7 ms·

Seafood Raised on Pig Feces Approved for U.S. Consumers

46 points by bcn 14y ago

thealphanerd 14y ago
Definitely not kosher
- jlgreco 14y ago
  It's shrimp...
guylhem 14y ago
What the point of such an headline? Public outcry? The agricultural industry needs to find new ways to make food more affordable or more efficiently. Until we find a way to bioengineer proteins from say bacteria, and keep a familiar taste like chicken, we will have to keep using animals. Finding a way to recycle pig waste to reduce the carbon emission and also create seafood seems like a good idea to me. What's the alternative? Letting the pig waste pollute natural resources and keeping seafood price up???
- DanBC 14y ago
  > The agricultural industry needs to find new ways to make food more affordable or more efficiently. Why? We already have plenty of food. If anything, we have too much food.
  - guylhem 14y ago
    Good thing, then absolutely nobody is dying of hunger on this planet, and absolutely no one will buy more seafood if it becomes cheaper. Let's leave aside the recycling for a moment. Some people on this planet (without internet access, and thus not on HN unfortunately) might disagree with the "too much food" statement. (EDIT: Yes I know, distribution is the #1 problem, but lowering prices and increasing productivity is a favorable factor.)
    - vyrotek 14y ago
      I believe it's more of a distribution problem than a quantity one.
    - chongli 14y ago
      There's plenty of food to go around. Starvation only happens because of war/religious/political reasons.
    - DanBC 14y ago
      People aren't hungry because seafood is expensive. People are hungry (mostly) because food is distributed in weird ways. (http://www.wfp.org/hunger/faqs http://www.wfp.org/hunger/faqs) > 1 - Is there a food shortage in the world? > There is enough food in the world today for everyone to have the nourishment necessary for a healthy and productive life. This is from the World Food Program, a United Nations organisation. You mention protein. Lack of protein isn't a problem for many people. Lack of micronutrients is much more serious, affecting (killing or maiming) very many more people.
- aashay 14y ago
  Where, in the article, did you see any mention of recycling pig waste? The article is about food contamination, not sustainability.
  - guylhem 14y ago
    That's just a bloomberg article, not a full cost benefit analysis. If some of the pig waste goes to the shrimps, less of it will go elsewhere. I'd call that recycling - a positive externality here. Pig manure is causing problems in this world. For example, some serious effort is made to find the best storage temperature to reduce methane emissions - see www.engr.usask.ca/societies/csae/protectedpapers/c0209.pdf for exemple. So anything that will reduce or convert the amount produced is a good thing.
    - aashay 14y ago
      Including contaminating food? What's with this straw man? Pig waste might be a problem but how does that justify feeding food sources with it? Are you comfortable with the notion of feeding other non-seafood food sources (such as pigs) with it too? Again, all the context necessary is provided in the article. I'm not against finding a solution to the "pig waste problem." I don't think feeding it to food sources is a logically sound primary solution any more than feeding children radioactive waste is (for the "radioactive waste problem").
      - guylhem 14y ago
        It's a solution. Until it has been evaluated, can't say if it's the best solution. It certainly is a way to consider however - like you, I'm not against any solution. But the radioactive example is a fun one- wasn't there a plan to reduce the risk of radioactive materials by including them in construction materials, so that the emitted radiation would be lower? Some believed that it was safer than concentrating/burying them.
ComputerGuru 14y ago
I suppose there will be the outcry from the Jewish and Muslim factions, as this food is arguably non-kosher and non-halal. It'll probably culminate in a law suite requiring these products to be labeled as such, instead of slipping them in behind the scenes.
- tzs 14y ago
  I'd expect there to be an outcry from more than just people concerned about kosher and halal food. Some of us who don't give a damn about religious food rules also have an aversion to disease ridden food.
  - chii 14y ago
    why would you assume that using pig fecese will cause disease ridden food?
    - tzs 14y ago
      It's covered in the article.
- Turing_Machine 14y ago
  Well, the shrimp is already not kosher. :-) Google indicates that Islamic authorities are in disagreement as to whether shrimp is halal. Crustaceans eat all kinds of nasty things in their natural environment, btw.
  - eternalban 14y ago
    It is Halal. /end fatwa
- ars 14y ago
  Shrimp is already not kosher. But the food an animal eats does not affect it's kosher status. As a general rule species (except for fish) that [normally] eat other animals are not kosher, but even if they did eat other animals it wouldn't cause them to become not kosher. As an example tuna eat things like octopus, yet are kosher. Chickens eat insects and are kosher.
piggity 14y ago
I thought that recycling animal waste into the food chain was one of the suspected causes of CJD. e.g. http://rense.com/general10/MDSS.HTM http://rense.com/general10/MDSS.HTM It seems like a bad idea to me... (primarily from the unknowns, not the knowns)
- guylhem 14y ago
  It's not every kind of animal waste - it's only waste containing neuronal proteins, like the spine, the brain. So it was banned.
Turing_Machine 14y ago
Of course, there's also a good chance that any vegetables you buy from overseas were raised in animal feces of some sort.
DamnYuppie 14y ago
