to a place where consumers can even tell the difference between what is what.  In the U.S., 85 percent of all shrimp is imported. About a third of the imports come from Thailand, but after that there's a long list of countries that supply it.

Country	Percent of U.S. Shrimp Imports in 2007	Percent of U.S. Imports that were Farmed in 2006
Thailand	34	80.5
Ecuador	11	88.6
Indonesia	11	58.8
China	9	26.0
Mexico	7	70.4
Vietnam	7	82.8
Malaysia	4	40.3
India	4	19.3

When you're lucky, you can find out what country your shrimp is from and maybe whether it was farmed or wild. If it was wild, it was probably caught via trawling (and that's a no-no). If it was farmed, then who knows? Maybe it was farmed in a responsible manner. Maybe it wasn't. That's the problem. So below is a piece I wrote for Alternet that was published yesterday, based in the information I found about the current state of the shrimp industry.

Why You REALLY Don't Want to Eat Shrimp

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Sep 24, 2009 at 22:05:57 PM PDT

From the book Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood by Taras Grescoe:

...a dry [shrimp] pond should be prepared by spreading urea and superphosphate to encourage plankton growth. Once the pond has been filled with brackish water, generally pumped from a nearby creek, it is typically covered with diesel oil to kill off any insect larvae. The water is then treated with piscicide - a substance that poisons any competing aquatic life- such as chlorine or rotenone; the latter has been strongly linked to Parkinson's disease in humans...

Had enough yet? There's more below...

Old News Sampler Platter

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Apr 22, 2009 at 06:00:00 AM PDT

• Former President Clinton admits "We blew it" on global food.

  Clinton said much-needed food crops were treated "like color TVs" instead of a vital commodity that could aid the world's poor.

  Soooo true. Now how you gonna clean up the mess?

• Hmm, apparently eco-friendly shrimp actually exists. Seafood lovers, take note!

• Here's a report from the UK about the role of supermarkets in sustainability.

• A must-read article about racism in slaughterhouses sent to me by TheFatLadySings.

• Another must-read, from The Rodale Institute: Organic Farming May Be the Best Route to Global Food Security.

• This past December, workers at a Smithfield plant won a MAJOR victory when they formed a union. That victory took them 16 years to accomplish.

• The World Bank's 'Wrong Advice' Left Silos Empty in Poor Countries. If these international institutions keep screwing up, does that mean that countries can stop listening to them?

• Animals can be certified organic, so how about people? One pediatrician decided to find out.

  Dr. Greene said he was inspired to go all-organic after talking to a dairy farmer who noted that livestock got sick less after a switch to organic practices. He wondered if becoming 100 percent organic might improve his own health.

  Three years later, he says he has more energy and wakes up earlier. As a pediatrician regularly exposed to sick children, he was accustomed to several illnesses a year. Now, he says, he is rarely ill. His urine is a brighter yellow, a sign that he is ingesting more vitamins and nutrients.