Monday - May 19, 2014

A bit of logical leftie logic

To make real sense, such a boycott would have to have tens of millions of followers. Perhaps hundreds of millions. And it would put a lot of poor Turd Worlders out of work. Boo hoo.

But other than that, it’s not a bad idea.

You see, nearly all the shrimp you get these days is imported. And the vast majority of that is from the Far East, and farm raised. And all those shrimp farms ... disgusting, filthy, disease infested little shops of horror that they are, notwithstanding ... all those shrimp farms are in swampy coastal areas. The same areas that were once mangrove forests. Since 1960, a huge percentage of worldwide mangrove forests have been lost. Torn down. Uprooted. For no other reason than to put in shrimp pens.

More often than not, these nonnative shrimp are raised in farms, rather than being caught wild. Shrimp farms, essentially huge underwater pens, are built along coastlines, and to make room for them, shrimp farmers have to destroy native mangrove forests that provide a buffer against hurricanes and flooding. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture have found that mangrove forests absorb and trap more climate-changing carbon dioxide than any other ecosystem on the planet, including rainforests. Yet, over the past 50 years, anywhere from 5 to 80 percent of the mangrove forests in Thailand, Ecuador, Indonesia, China, Mexico, and Vietnam (the five leading shrimp-farming countries) have been destroyed to make room for more coastal shrimp farms.

Though they lack the celebrity appeal of rain forests, mangroves are critical forest ecosystems that protect coastlines from hurricanes and tsunamis, and sequester massive amounts of carbon. A UN report from 2006 indicates that between 1980 and 2005, 20 percent of the world’s mangroves were destroyed. With their easy access to clean water and tropical climates, mangroves occupy ideal shrimp farming territory. Quarto estimates that “over half the modern mangrove loss since the 1970s has been done by shrimp farming.”

Oh, but not to worry. The problem may be self-curing, as shrimp farms ALL AROUND THE WORLD are infected with a rampant disease that is nearly 100% fatal. And it comes, of course, as you already guessed, from China. Naturally; where else? (Saudi Arabia and Nigeria don’t do shrimp: It’s haram!!)

The disease is called “acute hepatopancreatic necrosis syndrome,” though it’s commonly known as early mortality syndrome, or EMS. Here’s how EMS works: a bacteria enters the shrimp’s stomach. It kills the shrimp’s appetite, and causes the hepatopancreas—the shrimp’s two-in-one liver/pancreas wondergland—to release poisonous toxins. As the organ collapses, a secondary bacteria attacks. Within days, mortality rates in an aquaculture pond can reach 100 percent. The disease first emerged in China in 2009. From there, it crept south to Vietnam and Malaysia before unleashing a shrimpocalypse in Thailand, the world’s largest supplier of shrimp, in 2013. Thailand lost 40 percent of its stock to EMS in 2013.

So if you have to have your shrimp, get it wild caught. You get a choice: the ones from the Gulf of Mexico are tainted with oil and Corexit from the BP oil spill. The ones from the Pacific Northwest ... < ahref="http://nutritionfacts.org/video/fukushima-and-radioactivity-in-seafood/">might merely be radioactive from Fukushima fallout.

If you are planning to eat wild-caught, cold-water shrimp, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch has determined that your best overall choices in this category of shrimp are British Columbia spot prawns, California coonstripe shrimp (caught using submerged pots), and Oregon pink shrimp.

see here too

So, what’s on your barbie?

Posted by Drew458     on 05/19/2014 at 07:13 PM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather • Fine-Dining •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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