Text 14678, 102 rader
Skriven 2008-10-04 11:44:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
Ärende: Bad shrimp 1
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Food for thought.....

Forwarded from Simon Bao:

Just FYI, this is from The Daily Mail in the UK.  It's a long
article, but it's a good one and blends both the local color of a
Vietnamese shrimp-farming family, and the scary details of just what
they're putting into their shrimp.  And into themselves, into the
environment, and into those among us that eat their shrimp.  And
this isn't just about chemical malpractice in Vietnam, it's
widespread.  And way beyond a little melamine in your milk.

*********************

Is your prawn cocktail toxic?  Read this and you may never want to
eat one again

By Alex Renton
03rd October 2008
Daily Mail

Southern Vietnam is hot and sticky at any time, but the humid air
inside the Huong family's hut, perched on a prawn-pond dyke in the
Mekong Delta, is almost unbearable.

The single room is rank with chemicals: we cough and sneeze when we
enter.

There's an acrid dust all over the mud floor, which makes you worry
for little Huong Thi Mai, a seven-year-old girl who is sitting on
the bed near the door watching her parents work.

I glance at her bare shins for signs of the skin infections that are
common among prawn farm workers, but she looks OK. At least for now.

Mr Huong is proud: 'This is a very modern prawn-farming business,'
he says. And, with luck and four months' hard labour, it is going to
make him and his family quite rich.

After they've paid their debts, the Huongs hope to buy a moped and
their first fridge. Thi Mai might go to a new school. 'We can have a
better life,' says Mrs Huong.

But until the tiger prawns are ready for harvest, and shipped off to
Britain, Europe or America, the family must live here, keeping a
24-hour watch beside the sour-smelling pond.

They've borrowed œ4,000, a huge sum for this family, to invest in
prawn larvae, feed and medicines - and they need to keep alert in
case anyone tries to steal the growing prawns.

Modernity, for Mr Huong, appears to be chiefly measured in
chemicals. I count 13 different pots, jars and sacks of these in the
hut, and he eagerly talks me through them.

He's particularly keen on a compound called 'Super Star' - the
Vietnamese print on the label says it 'intensifies the metabolism to
help prawns grow fat'. He learnt about this additive on a course run
by the Vietnamese government at a local fishery training centre.

'We're not allowed to use much  -  only ten bottles per crop,' he
says.

There are other glossy labels  -  most of them for products made in
Thailand, the centre of the world's prawn-farming industry. Mr Huong
mixes up feed in a basin while we talk. The basic feed, he says, is
soya, broken rice and fish, and prawn parts. But in it goes a large
dose of something called 'Amino-Pro'. 'It helps the prawns taste
better,' he says.

The label has familiar words from stock-cube packets: aspartic acid,
glutamic acid and taurine, which is the key element of the energy
drink Red Bull. Then there is Vitamix, 'to make prawns grow faster',
Calphorax 'to help the shell thicken and give better colour' and Vin
Superclear 'to kill pests, viruses and smells'. On top of all this
is a seasoning of antibiotics.

Prawn farming is an ancient activity in tropical countries. Coastal
peoples in Indonesia and Vietnam have trapped young marine prawns in
brackish ponds for at least 500 years, feeding them up with fish
scraps and household waste to eat or sell. The prawns, properly
farmed, are sweet and juicy: it's a lucrative business.

But the trade has changed drastically since black tiger prawns
became a popular luxury in wealthy parts of the world during the
Nineties. The cottage industry was swiftly industrialised. From
Ecuador to Indonesia, coastal farmers punched holes in sea defences
to let salt water into their paddy fields.

As with salmon, coffee and a host of other once rare and expensive
foods, the demand from rich countries brought more and more
producers into the market.


Cheers

YK Jim


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