Sniffing Out Seafood Safety Standards
If you’re worried about the quality of domestic seafood due to the Gulf oil spill, think twice before you turn to imported seafood as a safer alternative. While many people, such as Change.org’s Sarah Parsons, have been questioning the safety of Gulf seafood, (with food safety officials now employing sniff tests to assess the acceptability of seafood from oil-contaminated areas), few have asked what safety regulations are in place for imported seafood. No matter what your thoughts on the sniff-test method, you should know that imported seafood, which has a lengthy record of safety issues, is barely put to any testing at all.
It's smart to keep up on safety information about Gulf seafood, but it's also important to be wary of imports, like farmed shrimp, from countries with lax regulations like Thailand and Indonesia.
The shocking fact is that the U.S. imports more than 80 percent of the seafood we eat and the FDA inspects less than 2 percent of these imports – meaning that a lot of bad seafood can get to our plates.
So while it’s smart to keep up on safety information about Gulf seafood, it’s also important to be wary of imported fish, for example farmed shrimp, from countries with lax regulations like Thailand and Indonesia. Many of the major importers of popular Gulf-area species like shrimp are notorious for having little to no quality control. Seafood raised in farms can be plagued with disease and subsequently doused in unregulated and sometimes illegal chemicals.
Here’s something most consumers don’t realize: if imported seafood is “processed” in any way (by sprinkling pepper on a piece of fish or wrapping it in bacon, for example), under U.S. law it is exempt from critical Country of Origin Labels. Because of this, we’re often unaware of where our seafood comes from and unable to make educated decisions as to what we purchase. If you find this fact disturbing, tell Congress to close the loopholes in Country of Origin Labeling!
For more information about Gulf seafood visit the Food and Drug Administration website or call: 1-888-INFO-FDA with questions or concerns.
-Lauren Wright