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Seafood Raised on Animal Feces Approved for Consumers

If you are a seafood lover and wish that you could eat more fish raised on pig feces, your dreams are coming true. Due to fierce competition in the Chinese tilapia industry, farmers are increasingly switching to feces instead of commercial feed. From the article: "At Chen Qiang’s tilapia farm in Yangjiang city in China’s Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong, Chen feeds fish partly with feces from hundreds of pigs and geese. That practice is dangerous for American consumers, says Michael Doyle, director of the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety. 'The manure the Chinese use to feed fish is frequently contaminated with microbes like salmonella,' says Doyle, who has studied foodborne diseases in China."

296 of 386 comments (clear)

  1. Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They don't give a fuck. Why do you think all their shit (accidental pun) is so cheap? Whatever it takes to squeeze a nickel even if it means killing some workers or customers.

    --
    I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    1. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Don't worry - the free market will work all of this out!

    2. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      We buy it. Seems more like a commentary on everyone.

      In other news, your vegetables are all grown in feces too. ;)

    3. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by pspahn · · Score: 2

      In other news, your vegetables are all grown in feces too. ;)

      Yeah, but that's nice hearty steer manure. Good stuff. So rich and alive with plant loving goodness.

      Goose shit is just disgusting. It's sorta green, sorta white, not really solid and all slimy and uck. I mean, can you imagine stepping into your garden to pick a tomato, and you get this slimy crap all over your clogs?

      --
      Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
    4. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by pspahn · · Score: 1

      I don't know why... but I ended up on this page after posting this.
      http://marzukionline.com/2010/09/one-glorious-fall-day-goose-shit-sinks-zukis-game/
      It's not a bad idea, I must say.

      --
      Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
    5. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by robot5x · · Score: 1

      i was on /. the other day posting in the story about the fake chinese air bags.
      I asked - "surely there are some good news stories about China out there somewhere, that doesn't involve flagrant breaches of environmental/labour/any other protocols or laws??"

      LOL

      --
      Hej! Nasi tu byli!
    6. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by ThatsMyNick · · Score: 1

      We buy it. Seems more like a commentary on everyone.

      In other news, your vegetables are all grown in feces too. ;)

      No they are not. They are grown in composted feces (which kills most of the harmful bacteria), or in other words manure.

    7. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by DarkOx · · Score: 1

      Yes it probably will. It will cause customers who are worried to avoid Chinese sea food, might even put the producers or the importers out of business.

      Looks what some of the contaminated vegetable scares have done to certain groups of farmers in our nation. They have driven them out of business and forced others to take elaborate measures to ensure and convince customers of the safety of their product.

      With "openness" the market will do the job just fine. As long as people know where their sea food product is coming from and what the methods of production are I don't see any problem.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    8. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by marcop · · Score: 1

      They'll just add MORE steroids and antibiotics to compensate. The side benefit is that we will all be stronger and healthier!

    9. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by dywolf · · Score: 1

      Here's an idea: cook your fish.
      The only fish legally allowed to be sold for consumption raw is required to be labeled as "sushi-grade", and to get that certification involves very stringent requirements. so if you eat raw or undercooked fish that gets you sick, its your own fault. Cook your damn fish and you wont get sick.

      News flash: the best fertilizer in the world is manure. Bird gauno, bat guano, and horse manure. Stuff works GREAT in gardens. Better than miracle-gro, natural, and not nearly as potentially harmful to the environment if overused. Just like with the fish, the feces is strictly a feed source, energy, carbs, protien etc. You arent actually eating the manure in either case. If you are, you're doing something wrong.

      This is a sensationalist article written by people who have no concept where their food comes from, being overreacted to by people who also have no idea where their food comes from but are quick to jump on the "alll corps suck bandwagon". I've ridden on that bandwagon, but it doesnt apply here.

      Learn where your damn food comes from city slickers.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    10. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1

      Here's an idea: cook your fish.

      Fish turns to rubber if it's cooked much past 140F.

      Nobody cooks fish to the 160F required to kill dangerous pig pathogens. That's partly because up until now, fish haven't spent their lives bathed in dangerous pig pathogens.

      As far as gardens go, the shit is either first composted, or at the very least spread early in the season so it has time to break down. People don't sprinkle raw pig shit on their lettuce right before harvest.

    11. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Manure does NOT mean composted. Manure is feces from livestock. Once composted, it's actually called compost.

      And you don't grow stuff that you're intending to eat directly in manure IIRC.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    12. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      They'll just add MORE steroids and antibiotics to compensate. The side benefit is that we will all be stronger and healthier!

      Just as long as they don't keep them in goddam commie fluoridated water.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    13. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 1

      I see frozen tilapia from china and the east for very cheap prices at the supermarket. I see the fresh stuff from south america for dollars more (20-50% more in many cases).

      but I won't knowingly buy china-made food. or china-raised.

      they don't care! they have a sell and run attitude (as I call it). sell shit to us, then find the next sucker. if we get sick, what are we going to do? SUE CHINA? yeah, right.

      they don't consider us part of 'them'. we are foreigners to them. whatever they sell to us, they are fine with! total lack of ethics. sad but true ;(

      and so, the cost of food is higher. but I refuse to knowingly trust eastern 'farmed' food. not a good buy when you think about the 'you are what you eat' concept.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    14. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by tmosley · · Score: 1

      Which one? The one managed by the Chinese Communist party, or the one managed by our own socialist/fascist government?

      If you didn't notice the nonsensical juxtaposition of the concept of a free market with any form of "management", then you might have just gone to a school where you were fed propaganda.

    15. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by dywolf · · Score: 1

      1) Pork only needs 145 degrees.
      2) I love your broad, generic unspecific "dangerous pig pathogens" phrasing
      3) No, you pretty much apply the manure directly to the dirt no composting required. Spike treatments during growth too as needed for plants that in locally variable soil. Horse works best I find.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    16. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1

      The internal part of a solid pig muscle needs 145 degrees. The outside, potentially exposed to dangerous pig pathogens during butchering, is always cooked higher. Not so with fish.

      I suppose you're welcome to sprinkle raw uncomposted pig shit on your own salad if you want. Go for it.

    17. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by brusewitz · · Score: 1

      You obviously have never worked on a farm. Manure is taken from the barn and pushed into a manure pond. It stays there until the farmer comes and scoops it out and spreads it directly on the field using manure spreader pulled behind a tractor, or more likely these days, gets shot out of a shit shooter just like water from the sprinkler. They don't let it sit around and compost unless they are in the business of selling compost. Next time you go past a farm and see brown dirty water coming out of the sprinkler, pull over, get out of your car and take a good whiff! Compost doesn't stink like crap.

    18. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by doshell · · Score: 1

      With "openness" the market will do the job just fine.

      The question is whether openness is possible (or rather: assured) in a free market without regulation.

      --
      Score: i, Imaginary
    19. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      our state capitalist (not capitalist and not free) government approved doing business with a "communist" (as implemented on earth by countries) regime, how exactly would "free market' come into play?

    20. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by J'raxis · · Score: 1

      In other words, they're saving you money, and all you have to do in return is know how to cook your food thoroughly, rather than expect some government regulator to protect you. How terrible!

    21. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by DirtyLiar · · Score: 1

      What do you think is a large proportion of their diet in the wild?

      --

      THINK! It's patriotic

    22. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by DirtyLiar · · Score: 1

      You've obviously never DRIVEN past a farm. There are whole seasons that most of them reek of cowshit.

      --

      THINK! It's patriotic

    23. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by Jmc23 · · Score: 1

      I thought their stuff was cheap because the US wants cheap stuff at whatever cost.

      --
      Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
    24. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by cusco · · Score: 1

      Apparently you don't realize what happens to the solids from your municipal sewage plant.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    25. Re:Chinese regulators are like Honey Badger by cusco · · Score: 1

      You can compost 'in place', spreading manure directly on fields. There are machines available to do just that (in Europe they're also occasionally used to cover a public building with manure to protest one thing or another). In the Andes at higher altitude there is a farming technique that starts plants in manure, since the heat keeps the frost from killing seedlings.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
  2. Do you know what real animals eat? by SuperKendall · · Score: 2, Informative

    Anyone with a dog has probably seen it eat, literally, crap.

    Heck, honey is basically bees throwing up for you.

    In the real world, animals are messy critters that eat a lot of stuff you would never eat yourself, some of which you would not survive eating.

