5 ms·

If you've never had the real thing you'll never know you're being duped. That's the problem. Fish, shrimp, olive oil, Parmesan, balsamic...

• hammock 10y ago
  Shrimp?
  • stevula 10y ago
    From the article: Shrimp is so bad that Olmsted rarely eats it. “I won’t buy it, ever, if it is farmed or imported,” he writes. In 2007, the FDA banned five kinds of imported shrimp from China; China turned around and routed the banned shrimp through Indonesia, stamped it as originating from there, and suddenly it was back in the US food ­supply.
    • sampo 10y ago
      But what is it that is bad about the shrimp? Is it a particularly unhealthy variety of shrimp? Or do they contain traces of poisonous chemicals?
      • hammock 10y ago
        Thanks to you both. Looks like the use of antibiotics and carcinogenic chemicals is an issue. http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert_33.html http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert_33.html At restaurants I don't think I've ever seen imported shrimp (don't really eat at chain restaurants). I'll have to pay closer attention to the source in the frozen bags I buy from the grocery.
      • prostoalex 10y ago
        I've read Olmstead's book and his beef (pardon the pun) with shrimp is how easy it is for bad players (who stuff their product with carcinogens and various unsafe chemicals to achieve maximum yield) to repackage, relabel and trans-ship their stuff to get a stamp from a new country of origin. When the FDA banned the import of bad shrimp from China http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/28/AR2007062801280.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06..., imports of Philippines and Indonesia shrimp skyrocketed (sometimes beyond those nation's total shrimp harvesting numbers). Upon inspection it was same old carcinogenic shrimp. Honey, tea and spices of unknown origins are also frequent targets of dilution in order to boost the margins.
  • feld 10y ago
    Pumped full of chemicals/hormones when farmed at alarming rates, often mislabeled e.g., Tiger Shrimp not being the real deal
• semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  Easy solution: go to Italy on holiday for a week or two, just to eat food. Now you know. Or even better, go fish, hunt and grow your own. I grew up on salmon my maternal grandpa fished, cod etc. my paternal grandpa fished, smoked salmon my uncle made, moose shot by one of the neighbours, scallops my dad (and later myself) picked while scuba diving, potatoes and carrots either home grown or bought from the farmer down the road, berries picked in the fall by all the family and conserved... The problem is 99% of people don't give a shit, convenience trumps taste and all else. Take something as simple as bread: anyone can make delicious bread with equipment they already own, at low cost, and it doesn't take a lot of time once you've done it a few times. Yet people buy effing atrocious bread from the supermarket every day. I refuse, I've baked all my own bread for the past 11 years. It takes 2 minutes before dinner to mix predough, 3 minutes to mix full dough before putting the kids to bed, then 2 minutes putting the breads in the oven and taking them out again after the kids are tucked in. Repeat every four days.
  • greggman 10y ago
    not so easy. Went to Italy for 2 weeks, had some of the worst food of my life for the first 8 days. Finally asked for help on FB and got a few good suggestions from friends. > The problem is 99% of people don't give a shit This is especially true in the USA, at least according to "The Culture Code" https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Code-Ingenious-Understand-People/dp/0767920570 https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Code-Ingenious-Understand-Peo...