COOL -- Country-of-Origin Labeling -- is a law that went into effect last year. It requires many types of foods to have labels showing where they came from, in an effort to help consumers make knowledgeable choices about what they eat. It was a great idea -- but some foods, like processed seafood, are not required to have labels. This is one thing that is not so cool about COOL.

Less than 2% of imported seafood is inspected for cleanliness and chemical or bacterial contamination.  Given that about 80% of the seafood we consume here in the U.S. is imported, this low level of inspections is scary -- especially since the little that is inspected often does not meet minimum health and safety standards. For example, 1 in 14 shrimp shipments that are inspected get rejected.  Some are categorized as "filthy" and others are found to have residues of penicillin and other antibiotics from the industrial conditions under which the shrimp are grown. 

The only way for consumers to protect themselves is to know where their seafood is coming from, but loopholes in COOL allow all processed shrimp and seafood to go unlabeled.  That means if a scallop is wrapped in bacon or sprinkled with lemon pepper, its origin does not need to be labeled.

We also need to close the loopholes in COOL to help save our coastal and fishing communities.  The flood of unlabeled, industrially-produced shrimp from countries like China and Thailand, with lower safety, health and labor standards, has devastated our domestic shrimping industry, making it more and more difficult for consumers to find clean, safe shrimp and pushing many shrimpers and those in related jobs out of business. 

To give consumers the choice to buy domestic -- both for better health and more stable communities -- we need to make sure all our shrimp and seafood is labeled.  Please do your part -- sign the petition and then send it on to a friend.