    In the end it's a good reason to wash and cook food properly before eating, but not necessarily something to panic over, even practices that sounds as odd as this.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I agree with superkendal on the idea, that animals eating poo is not strange.
      But what do concerns me about this idea is that the feces are probably from big pig farms where pigs get industrial food, which lacks recources pigs don't need but other creatures would. I would have less a problem with this idea if the fish eat nonindustrial feces.

    2. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by drkim · · Score: 1

      ...honey is basically bees throwing up for you.

      Uh, no.
      Honey is a highly refined food bees make themselves. It is not a waste product.

    3. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      that would have to be one charming motherfucking pig.

    4. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by Farmer+Tim · · Score: 1

      Honey is a highly refined food bees make themselves.

      And how do the make it?

      It is not a waste product.

      Nobody said it was. If it's being harvested for you it's being made for you, even if the bees had other plans. This is true for everything you eat: nothing grows seeds, fruit, flesh or whatever with your appetite in mind.

      --
      Blank until /. makes another boneheaded UI decision.
    5. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      It is not a waste product.

      Nobody said it was.

      No, but shit is, and that was the subject of the article.

      As to honey, that's not comparable at all. It's not a waste product, it's intended to be eaten, so there's an incentive for it to be clean.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    6. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Hmmm, sounds like an idea for a movie.

      If bees have language, their name for us probably translates as "furless bears".

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    7. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by drkim · · Score: 1

      It is not a waste product.

      Nobody said it was.

      I'm pretty sure somebody said it was "bee throw up." Maybe you eat vomit, but for me, "throw up" is a waste product.

      This is true for everything you eat: nothing grows seeds, fruit, flesh or whatever with your appetite in mind.

      Actually, a lot of fruits and vegetables have evolved to be deliberately attractive to eat by humans and other animals, so they can spread the seeds in their fæces.

    8. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by sonamchauhan · · Score: 2

      hmmm... yes, a movie, yes.

        "The Matrix"? How's that for a working title?

    9. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by TheLink · · Score: 1

      In the USA many cows eat chicken shit and feathers:
      http://articles.latimes.com/2009/oct/31/business/fi-feed31

      --
    10. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      And how do the make it ?

      Certainly not by including living and decomposing dead bacteria in it!

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    11. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by blane.bramble · · Score: 1

      Doesn't do it for me.

      Maybe "The Great Escape"?

    12. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Anyone with a dog has probably seen it eat, literally, crap.

      Personnaly, I don't eat dogs ... just sayin' ...

      Anybody who has spent any time on a farm can tell you that cows eat a lot of their own shit, literally. And I'm not talking about large, industrial farms either, I'm talking about free-range cattle. I remember once watching a cow grazing on some tall grass, while another cow was shitting all over the first one's head and of course the grass it was eating.
      Pigs are even worse, they eat damn near anything. Chickens are, too.

      I'm not claiming what the article is talking about is safe. I'm saying that people need to stop being reactionary and screaming "OMFG the animal ate shit so by extension I'M eating shit too!" and go find out exactly what's going on and if it's even something to get worried about.

    13. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by rvw · · Score: 2

      Anyone with a dog has probably seen it eat, literally, crap.

      Heck, honey is basically bees throwing up for you.

      In the real world, animals are messy critters that eat a lot of stuff you would never eat yourself, some of which you would not survive eating.

      In the end it's a good reason to wash and cook food properly before eating, but not necessarily something to panic over, even practices that sounds as odd as this.

      What is manure? It's animal shit that we use to fertilize land on which we grow plants to eat. That has been done for ages.

      Dogs that eat their own or other dog's shit probably lack Kalium. Feeding them bananas will compensate for this, and if you do this properly you can teach them not to eat shit by rewarding them with bananas. I've seen Cesar do this, and I know dogs like bananas.

    14. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by Farmer+Tim · · Score: 1

      No, but shit is, and that was the subject of the article.

      And the thrust of the post that started this thread was other stuff besides. If you only want to talk about shit...well, I would have said move to another thread, but now I think of it talking about shit is what Slashdot is for, so never mind.

      As to honey, that's not comparable at all. It's not a waste product, it's intended to be eaten, so there's an incentive for it to be clean.

      The fish sea birds regurgitate for their chicks is intended to be eaten, and is therefore not a waste product. It would also make you very sick. Intended to be eaten does not equate to human ideas of edible, honey merely falls into both categories.

      --
      Blank until /. makes another boneheaded UI decision.
    15. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by DarkOx · · Score: 1

      I'd hate to imagine the outrage on Slashdot if folks here learned how mushrooms are produced, right here in the good old USA. Hint: Chickens play an important role.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    16. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by lxs · · Score: 1

      No, but shit is,

      You mean manure? It is a valuable commodity.

    17. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by Farmer+Tim · · Score: 1

      No...they make it by ingesting nectar, partially digesting it, and regurgitating it. Or, as SuperKendall put it, "throw[ing] up". It just so happens that we find bee vomit not only edible but delicious, unlike, say, cow cud or penguin puke, so we made up a special name for it (honey) that lets us eat it without thinking about where it comes from*. Call it "bee barf" and nobody would touch it, absence of bacteria notwithstanding.

      *OK, we made up the name before we knew precisely how it was made. Still, the reluctance of others in this thread to accept that calling it bee vomit is technically correct proves how unpalatable most people find the mere concept.

      --
      Blank until /. makes another boneheaded UI decision.
    18. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by dywolf · · Score: 2

      Which is exactly the point. Besides which, fish eat crap naturally too. It's not like they are holding open their mouths and dumping it in. Almost all sea life lives by eating crap at least in part.

      Also, people forget you arent eating the animals intestinal tract. You're eating the flesh, the muscle. It may be "feces" when it goes in, but to the fishes body it's just an energy source, and gets treated as such. Nutrients are extracted and they go to buildings/rebuilding muscle cells etc.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    19. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by dywolf · · Score: 1

      my dog hates bananas. she LOVES kitty krunchies from the litter box though.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    20. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by gr8_phk · · Score: 1

      Anyone with a dog has probably seen it eat, literally, crap.

      Heck, honey is basically bees throwing up for you.

      Dogs are stupid. Cats and pigs don't eat their own shit.
      Honey is quite safe - some people actually use it as an antibiotic on cuts.
      Why not just point out that alcohol is yeast-piss?
      We grow crops with shit too - ask yourself how that's different than swimming in it ;-)

    21. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 2

      Yes, but salmonella doesn't only live in the digestive tract. If an animal that can be infected by salmonella eats an animal that can be infected by salmonella which in turn eats the shit of an animal that is one of the best incubators of salmonella, there's a problem. Most traditional food taboos reflect a dangerous infection vector....

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    22. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      "Vomiting" is an involuntary process, caused by illness. The voluntary process is called "regurgitation". Poison a bee, and it will vomit, like anything else with a stomach. You will not get honey.

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    23. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      How many stomachs does a cow have? How many stomachs does a fish have? Now, which is more likely as a transmission vector for salmonella...?

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    24. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      Jeez, man... mushrooms do not incubate salmonella. Mushroom fish.

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    25. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by Talderas · · Score: 1

      Anybody who has spent any time on a farm can tell you that cows eat a lot of their own shit, literally.

      Alright. So cows eat their own shit.

      I remember once watching a cow grazing on some tall grass, while another cow was shitting all over the first one's head and of course the grass it was eating.

      The expectation you set did not match what you uttered. You made an expectation that cows actively ate cow shit like dogs eat dog shit rather than passively eating it because some other cow shit on their face and the grass they were eating.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    26. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Ever think about what ALL fish swim in?

      That's why, like WC Fields, I don't drink water. Nobody ever got e.coli poisoning from whisky.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    27. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by rvw · · Score: 1

      my dog hates bananas. she LOVES kitty krunchies from the litter box though.

      Well apparently not all dogs like bananas. What I heard is that if dogs eat shit, they probably lack Kalium and they find it in the feces. If you find another replacement, it might keep them from eating the kitty krunchies or whatever.

    28. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      You seem to be missing the point that honey is a food for the bees themselves, unlike penguin puke or whatever. The fact that they make it by regurgitating nectar doesn't make it the same as the fish waste vomited up by an ill Tux. Unless you're some sort of extreme emotophobe, the mechanics of how it's made are irrelevant.