This is silly and not at all new. I believe most crops require fertilizer and until very recently in human history it was either decomposing trash or some form of manure. Regardless they both contain nutrients that can be used to feed and grow other things...the whole "circle of life" and what have you!
- aashay 14y ago
  I'm confused. The article makes no mention of crops nor fertilizer. It discusses the unsanitary conditions at a seafood exporter, specifically the unsafe water that's used to create the ice used for packing shrimp, and a tilapia farm that feeds its fish with manure that could be "contaminated with microbes like salmonella."
- greenyoda 14y ago
  The article is about fish and shrimp that are fed animal feces. Fish and shrimp are not crops (plants grown for food[1]), they're livestock (animals grown for food[2]). "The manure the Chinese use to feed fish is frequently contaminated with microbes like salmonella..." "... packs shrimp headed for the U.S. in dirty plastic tubs. He covers them in ice made with tap water that the Vietnamese Health Ministry says should be boiled before drinking because of the risk of contamination with bacteria" Beef contaminated with even small quantities of feces would not pass USDA inspection, so how could shrimp grown in pig feces be considered safe? (Yes, the shrimp are grown in water that has pig feces in it; there's no other way to get a shrimp to eat something.) That article doesn't sound in the least bit silly to me. It's saying that a large fraction of our seafood supply is dangerously contaminated with bacteria. Would you eat a shrimp that accidentally fell in your toilet and got rinsed off with water? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock
  - salmonellaeater 14y ago
    I am not an expert on food safety, but I believe the stricter standard for beef is because people often eat it rare. The bacteria in the shrimp is not a big deal if you cook it. There are many meats that you NEVER eat undercooked (chicken and pork among others); why not shrimp?
jrockway 14y ago
Evil foreign shrimp is evil, so stock up on some Good-Ol-American pork and beef instead! Signed, the Advertisers.
- aaronbrethorst 14y ago
  Those aren't any better: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/food-sickens-millions-as-industry-paid-inspectors-find-it-safe.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/food-sickens-millio...
  - shardling 14y ago
    Please don't be that guy who posts the same link on every comment in a thread.
    - prawn 14y ago
      It was posted in this branch once (where it's relevant) and as a direct reply where I first noticed, read and appreciated it. One extra mention is pretty easy to ignore. Not as though it's someone spamming their own blog.
aaronbrethorst 14y ago
I submitted the following link the other day and was disappointed it didn't get a single upvote. Hopefully more people will see it now. Seems relevant given the topic at hand. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/food-sickens-millions-as-industry-paid-inspectors-find-it-safe.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/food-sickens-millio...
- mark_l_watson 14y ago
  +1 great article, thanks!
fleitz 14y ago
Couldn't they just test the shrimp? It definitely seems unsanitary on the front of it, but I wonder if it's actually unsafe, or if there is some step down the manufacturing process that makes it safe, such as cooking. On the front of it growing lettuce in pig shit would result in lots of deaths but it doesn't which makes me wonder if it's also a safe way to grow shrimp considering that they pretty much feed on the fish shit anyway. The article is chalk full of experts who say something is unsanitary, but very light on data actually proving that whatever standards these operations have are resulting in unsafe seafood. It would seem to me that shipping seafood covered in pig shit would make a lot of people sick really really fast and if it was unsafe would be REALLY unsafe and generally noticed by people concerned with such things.
aimatt 14y ago
This sounds pretty much what they usually eat...
mark_l_watson 14y ago
Ouch, my wife and I are pescatarians (vegetarians who also eat seafood). I try to buy Canadian and US seafood, but... Good article.
- chunkyslink 14y ago
  I thought you were called a veg-aquarian.
mistagrrr 14y ago
Not exactly surprising news. If you eat seafood consider checking what you are buying with Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch (website[1] or app). [1] http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx
option_greek 14y ago
For people who don't consider this as serious, a reminder from one of the older article: http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/03-hidden-epidemic-tapeworms-in-the-brain http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/03-hidden-epidemic-tape... It's bad enough to eat pigs with parasites but probably worse to come in contact with their shit.
- ufo 14y ago
  Tapeworms are carnivore parasites. Regular tapeworms come from eating a cyst in pig meat. The tapeworm eggs that give rise to those cysts you mentioned come from human feces.
0wza 14y ago
"U.S. Consumers" So does that imply if the consumers were not in the U.S. this would not be newsworthy? Or am I reading too far into the title?
jimrandomh 14y ago
Moderators, please change the title. It is extremely misleading. Here's what the article really says: "Ngoc Sinh has been certified as safe by Geneva-based food auditor SGS SA, says Nguyen Trung Thanh, the company’s general director." "SGS spokeswoman Jennifer Buckley says her company has no record of auditing Ngoc Sinh." In other words, Bloomberg is accusing Ngoc Sinh of having disgusting practices and lying about being inspected, which is a crime, while the title is instead accusing the inspectors of not doing their jobs, which would also be a crime but with a different party accused.
arthurrr 14y ago
What if pigs are raised on these shrimp that have been raised on pig feces (recursive)?