      If cow crap happened to end up being sweet and delicious and edible by humans, I'd eat it quite happily, it's hardly more unnatural than killing and setting fire to the cow is it?

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    29. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      What is manure [wikipedia.org]? It's animal shit that we use to fertilize land on which we grow plants to eat. That has been done for ages.

      Yes, as an addition to soil. We don't grow food plants directly in animal shit as a rule.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    30. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by Mysticeti · · Score: 1

      True... Bat fish eat turtle poo:
      http://fishileaks.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/turtle-crap-its-whats-for-dinner-if-youre-a-batfish/

      But the bat fish evolved to do this. Dumping significant amounts of pig feces into a fish farm sounds like a good way to cause problems.

    31. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 1

      Wow. Can't believe that google will change your default language setting based on an URL you follow. That's awesome - haven't seen a site do that since mid 2000s.

    32. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by dywolf · · Score: 1

      shrimp != fish

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    33. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by dywolf · · Score: 1

      so cook your food

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    34. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      If your dog is eating kittyrocha it is protein deficient.

      Cat's have inefficient digestive systems. Cat poo is higher protein then dog food.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    35. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by PeanutButterBreath · · Score: 1

      I don't think that this behavior in dogs in necessarily symptomatic of anything other than their natural garbage-gut nature. Dogs will try to eat almost anything, and if it tastes good to them they will continue to eat it unless it makes them ill enough, fast enough that they can connect the dots and learn that it should be avoided.

    36. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      The fish sea birds regurgitate for their chicks is intended to be eaten, and is therefore not a waste product.

      It's not shit either.

      It would also make you very sick.

      No doubt. But I don't see ther elevance. If I ate bird shit I'd probably get sick, and I doubt chicks would fare much better.

      Intended to be eaten does not equate to human ideas of edible

      I won't tell you to learn to read. You're obviously so good that you can see words that aren't even there.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    37. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by DirtyLiar · · Score: 1

      Looked to me like they were mostly one breed. But that may just be the result of shaving and roasting them. One (without a head) looked kinda like a large chicken or turkey.

      --

      THINK! It's patriotic

    38. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by cusco · · Score: 1

      Mmmm . . . Tripe. Sausage. Caldo de panza (cow stomach soup). Chairo (sheep intestine and freeze-dried potato soup). Cheese (made with rennet from cow stomachs). Lots of good stuff is made with animal intestinal tracts. Heads, tails, udders, lungs, spinal columns, bones too. Some people eat feet, but that's where I draw the line. Not because it tastes bad, but because the texture is just too nasty to deal with.

      It helps that my dad grew up on a farm, and my mom's father was a butcher. We used to say, "We've eaten every part of the pig but the squeal." Most Americans have never experienced the full range of deliciousness available from animals.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    39. Re:Do you know what real animals eat? by cusco · · Score: 1

      No, but only because they add their own antibiotics to the vomit to kill whatever bacteria would otherwise find it inviting.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
  3. I say waiter... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ...this tuna tastes like pig poo

    1. Re:I say waiter... by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 1

      Tuna generally do not eat feces, but tilapia do, at least in the wild. It's just what they eat. Tilapia raised on fish farms are actually fed an unnatural diet of grain. Same thing is done with catfish, which are also bottom-feeders and eat feces and detritus in the wild, but eat grain on fish farms (that's why farm-raised catfish generally tastes better.)

      --
      "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
      --- Jerry Garcia
    2. Re:I say waiter... by Dastardly · · Score: 1

      Depending on the farm American tilapia are also raised on shit. At least the fish farm on Dirty Jobs was raising tilapia in the same ponds where they raised bass in order to help clean the pond for the next round of bass. They then sell the tilapia. So, some of that farmed American tilapia is raised on bass shit.

  4. Can we genetically modify ourselves? by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    We can make ourselves resistant to this and other bacteria and viruses. Then we can go back to the old days, and empty our pisspots out in the street and mix it up with the horse shit. It'll make a nice yummy meal and you can wash it down with some great mineral water

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  5. God bless the free market! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Don't worry - the free market will work all of this out!

    Actually, i don't, providing that we -the consumers- are informed (like we are now), so we -the consumers- can choose if we want feces with our fish (i dont't mind so mutch, but i understand that it's a matter of taste) - way better than a non free market where your only option would be...

    1. Re:God bless the free market! by guruevi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Where are we consumers informed of this? Does your local Wal-Mart store have badges on the bags of frozen tilapia that says which ones were raised on shit and which ones weren't?

      The free market dictates that consumers shouldn't hear about this because that would impede the demand for the product and thus drive the prices and profit ranges down.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    2. Re:God bless the free market! by Vaphell · · Score: 4, Insightful

      consumers are as much to blame. They vote with their wallets and they choose price before everything else repeatedly. It's not like the shitty quality of average junk from china was not known for decades, yet it still has no problem finding the buyers.

    3. Re:God bless the free market! by blippo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, but the price is almost the only information consumers can base there decision on. That, and the packaging design.

      The only way to get more information is to legislate. The food industry would be happy if they could sell processed shit wrapped in
      a nice box, without bothering with involving fish at all.

    4. Re:God bless the free market! by Vaphell · · Score: 3, Interesting

      i agree that the precise characteristics of the product are unavailable, but it doesn't require a rocket scientist to read the ingredients from time to time (yet nobody does it) or to know that the junk food is made of junk and is bad for you or that the chinese crap == shitton of nasty pollution and no worker rights whatsoever pretty much by definition.
      Ignorance is a bliss and most people choose to be oblivious.

    5. Re:God bless the free market! by sjames · · Score: 4, Interesting

      When there's no other comprehensible information available, it's only natural they choose based on price first. The packages don't say fish raised on goose shit, now do they? In some cases, large producers have lobbied (with some success) to either prevent labeling food that avoids a controversial practice or they lobby for a definition that could apply to nearly anything sold as food including ground glass so they can slap the meaningless bullet point on their packages too.

      Even brand name is now worthless information, much of it is just the cheap stuff re-badged and sold for more these days.

    6. Re:God bless the free market! by manwargi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They buy quality/brand names when it matters or when they can afford it. If people only cared for the cheapest products available, there wouldn't quite be a market for organic free range cage free free trade products made without high fructose corn syrup. There wouldn't be such large lines for Apple products (ok this is more a case of status symbol but it doesn't take away from my point too much).

    7. Re:God bless the free market! by sonamchauhan · · Score: 1

      Even information has a price. Stop dreaming and wake up!

    8. Re:God bless the free market! by LordLucless · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The free market requires that consumers must here about this, because the free market relies on an informed consumer. The free market is designed to drive the prices and profits down; that is the entire point of a free market - that multiple vendors compete for the patronage of consumers in a fair manner, by offering the best products for the most attractive price.

      If you're not getting that, then you're not in a free market.

      --
      Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    9. Re:God bless the free market! by Raumkraut · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Do you know why food products provide accurate lists of ingredients on the packaging in the first place?
      That's right; legislation.

    10. Re:God bless the free market! by Raumkraut · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, no, no, you've got it all wrong!

      The free market is about freedom for corporations; to sell whatever crap they want, however they want. If corporations cannot maximise profit by colluding to artificially maintain high prices and low wages, then the market is clearly not free!

    11. Re:God bless the free market! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Except in this story the ingredients will only say: Fish

    12. Re:God bless the free market! by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 1

      They buy quality/brand names when it matters or when they can afford it. If people only cared for the cheapest products available, there wouldn't quite be a market for organic free range cage free free trade products made without high fructose corn syrup.

      First, the reputation of a brand name is indicative of the brand's value to consumers in the past. That value may continue today, or it may be subjected to some MBA "extract the value from the brand" type strategy - i.e. same shit as the others, but with a higher price and fatter profit margin. Shopping blindly by brand may be better than shopping blindly by price, but it's by no means guaranteed; without better product information, you're shopping blindly in both cases.

      Secondly, feeding fish with shit instead of purchased feed sounds very organic to me. If the shit content is increased sufficiently, they may even merit a nice organic label. So in addition to reducing their costs, one might expect them to increase their prices. That's what any astute businessperson would do.

      --
      Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
    13. Re:God bless the free market! by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Pretty much every food item does have labelling on it saying where it was sourced from. Buying food coming out of China is basically nuts, just don't do it. I always check country of source and when it doubt about packed produce that is unclear I just avoid it. I do not buy any food coming out of China, I double wash all clothes in very hot water coming out off China prior to wearing (if the clothes wont tolerate that, then those types of clothes I source from more reliable locations). Buying food out of China is playing Russian sure there might be a whole bunch of empty chambers but you are bound to eventually cop a bullet to the belly.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    14. Re:God bless the free market! by blane.bramble · · Score: 5, Funny

      I shall launch my new brand:

      Fish-It

      Then they can't claim they weren't warned!

    15. Re:God bless the free market! by rtb61 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Forgot to mention, rich Chinese buy most of the food imported from Australia for a reason.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    16. Re:God bless the free market! by rohan972 · · Score: 2

      Where are we consumers informed of this?

      The Bloomberg article linked in the summary, by a private company.

      The free market dictates that consumers shouldn't hear about this

      That's absurd, we are discussing it. We have heard about it and not from the government. That's not to say I'm against any and all regulation, but you can now that you know you can choose seafood from places with better standards. If you buy domestic rather than imported products you will know that your own countries standards apply.

    17. Re:God bless the free market! by shentino · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately information is a commodity and it is in the supplier's interest to provide as little of it as possible.

      Also, it's not exactly a free market if suppliers can gang up on the government to pass laws in their favor.

    18. Re:God bless the free market! by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      The mere existence of high end and quality products both food and otherwise show quite clearly that consumers DON'T choose price before everything. I see iPhones in peoples hands instead of cheap Huawei smartphones, 50" TVs from reputable brands in peoples homes rather than the likes of Palsonic, and at the local supermarket premium smoked salmon moves off the shelf quite quickly as do the fancy goat cheeses nice solid blocks of parmesan and gourmet sausages.

      If anything premium products are on the rise. There's only the select few that pick price before everything else, those who live paycheck to paycheck and can't do it any other way, and those who just don't care about the product in question.

    19. Re:God bless the free market! by LordLucless · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Also true. I wasn't suggesting the US was a free market. I'm just saying people who are blaming the "free market" for the sorry state of the US' consumer rights are picking the wrong target.

      --
      Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    20. Re:God bless the free market! by alexgieg · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Do you know why food products provide accurate lists of ingredients on the packaging in the first place?
      That's right; legislation.

      Before there was such legislation you could still restrict yourself to only purchase from companies that voluntarily got certified and voluntarily informed ingredients. No one were making you buy food from producers who didn't list ingredients. It was your choice to buy from them. You could always go and pay 5x more for the good stuff. And, if in doubt whether it actually was the good stuff, contract a well known specialist to provide you professional assurance on whether it actually was or wasn't the good stuff.

      Nanny State is this: nanny. It forces everyone to spend more than they'd want to on premium stuff they don't care about or that have lower priority for them even though, given the choice, they'd prefer to buy the dirt cheap crap instead and deal with the consequences of applying their own free will, as the responsible adults they are and should be.

      --
      Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
    21. Re:God bless the free market! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      It makes sense to you to get sick just because you know someone will pay for it? Really? Here in socialist Sweden, I know my bill will be paid for me, but we are all still pretty careful not to buy shit that will make us sick. Not because of the economic cost, but because being sick sucks!

      Idiot.

    22. Re:God bless the free market! by shentino · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's a power balance.

      The suppliers who want to sell, versus the consumer with the money.

      If it pays to cheat, then cheat you will...if you don't your competitors will and you'll be out of business anyway.

      This is why we need laws. Because market darwinism favors the aggressive nasty people who can *get away* with stabbing their competition in the back.

    23. Re:God bless the free market! by dj245 · · Score: 1

      Yes, but the price is almost the only information consumers can base there decision on. That, and the packaging design.

      How else are consumers supposed to decide if a bag of chicken is tastier than a different bag of chicken? Being pricier might be some indication that it is better in some way, but it certainly doesn't guarantee it. Brand name chicken is typically overpriced or as cheap as possible. The "organic" stuff might be good since it could be coming from people with higher standards, but people are slapping "organic" on everything these days since the term is poorly defined.

      There is no way to tell if a product is tasty without trying it. And even then, companies change their recipes to a cheaper, inferior recipe all the time.

      --
      Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
    24. Re:God bless the free market! by Guppy06 · · Score: 2

      "Must?" "Designed?" I don't think you quite understand what the "free" in "free market" means.

    25. Re:God bless the free market! by somersault · · Score: 2

      Reading the ingredients would not help in this case. Not that I'm convinced it's a bad thing anyway. If fish like eating shit and can survive on it, I don't really see the problem. Plants eat shit too.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    26. Re:God bless the free market! by somersault · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So we should all hire private investigators any time we want to try a new brand of food, or every other week to make sure that food companies are still making "the good stuff" in an ethical way?

      People already do have the choice to buy dirt cheap stuff if they want. Just because the ingredients are on the packet doesn't mean that a lot of people won't chose based on price. I know that's what I did when I was a student. Now that I don't really need to care about the cost of food, I just base my choices on things like protein content and sugar content.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    27. Re:God bless the free market! by andy16666 · · Score: 1

      The concept that people would be willing to get sick simply because someone else is paying for the healthcare is idiotic. Aside from the fact that not being sick is incentive enough, most people in your country have private insurance so the cost isn't going to be covered by the government anyway. Should they end up in an emergency room, your argument is still faulty since emergency care has been covered by the government for years and has nothing to do with Obama's health care bill. (Except that having more people ensured will probably keep people out of the emergency rooms.)

      It's also incorrect that food poisoning doesn't kill you. Many people recover from it, but it can be deadly.

    28. Re:God bless the free market! by M.+Baranczak · · Score: 2

      Should they end up in an emergency room, your argument is still faulty since emergency care has been covered by the government for years and has nothing to do with Obama's health care bill.

      What the hell are you talking about? The govt never covered emergency care. If you go to the ER and you don't have insurance, they're legally obligated to treat you, but you're still responsible for the bill.

    29. Re:God bless the free market! by superflippy · · Score: 2

      This gives me a great idea. You know the little symbol that marks tuna as "dolphin safe"?
      They should have one for tilapia that says "No shit!"

      --
      Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
    30. Re:God bless the free market! by Enry · · Score: 1

      Yes, and remember all the salmonella and e. coli outbreaks a few years ago?

    31. Re:God bless the free market! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Don't be silly. Consumers are people, and the vast majority of us on the planet have finite income and have to spend money carefully. Choosing the cheaper of X options is sensible when you have all the information (fashion sheep excluded).

      People will gladly pay more for something that doesn't have "raised on shit" on the packaging. So why isn't the truth displayed? Because the tiny minority of rich people that hide behind corporations, do not have to worry about food prices and don't care if people become sick and die if it means they get to keep ever increasing profits.

      Put the facts on the packaging and the consumer you deride so much, will kill product that are unfit for consumption.

    32. Re:God bless the free market! by BadgerRush · · Score: 1, Redundant

      Before there was such legislation you could still restrict yourself to only purchase from companies that voluntarily got certified and voluntarily informed ingredients. No one were making you buy food from producers who didn't list ingredients.

      There are several flaws in your hypothetical no-legislation scenario:

      • - Companies can get "voluntary certified" by their own shell companies or other kind of fake/biased certification, and there is no way for the consumer to distinguish a serious/real certification from a fake/biased one.
      • - Companies can "voluntary inform" an incomplete list of ingredients and there is no way for the consumer to know which product have a real collectively exhaustive list or just the ones the producer wanted you to know.
      • - Competitors can band together to omit inconvenient truths together
    33. Re:God bless the free market! by gtomorrow · · Score: 2

      Before there was such legislation you could still restrict yourself to only purchase from companies that voluntarily got certified and voluntarily informed ingredients.

      What? WHAT?! What "voluntarily certified" products/companies were there??? Oh, you mean like Crest toothpaste certified by the American Dental Association, created by that very same toothpaste company?! And, sorry, but what the hell is "voluntarily informed ingredients" supposed to mean?

      "No one (sic) were making you buy food who didn't list ingredients."

      To this day the FDA doesn't insist on labeling the rat feces in your can of tomatoes or fruit flies in your canned peaches. You seriously think that you're going to know the difference when you buy that bag of frozen tilapia, wherever the provenence?

      "...contract a well known specialist etc." Really?! Please. You obvious have missed very few meals in your lifetime to be so callous. Nanny State my ass.