46 points by bcn 14y ago

thealphanerd 14y ago

Definitely not kosher

jlgreco 14y ago
It's shrimp...

guylhem 14y ago

What the point of such an headline? Public outcry? The agricultural industry needs to find new ways to make food more affordable or more efficiently. Until we find a way to bioengineer proteins from say bacteria, and keep a familiar taste like chicken, we will have to keep using animals. Finding a way to recycle pig waste to reduce the carbon emission and also create seafood seems like a good idea to me. What's the alternative? Letting the pig waste pollute natural resources and keeping seafood price up???

DanBC 14y ago
> The agricultural industry needs to find new ways to make food more affordable or more efficiently. Why? We already have plenty of food. If anything, we have too much food.
- guylhem 14y ago
  Good thing, then absolutely nobody is dying of hunger on this planet, and absolutely no one will buy more seafood if it becomes cheaper. Let's leave aside the recycling for a moment. Some people on this planet (without internet access, and thus not on HN unfortunately) might disagree with the "too much food" statement. (EDIT: Yes I know, distribution is the #1 problem, but lowering prices and increasing productivity is a favorable factor.)
  - vyrotek 14y ago
    I believe it's more of a distribution problem than a quantity one.
  - chongli 14y ago
    There's plenty of food to go around. Starvation only happens because of war/religious/political reasons.
  - DanBC 14y ago
    People aren't hungry because seafood is expensive. People are hungry (mostly) because food is distributed in weird ways. (http://www.wfp.org/hunger/faqs http://www.wfp.org/hunger/faqs) > 1 - Is there a food shortage in the world? > There is enough food in the world today for everyone to have the nourishment necessary for a healthy and productive life. This is from the World Food Program, a United Nations organisation. You mention protein. Lack of protein isn't a problem for many people. Lack of micronutrients is much more serious, affecting (killing or maiming) very many more people.
aashay 14y ago
Where, in the article, did you see any mention of recycling pig waste? The article is about food contamination, not sustainability.
- guylhem 14y ago
  That's just a bloomberg article, not a full cost benefit analysis. If some of the pig waste goes to the shrimps, less of it will go elsewhere. I'd call that recycling - a positive externality here. Pig manure is causing problems in this world. For example, some serious effort is made to find the best storage temperature to reduce methane emissions - see www.engr.usask.ca/societies/csae/protectedpapers/c0209.pdf for exemple. So anything that will reduce or convert the amount produced is a good thing.
  - aashay 14y ago
    Including contaminating food? What's with this straw man? Pig waste might be a problem but how does that justify feeding food sources with it? Are you comfortable with the notion of feeding other non-seafood food sources (such as pigs) with it too? Again, all the context necessary is provided in the article. I'm not against finding a solution to the "pig waste problem." I don't think feeding it to food sources is a logically sound primary solution any more than feeding children radioactive waste is (for the "radioactive waste problem").
    - guylhem 14y ago
      It's a solution. Until it has been evaluated, can't say if it's the best solution. It certainly is a way to consider however - like you, I'm not against any solution. But the radioactive example is a fun one- wasn't there a plan to reduce the risk of radioactive materials by including them in construction materials, so that the emitted radiation would be lower? Some believed that it was safer than concentrating/burying them.