    34. Re:God bless the free market! by camperdave · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Do you know why food products provide accurate lists of ingredients on the packaging in the first place? That's right; legislation.

      How will that help? "Oh look, this tray of tilapia contains... tilapia. And this can of mushrooms contains... mushrooms and preservatives."

      Neither will tell you that it was raised on manure.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    35. Re:God bless the free market! by GrumpySteen · · Score: 1

      There are no ingredients lists on raw fish and, even if there was, it wouldn't indicate what the fish was fed.

    36. Re:God bless the free market! by Karzz1 · · Score: 2

      ...those who live paycheck to paycheck and can't do it any other way..

      You do realize that is over 1/2 of the population of the United States, right?

      --
      Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
    37. Re:God bless the free market! by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      I read your first paragraph and assumed you were parodying libertarian/free market fanboys.

      Then I read the second and realised you were serious.

      So Poe's law has been broken by your own humourless stupidity. Thanks for that.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    38. Re:God bless the free market! by llZENll · · Score: 1

      I don't know about Walmart, I stopped shopping there about 7 years ago due to their poor treatment of employees and shitty quality. The grocer I shop at clearly labels all seafood as fresh or previously frozen and farmed or wild caught and country of origin, I suggest you switch grocers. Bitching is worthless, voting with your dollars is much faster.

    39. Re:God bless the free market! by Talderas · · Score: 1

      I'm glad you listed comprehensible information.

      That information should already be available on the product in the form of the product code. The product code contains a lot of information regarding the manufacturing process and other factors related to the food.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    40. Re:God bless the free market! by orasio · · Score: 1

      Free markets are not designed, they just are.
      Most of the time, free markets are not possible, and you get highly regulated markets, oligopolies or monopolies.
      But in the cases where there is a somewhat free market, it works.

      In this case, it's a free market.
      If enough people stop buying this kind of fish, sellers will have to come up with a "shit free" badge, so they start buying again. If they do not stop buying, it's because shit does not taste that bad.
      About hearing about it, it's the same thing. Papers will inform about shit in fish, only if enough people care about that kind of information.
      In this case, markets are working.

    41. Re:God bless the free market! by tehcyder · · Score: 3, Informative

      I love how the moderators freak out when they can't find that "-1 Criticizes my ideology" mod so they just pick "Offtopic" or "Overrated" instead (when the post is neither).

      In this case it's because there's no "-1 evil fuckbag" moderation option. If someone posted a long spiel about the joys of butt-raping 8 year old boys, or why Hitler was right about the Jews I would expect it to be modded down too.

      I always find it amusing when serious Randian/"libertarian"/extreme rightwing free market cheerleaders are surprised that some of their ideas disgust people.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    42. Re:God bless the free market! by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      You've clearly never had food poisoning. It may not kill you...

      ... or it may actually kill you.

      And even if it doesn't kill you, it may mess you up for life, by triggering Irritable Bowel Syndrome, or increasing your risk of various alimentary-tract diseases, including cancer.

      I met a security guard once who used to be a chef. He had to leave the (well-paid) kitchen he worked in after one of his trainees brought a particularly nasty strain of salmonella into the workplace -- one that is highly infectious and (then, at least) incurable, leading to him being told he was never allowed to cook for anyone else, as long as he lived. Not even (and particularly not) his children.

      Food poisoning is not good news.

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    43. Re:God bless the free market! by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      Which is the biggest shelf in your local supermarket? Is it the organic one? If not, you might want to reconsider your opinion. If so, you live in a very weird place.

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    44. Re:God bless the free market! by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Reading the ingredients would not help in this case. Not that I'm convinced it's a bad thing anyway. If fish like eating shit and can survive on it, I don't really see the problem. Plants eat shit too.

      Similarly, there is no problem feeding cattle with mashed up BSE-laden ex-neighbours either. Oh wait...

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    45. Re:God bless the free market! by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      Is the iPhone the most common phone in your town? I seriously, seriously doubt it....

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    46. Re:God bless the free market! by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      There is nothing wrong with the theoretical concept of a perfect free market, it's just disappointing when people behave as though it's descriptive of reality rather than an abstract concept used to test ideas.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    47. Re:God bless the free market! by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 1

      legislate? why? that admits the free market, when left alone, will fuck us over, given the chance and that only those who are not tied (directly, sigh) to the profit stream have any chance of keeping us safe.

      but but but .... but romney says the free market will fix everything!

      (head asplodes)

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    48. Re:God bless the free market! by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 1

      and don't forget the crunchy snack food, fish doodles

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    49. Re:God bless the free market! by tmosley · · Score: 1

      Right, because there was never such a thing as accreditation organizations in a free market. People buying fish or meat that has not been certified by said organization's high standards are free to take that risk, and they know quite well that there is some risk involved in such actions. But all such organizations have been squashed by government monopoly on food certification, and the government monopoly on food certification has failed to tell us of this danger. Free markets have nothing to do with any of it, because we haven't had one for nearly a century.

    50. Re:God bless the free market! by tmosley · · Score: 1

      No, one person should do that. It's called "specialization". Such a company would be quite popular and rapidly become profitable, I would think. Of course, that profit would bring competition, and if one company was revealed to be corrupt, they would quickly go bankrupt, and have their market share taken over by one of the other competitors. Certification gets more and more reliable while also getting cheaper, all thanks to free market forces.

    51. Re:God bless the free market! by tmosley · · Score: 1

      Right, because all consumers are retards, and there is no such concept as "reputation".

      Jesus Christ, dude.

    52. Re:God bless the free market! by tmosley · · Score: 1

      >Implying that Crest toothpaste is in any way unsafe.
      >Implying you are retarded.

      Or do you think fluoride is a government conspiracy to alter your mind?

    53. Re:God bless the free market! by tmosley · · Score: 1

      >Canada
      >Free Market

      Pick one.

      Self regulation is not the same as a free market. If you used your brain to think about it for two minutes, you would realize that. Self regulation in free markets is something that would be very rare (if we had free markets), as certification companies would rapidly emerge, and compete with each other for the trust of consumers and money from the companies seeking their certification.

    54. Re:God bless the free market! by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 1

      I always find it amusing when serious Randian/"libertarian"/extreme rightwing free market cheerleaders are surprised that some of their ideas disgust people.

      Indeed. They should have learned by now the difficulty of countering modern school indoctrination and media manipulation in the ignorant masses, especially with the amount of bread and circuses being thrown at them.

      --
      "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
      --- Jerry Garcia
    55. Re:God bless the free market! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      e.g. Chocolate makers suing gov. to dilute definition of what traditionally defined as chocolate.
      The free market (no information means an uninformed consumer) simply means that big-brand manufacturers can tier their products via marketing at a quality range of their Best, Good, Barely Acceptable. Using the relation of their respected brand name to the Best product, they subsidize the Barely Acceptable from the profits of the Best, driving out other provider who actually have a good product at a reasonable price. Reinforcing to the consumer (not customer) that if they maybe would have only spent only a little more... Perpetuating the notion that quality goes up with price. Pay an extreme premium price, or be locked in the customer to repeat sales, to their service/warranty departments ad infinitum. That is the real power of branding. A form of manipulation, Planned Obsolescence, monopolization, and dishonesty. Or being a savvy businessman, from another position. re: "Crosby - Quality is Free"

    56. Re:God bless the free market! by somersault · · Score: 1

      I think of it like libraries in programming. A small group of people do some work that benefits a much larger groupd in the future. If we all had to do everything from scratch all the time, nothing would get done. For one thing we'd all have to work out our own individual languages and the laws of physics. Somehow I don't think that work work. Checking up on food quality isn't a "nanny state", it's just sensible.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    57. Re:God bless the free market! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      My point is that the parent was talking as if this is a simple choice, rather than necessity. It's not voting with your wallet if your arm is twisted at the counter by your mortgage.

    58. Re:God bless the free market! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      No, the Samsung Galaxy S series is and it's just as expensive. Between the two of them they make up more than half of the common phones you see people using in the street.

    59. Re:God bless the free market! by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 1

      Yes - we, the relatively few who read Bloomberg (or slashdot) are discussing it.

      What about the rest of the population who might be buying this?

      What about the next product, when Bloomberg or other private company doesn't discover what's happening?