ComputerGuru 14y ago

I suppose there will be the outcry from the Jewish and Muslim factions, as this food is arguably non-kosher and non-halal. It'll probably culminate in a law suite requiring these products to be labeled as such, instead of slipping them in behind the scenes.

tzs 14y ago
I'd expect there to be an outcry from more than just people concerned about kosher and halal food. Some of us who don't give a damn about religious food rules also have an aversion to disease ridden food.
- chii 14y ago
  why would you assume that using pig fecese will cause disease ridden food?
  - tzs 14y ago
    It's covered in the article.
Turing_Machine 14y ago
Well, the shrimp is already not kosher. :-) Google indicates that Islamic authorities are in disagreement as to whether shrimp is halal. Crustaceans eat all kinds of nasty things in their natural environment, btw.
- eternalban 14y ago
  It is Halal. /end fatwa
ars 14y ago
Shrimp is already not kosher. But the food an animal eats does not affect it's kosher status. As a general rule species (except for fish) that [normally] eat other animals are not kosher, but even if they did eat other animals it wouldn't cause them to become not kosher. As an example tuna eat things like octopus, yet are kosher. Chickens eat insects and are kosher.

piggity 14y ago

I thought that recycling animal waste into the food chain was one of the suspected causes of CJD. e.g. http://rense.com/general10/MDSS.HTM http://rense.com/general10/MDSS.HTM It seems like a bad idea to me... (primarily from the unknowns, not the knowns)

guylhem 14y ago
It's not every kind of animal waste - it's only waste containing neuronal proteins, like the spine, the brain. So it was banned.

Turing_Machine 14y ago

Of course, there's also a good chance that any vegetables you buy from overseas were raised in animal feces of some sort.

DamnYuppie 14y ago

This is silly and not at all new. I believe most crops require fertilizer and until very recently in human history it was either decomposing trash or some form of manure. Regardless they both contain nutrients that can be used to feed and grow other things...the whole "circle of life" and what have you!

aashay 14y ago
I'm confused. The article makes no mention of crops nor fertilizer. It discusses the unsanitary conditions at a seafood exporter, specifically the unsafe water that's used to create the ice used for packing shrimp, and a tilapia farm that feeds its fish with manure that could be "contaminated with microbes like salmonella."
greenyoda 14y ago
The article is about fish and shrimp that are fed animal feces. Fish and shrimp are not crops (plants grown for food[1]), they're livestock (animals grown for food[2]). "The manure the Chinese use to feed fish is frequently contaminated with microbes like salmonella..." "... packs shrimp headed for the U.S. in dirty plastic tubs. He covers them in ice made with tap water that the Vietnamese Health Ministry says should be boiled before drinking because of the risk of contamination with bacteria" Beef contaminated with even small quantities of feces would not pass USDA inspection, so how could shrimp grown in pig feces be considered safe? (Yes, the shrimp are grown in water that has pig feces in it; there's no other way to get a shrimp to eat something.) That article doesn't sound in the least bit silly to me. It's saying that a large fraction of our seafood supply is dangerously contaminated with bacteria. Would you eat a shrimp that accidentally fell in your toilet and got rinsed off with water? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock
- salmonellaeater 14y ago
  I am not an expert on food safety, but I believe the stricter standard for beef is because people often eat it rare. The bacteria in the shrimp is not a big deal if you cook it. There are many meats that you NEVER eat undercooked (chicken and pork among others); why not shrimp?

jrockway 14y ago

Evil foreign shrimp is evil, so stock up on some Good-Ol-American pork and beef instead! Signed, the Advertisers.

aaronbrethorst 14y ago
Those aren't any better: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/food-sickens-millions-as-industry-paid-inspectors-find-it-safe.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/food-sickens-millio...
- shardling 14y ago
  Please don't be that guy who posts the same link on every comment in a thread.
  - prawn 14y ago
    It was posted in this branch once (where it's relevant) and as a direct reply where I first noticed, read and appreciated it. One extra mention is pretty easy to ignore. Not as though it's someone spamming their own blog.

aaronbrethorst 14y ago

I submitted the following link the other day and was disappointed it didn't get a single upvote. Hopefully more people will see it now. Seems relevant given the topic at hand. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/food-sickens-millions-as-industry-paid-inspectors-find-it-safe.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/food-sickens-millio...

mark_l_watson 14y ago
+1 great article, thanks!

fleitz 14y ago

Couldn't they just test the shrimp? It definitely seems unsanitary on the front of it, but I wonder if it's actually unsafe, or if there is some step down the manufacturing process that makes it safe, such as cooking. On the front of it growing lettuce in pig shit would result in lots of deaths but it doesn't which makes me wonder if it's also a safe way to grow shrimp considering that they pretty much feed on the fish shit anyway. The article is chalk full of experts who say something is unsanitary, but very light on data actually proving that whatever standards these operations have are resulting in unsafe seafood. It would seem to me that shipping seafood covered in pig shit would make a lot of people sick really really fast and if it was unsafe would be REALLY unsafe and generally noticed by people concerned with such things.

aimatt 14y ago

This sounds pretty much what they usually eat...

mark_l_watson 14y ago

Ouch, my wife and I are pescatarians (vegetarians who also eat seafood). I try to buy Canadian and US seafood, but... Good article.

chunkyslink 14y ago
I thought you were called a veg-aquarian.

mistagrrr 14y ago

Not exactly surprising news. If you eat seafood consider checking what you are buying with Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch (website[1] or app). [1] http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx

option_greek 14y ago

For people who don't consider this as serious, a reminder from one of the older article: http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/03-hidden-epidemic-tapeworms-in-the-brain http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/03-hidden-epidemic-tape... It's bad enough to eat pigs with parasites but probably worse to come in contact with their shit.

ufo 14y ago
Tapeworms are carnivore parasites. Regular tapeworms come from eating a cyst in pig meat. The tapeworm eggs that give rise to those cysts you mentioned come from human feces.

0wza 14y ago

"U.S. Consumers" So does that imply if the consumers were not in the U.S. this would not be newsworthy? Or am I reading too far into the title?

jimrandomh 14y ago

Moderators, please change the title. It is extremely misleading. Here's what the article really says: "Ngoc Sinh has been certified as safe by Geneva-based food auditor SGS SA, says Nguyen Trung Thanh, the company’s general director." "SGS spokeswoman Jennifer Buckley says her company has no record of auditing Ngoc Sinh." In other words, Bloomberg is accusing Ngoc Sinh of having disgusting practices and lying about being inspected, which is a crime, while the title is instead accusing the inspectors of not doing their jobs, which would also be a crime but with a different party accused.

arthurrr 14y ago

What if pigs are raised on these shrimp that have been raised on pig feces (recursive)?