    60. Re:God bless the free market! by cusco · · Score: 4, Informative

      voluntarily informed ingredients

      Because an international mega-corp would never lie to consumers, right? If you're under 40 you have probably never heard of the 'truth in packaging' laws, or the reasons why they exist. Things were bad enough that even the frelling Chamber of Commerce joined with consumers groups to lobby for the legislation.

      If you're over 40 and still believe this libertardian garbage then your blinders are on so tight you're probably beyond hope. Not sure why you think that everyone can afford to contract with a lab to analyze their corn flakes to see if they're made with mercury or contain measurable amounts of pesticides. You must belong to a distinctly higher income class than the rest of us.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    61. Re:God bless the free market! by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 1

      It forces everyone to spend more than they'd want to on premium stuff they don't care about

      And there you have it. Stuff that won't kill you is a 'premium'. Pity you can't afford it....

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    62. Re:God bless the free market! by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 1

      It's an interesting point. If laws protecting us are so successful that people forget 'why' they are important, we get drivel like the GP.

      Education is a good thing :)

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    63. Re:God bless the free market! by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Ludafisk. Guaranteed to make you sick.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    64. Re:God bless the free market! by pnutjam · · Score: 1

      GOP logic... - poor people enjoy living in poverty since the Gov is taking care of them - if you aren't rich it's your fault and now - people will get sick on purpose if they aren't paying for their healthcare ------------- feel free to add your own

    65. Re:God bless the free market! by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Salmonella and other grahm (sp) positive bacteria are important to your immune system. While food poisoning sucks, it leaves you much stronger.

      They are considering cultivating very week strains as inoculations of sorts.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    66. Re:God bless the free market! by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Responsible for the bill + plus 'judgement proof' (broke) = cost eaten by the hospital and passed on to paying customers.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    67. Re:God bless the free market! by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Bottom feeders taste like mud anyhow.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    68. Re:God bless the free market! by doshell · · Score: 1

      Actually, the problem is that "free market", as currently (ab)used, is an overloaded term that stands for two completely different concepts: absence of regulation, and perfect competition with no barriers to entry nor asymmetric information. That the second is a necessary consequence of the first is a highly contentious point, because, contrary to what libertarians believe, the state is not the only entity that is able to distort a market.

      --
      Score: i, Imaginary
    69. Re:God bless the free market! by cdrguru · · Score: 1

      The problems with the list of ingredients are legion. You have the situations where the same physical thing has seventeen different names, some sounding nasty while others not so much. You then get into not listing real stuff just "artificial color and flavors" because it falls beneath the regulated minimum quantity. Then there is just plain secret stuff that isn't listed at all. You don't really think that Pepsi listed either cocaine or pepsin when it had it in it do you? How do you know that there still isn't cocaine in CocaCola?

      The regulations are meaningless because there is zero enforcement. There are no inspectors to do the inspecting and there isn't even any followup testing. There is some level of confidence building, but in no way is this assuring food safety.

      This is the main problem with such regulations. They are imaginary.

    70. Re:God bless the free market! by Applekid · · Score: 1

      Free Market isn't mutually exclusive with Regulation. There's a difference between requiring full truthful disclosure of what a product is made from and laws making illegal products made from ingredients.

      In a free society, companies have a right to sell, consumers have a right to know, and, ultimately, consumers can decide for themselves if the cost savings are worth it.

      --
      More Twoson than Cupertino
    71. Re:God bless the free market! by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      It's about as hard as marketing a product with the tag line "our shrimp is not feed [sic] shit" while actually feeding your shrimp shit.

      That's the problem.

    72. Re:God bless the free market! by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      Which streets do you live in? Beverly Hills?

      Smart phones do not make up half the phones in the US. To say that two particular smart phones make up half of what you see is ludicrous at best.

    73. Re:God bless the free market! by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      You are plainly stupid. The free market cannot work in this case. This is because Chinese providers will simply slap on a "no shit" label and continue as-is. In your vaunted free market (which by definition cannot exist because no one is going to tell the consumer what is really in that fish), there is no incentive for the company to do anything but lie.

    74. Re:God bless the free market! by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      Also true. I wasn't suggesting the US was a free market. I'm just saying people who are blaming the "free market" for the sorry state of the US' consumer rights are picking the wrong target.

      Yes, blaming the theoretical concept of the "free market" when we don't (and can't) have one due to the lack of perfect knowledge, a requirement/assumption of the theoretical model, is foolish and the wrong target.

      Blaming the reality of the free market where companies actively try to conceal information and prevent informed choices, and where any moves towards increasing available information have often required government intervention, is blaming the right target.

      So is blaming those who willingly conflate the two by saying things like "The [theoretical] free market is perfect and will fix everything, so lets make a [real] free market and get rid of all this regulation!"

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    75. Re:God bless the free market! by Shotgun · · Score: 1

      Any thinking libertarian believes wholeheartedly in INFORMED consent. I'm libertarian, and I think restaurants should be required to print caloric information in their menus (as for the argument that it's too expensive: If you don't know enough about food to easily come up with that information, what the fuck are you doing running a restaurant?).

      So take your "libertardian" insult and stick it up your arse as you suck on your government overlord's cock.

      --
      Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
      Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
    76. Re:God bless the free market! by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      No, no, no, you've got it all wrong!

      The free market is about freedom for individuals; to not buy whatever crap the corporations are selling if they don't want to.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    77. Re:God bless the free market! by adolf · · Score: 1

      I've always been under the impression that commercially-farmed mushrooms are always grown on shit.

      And much of the stuff I grow in my own garden is grown with shit. I put it there myself.

      Lots of good food thrives on a diet of shit. We've been growing food this way for hundreds (thousands?) of years.

      The question here is this: Should fish also be fed shit? And if they should be, would it be useful to include that information on a label?

    78. Re:God bless the free market! by AdamWill · · Score: 1

      As other posters have noted, we don't have to just argue theoretically about this. We have a perfect research case, known as 'history'.

      And as so often with libertarian theories, it shows quite comprehensively that stuff _just doesn't work out that way in practice_. Again as others have pointed out, all the legislation in North America and Europe to do with food safety and food labelling has been the result of quite specific problems. It was not the case, in practice, that when food safety checks and accurate ingredient labelling were not mandated by government, trusted private companies sprang up to do those jobs. They did not. It just didn't happen. Free market forces had decades to do the job and _they didn't_. You can argue that they inevitably must until you're blue in the face, but the plain historical record contradicts you. These Things Did Not Happen.

    79. Re:God bless the free market! by AdamWill · · Score: 1

      "You don't really think that Pepsi listed either cocaine or pepsin when it had it in it do you?"

      I don't believe that there were requirements for comprehensive ingredient labelling at that time. So no, it probably didn't. But if it did today, it would be required to.

        How do you know that there still isn't cocaine in CocaCola?"

      Because it would be all kinds of illegal if it did, and it would never have gone on this long without some disgruntled Coca Cola insider blowing the whistle. (It would also probably be trivial for an independent outside authority to verify, and I'd be amazed if some newspaper or something hasn't had chemical analyses of Coke and Pepsi done at some point just on the offchance they'd find something scandalous.)

    80. Re:God bless the free market! by AdamWill · · Score: 1

      "The free market requires that consumers must here about this, because the free market relies on an informed consumer."

      That's rather a telling statement, because it's the fundamental weakness of a free market when it comes to food: How does it ensure one?

      The government requiring food producers to label their food is not a 'free market' policy. If you need this, it is an implicit acknowledgement that free market economic theory cannot produce the desired outcome on its own. Someone in this thread is arguing that a free market in food would result in independent food analysis institutes springing up and consumers basing their choices on the information provided by those, all without government intervention, which at least is intellectually coherent. It only has the minor drawback that it isn't true: we had something much closer to a 'free market' for food in western Europe for decades or centuries, and this did not happen. The only thing that actually resulted in the provision of useful and reliable information on food contents to consumers was government legislation.

      A market where the government requires the producers to do certain things is not a free market and does not accord with free market economic theory. If you argue that your 'free market' plan will work so long as the government tells producers to put ingredients on the label, you are not arguing for a free market. If you want to argue for a free market you need to come up with a plan where market forces alone will result in the provision of accurate information and safe food to the consumer, as is broadly accomplished by the very non-free markets for food in all developed countries today.

    81. Re:God bless the free market! by LordLucless · · Score: 1

      The simplest mechanism: vendors are looking for ways to increase their profits. Vendors who label their product get a higher marketshare, or can succesfully sell at a higher price than their competitors. False labelling can and should be prosecuted by the government (the free market doesn't mean the absence of government, it means that the government should only be acting to maintain the basic principles of the market - enforcing contracts, not letting companies off their competitors, lying to consumers, etc).

      Fundamentally, the more the people desire something, the more they reward the vendor for providing it, and the greater the incentives are to the vendor for providing it.

      Of course, this breaks down in practice because, although people say they want something, when it comes to the crunch, they still purchase whatever's cheaper. Then they call for government involvement, rather than attempting to exercise their own power.

      --
      Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    82. Re:God bless the free market! by cusco · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately 'thinking libertarians' are a small subset of the larger Libertarian movement. For far to many of them it's almost a religion, demanding faith rather than thought, which makes them easily led by the charlatans employed by people like the Koch brothers. Admitting that a restaurant should be required to do something rather than letting the phantasmagorical market forces decide everything sets you apart from the majority.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    83. Re:God bless the free market! by manwargi · · Score: 1

      At my local Trader Joe's there are usually a broad and scaling variety of meats and produce, almost all relabelled with the store's brand regardless of origin. A package of strawberries, a package of extra sweet premium strawberries, then a package of organic strawberries. A whole chicken, an all natural chicken, an organic free range chicken, and then a kosher chicken. And so on. All ordered from cheapest to most expensive. Whole Foods has a staggering variety of teas (which is the only thing I ever go there for). And even most supermarkets have a "Value" generic before the generic brand, which precede a variety of brand names. On an underlying level, more space on the shelves are dedicated to products more expensive than the cheapest option available, than the cheapest and generic options.

      My point was that when people have a choice in the matter, the budget to permit such options, they don't beeline for the $0.79 cent roll of paper towels that fall apart before getting the job done or the cheap meat that carries a conspicuously bleachy flavor. People aim for quality when they can get it, or when it matters to them.

    84. Re:God bless the free market! by camperdave · · Score: 1

      The question here is this: Should fish also be fed shit? And if they should be, would it be useful to include that information on a label?

      It depends on the fish. If they are sharks, no. If they are bottom dwelling scavengers, then maybe.

      And if they should be, would it be useful to include that information on a label?

      I think that if the fish are eating it *instead* of their natural diet, or out of proportion to their natural diet, then yes it should be.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    85. Re:God bless the free market! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      You're reading into what I am seeing. I can quite confidently say that smartphone owners make up way more than half of the people I interact with on a daily basis. I may not live in an impoverished area, I interact mostly with university students and engineers, a pleasant mixture of people who earn plenty of money, and people who don't earn much at all but do their best to be trendy and impress people.

      And that's my point exactly. We don't go chasing cheap crap at every opportunity.

      Oh and Smartphones make up 50.4% of the US current mobile market. Of that 32% are Apple, 48% are Android and the top 8 selling devices are Samsung Galaxy series devices. The only thing ludicrous here is your assumption on the state of the market.

    86. Re:God bless the free market! by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      Do the people who don't earn much try but try to be trendy economise on A) gadgets, or B) food?

      Spot the flaw in your argument....

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    87. Re:God bless the free market! by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Up to 70% of the diet of chickens is... chicken shit. (Even free-range chickens eat it.)

      Rabbits eat rabbit shit (indeed, they will become deficient and die without access to their own feces).

      And we all know what Fido thinks of the cat box.

      Cattle feed often contains urea, which is not real different from concentrated piss.

      Pen-raised fish have historically been fed on all manner of waste, including guts and feces. Which isn't too different from what a lot of bottom-feeder fish eat in the wild. Yet catfish are pretty durn yummy.

      The problem isn't the feed, which isn't really anything novel. It's the often-questionable or undocumented circumstances of food imported from 3rd-world countries that still use 3rd-world processing, and the impact on first-world consumers who aren't adapted to third world pathogens, along with the Chinese business practice of "anything you can get away with is okay."

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    88. Re:God bless the free market! by xclr8r · · Score: 1

      Seafood sections usually post things like Farm raised and previously frozen.

      --
      Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
    89. Re:God bless the free market! by xclr8r · · Score: 1

      I don't even let my dog eat/chew anything out of china, some of the dog treats/bones just look scary. Read the labels people 'cause fido can't do it for himself.

      --
      Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
    90. Re:God bless the free market! by guruevi · · Score: 1

      Read up on the history of fluoride and how they decided it needed to be added it to the water. There has been to date no FDA review of this practice.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    91. Re:God bless the free market! by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      It might be. i cannot decide. I'll think about it a bit more after I clean my teeth.

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
    92. Re:God bless the free market! by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      It's an interesting point. If laws protecting us are so successful that people forget 'why' they are important, we get drivel like the GP.)

      But I like the gRand Prix.

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
    93. Re:God bless the free market! by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      I have had chickens for years and never have I seen them eating shit

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
    94. Re:God bless the free market! by DirtyLiar · · Score: 1

      The free market requires that consumers must here about this, because the free market relies on an informed consumer.

      That is why the free market is a myth, because those who sell stuff find it easier, cheaper, and more profitable to provide misinformation and sex appeal, rather than to educate the market. Otherwise all advertisements would be statistics, facts, and figures. Not sexy men and women, etc.

      The free market is designed to...

      Sorry again, but the free market is NOT designed. It just happens. That's why they constantly refer the the "Invisible Hand of the Market". I think they see it as God's hand. When instead it's just people trying to get as much money as possible, from investments of as little money as possible.
      It used to be called "Greed", now it's called "What the Market will Bear".

      drive the prices and profits down; that is the entire point of a free market

      No, that is the THEORY behind "Letting the Market Decide".
      But as you pointed out, for the market to work, all the potential customers must be educated, and there is no incentive (money) to do that.
      It's more profitable for the consumers to think with their crotches or other emotions, than to fill their heads with facts and let them decide for themselves.

      multiple vendors compete for the patronage of consumers in a fair manner, by offering the best products for the most attractive price.

      Competition is expensive for the vendors. Competitors in a truly free market (well, not just a free market) would rather eliminate the competition than compete. That allows them to set prices at nearly any profit margin.

      If you're not getting that, then you're not in a free market.

      We agree again.

      If what I say was not true, the article would be a press-release by a vendor, or an advertisement.
      If what I say was not true, cat-food companies would have announced that there were life-threatening contaminants in their food a few years ago, rather than it having to be a leak.
      If what I say was not true, there would be no need for the FDA to inspect food for salmonella, feces, and other contaminants.

      --

      THINK! It's patriotic

    95. Re:God bless the free market! by DirtyLiar · · Score: 1

      Your FoxNews link in your sig is broken.

      --

      THINK! It's patriotic

    96. Re:God bless the free market! by LordLucless · · Score: 1

      That is why the free market is a myth

      It's not a myth; it's an ideal. Some markets are closer to it than others. None will probably ever meet it perfectly.

      Sorry again, but the free market is NOT designed. It just happens.

      The free market is a description of natural forces, and how those forces can be tapped to provide the best possible outcomes for vendors and consumers. No, the forces weren't designed, but the theories around how they can be used were.

      But as you pointed out, for the market to work, all the potential customers must be educated, and there is no incentive (money) to do that.

      The incentive to do that should come from the customers. Ideally, they should want to be educated so as to get the best possible deal. In reality, people are far more willing to compromise in order to avoid the effort it takes to be educated. Whether thats a failure of the model, or a failure of the consumer depends on your perspective I guess.

      Competition is expensive for the vendors. Competitors in a truly free market (well, not just a free market) would rather eliminate the competition than compete.

      Well, yes. That is why the free market has a role for the government enforcing the baseline of the free market. Despite what some people think, the free market described in Wealth of Nations isn't what happens if you take away constraints. It's a description of what needs to be done to produce the free-est possible market.

      --
      Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    97. Re:God bless the free market! by rohan972 · · Score: 1

      Well I would have thought it pretty obvious that with China's record on pollution, human rights and contaminated baby formula indicates that standards for food production likely aren't up to the standards of my country.

      I'm not against regulation and I don't regard laws requiring food quality to be anti-free market. Large scale free markets exist only in a framework of enabling legislation. Nevertheless guruevi's statement that the "free market dictates that consumers shouldn't hear about this" is demonstrably wrong in this case because we were informed of the issue by a private company. That doesn't mean I think regulation can't be a part of the response to this situation.

      The issue I have is that a lot of people have strong feelings about "the free market" without having a clue what that means, both people for and against it. They vote according to that lack of understanding and we're all getting screwed.

    98. Re:God bless the free market! by Reziac · · Score: 1

      So have I. They eat damnear anything that doesn't eat them first, including occasionally each other.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    99. Re:God bless the free market! by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      I must confess thought that our chickens are treated more as pets than livestock and so live very pampered lives

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
    100. Re:God bless the free market! by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Mine lived variously in a chicken coop and loose around the farm. Lordy, are chickens violent creatures when left to their own devices!

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    101. Re:God bless the free market! by rohan972 · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately 'thinking libertarians' are a small subset of the larger Libertarian movement.

      Unlike people of your political persuasion, of course.

    102. Re:God bless the free market! by cusco · · Score: 1

      What IS my political persuasion? I haven't managed to settle on any particular dogma in the last three decades, not sure why you feel able to assign one to me.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    103. Re:God bless the free market! by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      I like to imagine their ancestors back in the mists of time standing thirty feet tall with a bad attitude. That's a scary thought.

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
    104. Re:God bless the free market! by rohan972 · · Score: 1

      A particular political persuasion is irrelevant to the point, which is that your statement regarding libertarians is applicable to all political groups. Real thinkers are a pretty small group and much of politics is based on emotion rather than reason.

      If we could compare all the people who don't follow a particular dogma, such as yourself, we would find a small subset of thinkers and a bunch of people who aren't. It's not rare, they're called swinging voters and most of those votes swing on propaganda and emotion rather than careful logical consideration.

    105. Re:God bless the free market! by Jmc23 · · Score: 1
      There's a difference between organic, which you can slap on anything, and organically certified which you can't and is heavily regulated.

      Standard practice should be to avoid brands that use organic as a buzzword since the care only for the market share and not the concept.

      Learn to cook. Seriously. Learning to cook you'll start picking up on how to tell good produce/meat from the bad. There's much you can tell just by looking. You'll also start to learn what ingredients are actually food and tasty, and what is just fillers and used for shelf-life and/or artificial stimulation of your senses. Don't buy for shelf-life.

      --
      Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
    106. Re:God bless the free market! by cusco · · Score: 1

      In an unregulated 'free market' sellers will simply buy the 'shit free' badge and slap it on any product they want, regardless of origin. Since there is no regulation and no inspections consumers have no way of knowing.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    107. Re:God bless the free market! by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Considering some of the Chicken Wars that I've witnessed, and the midnight Snake vs Chicken fights... methinks it's a durn good thing there are no longer 30-foot-tall chickens :D

      [The chicken won the fight, but the snake still got all the eggs :( ]

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    108. Re:God bless the free market! by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      I ma in awe of their ability to keep their heads steady no matter how you move/orient their bodies. A guy made a video and used a tie to a chicken head as his steadying mechanism. I tried to find it but failed. In my defense I am on my first coffee of the morning.

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
    109. Re:God bless the free market! by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I've noticed that too... nifty idea that guy had. Wonder what the biomechanism is? not all birds have it.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    110. Re:God bless the free market! by BadgerRush · · Score: 1

      First, no human can know all the effects of all the ingredients of all the products someone consumes, not even a phd in medicine or bioquemestry. So no, I'm not saying consumers are retards, I'm saying they are only human.

      And Second, yes, there is a concept of reputation, but it is something that, without oversight, can be easily manipulated by unethical advertising, fake reports/certifications, astroturfing, etc.

    111. Re:God bless the free market! by nobodie · · Score: 1

      Haven't you read your history: as in the history of the sausage producers in the US in the early 1900s. It was ONLY because of legislation that they cleaned up their factories. That was the creation of the FDA and the meat packing inspection that has been so crippled by the big food industry that you can't get legislation passed to protect us now.

      Who do you think has fed your these ideas? people who care about your health? come on, wake up, the big corporations have bought the academics to produce the students that parrot the corporation pre-processed conclusions so that you have something that appears to make sense. But good sense it does not make, my friend, you have been fed the same pig poop as the tilapia eaters.

      Sorry, the truth often smells and tastes like poop.

      --
      Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
    112. Re:God bless the free market! by cusco · · Score: 1

      there was never such a thing as accreditation organizations in a free market

      Nope, there never was. I'd suggest reading Sinclair Upton's 'The Jungle' if you actually want to learn about the glories of food production in your phantasmagorical "free market" paradise.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    113. Re:God bless the free market! by DirtyLiar · · Score: 1

      I'm not just railing senselessly again the free market. I accept that like Democracy, a Regulated Free Market is the worst solution ever.

      Except for all the others (we've tried).

      Time was when most people worried about paying "a fair wage for a fair days work".
      And others worried about and charging a fair amount for the work done / product provided.

      The transaction was one of meeting one's obligations to the other.

      Not everyone, but the average person.

      The fact is that Communism is a wonderful idea and a commendable ideal.
      The problem with Communism is that enough people are greedy, are often more than happy to live off the work of others, and are willing to lie, cheat, steal and even kill to do it, to ruin it for everyone else. Making a "share-and-share-alike" economy impossible among large groups of humans.

      The free market is a horrible and deeply cynical idea that depends on the worst human impulses to function.
      The good part of the free market idea is that even though it depends on morally reprehensible impulses, it works better than anything else devised by humans thus far.

      That is why the free market is a myth

      It's not a myth; it's an ideal. Some markets are closer to it than others. None will probably ever meet it perfectly.

      I speak of the mythical "free market", where all decisions are rational, all transactions are fair, and everyone is informed of the truth. Where no-one deliberately spreads disinformation to cloud the issue with bogus facts like "Smoking is Good for you", and "We do not use Slave Labor". Then hide behind the ideal of "Free Speech" when caught in their lies.

      The free-market will be a myth as long as people act and speak as if the ideal does or even can exist in real life. Especially those that speak of a "free and unfettered" market.

      The free market is a description of natural forces, and how those forces can be tapped

      "Natural Forces". You make it sound like you are describing weather patterns.

      Please speak plainly, it's a description of how human greed can be harnessed, rather than relying on our "better natures".

      It's a sad statement about humanity that there are always those willing to take undeserved advantage, or steal from others.

      The concept of the free market been corrupted by those like Ayn Rand (the philosopher and Science Fiction writer) and has been twisted into the belief that good is evil and evil is good. That the quest for ever more wealth is an absolute good, always, no matter who pays the price. And that charity is an evil because the poor are lazy and evil and deserving of no better than their lot in life. And probably should be punished.

      This is how Republicans can justify to themselves their positions on suppressing the vote of those poorer than themselves.

      That's why Romney's characterization of the 47% got applause, and still get's re-affirmed by Republicans brave enough to say what they mean.

      to provide the best possible outcomes for vendors and consumers.

      I'm not sure that vendors would consider a well informed consumer and a competitive market as even a desirable outcome, let alone "the best possible outcome".

      For instance, do you remember http://pricewatch.com/ ?

      For several years, pricewatch allowed consumers to compare comparable products, including computer parts. This was a great boon to the home-brewer and small computer resellers. The problem was that it forced the participating vendors to competitively offer their products at a lower and lower profit.

      Eventually, Pricewatch was made aware of the fact that their customers were the vendors, and not their users, and began to remove the users ability to search for and compare the prices and features of specific products. The last time I checked, the products advertised on PriceWatch were priced the same as (or higher than) pro

      --

      THINK! It's patriotic

    114. Re:God bless the free market! by orasio · · Score: 1

      Consumers do have a way of knowing.
      The can buy locally, and see whether fish are fed shit. Or they could only use brands that are well known for not feeding their fish shit. Even without a brand police, it could be done with badges that are difficult to reproduce, for example, like RFID.
      Of course, that would be more expensive than buying whatever Walmart sells, and just hope there is no shit in it.
      In the end, what I believe is that people prefer to buy cheaper and easier, even if there is a possibility of shit in their food.

    115. Re:God bless the free market! by cusco · · Score: 1

      difficult to reproduce

      Yeah, that's going to work really, really well. I can go to the market in Lima or Bogota and buy a copy of AutoCAD for $12. That's exactly how well that will work. If there is a profit to be made the megacorps will lie, cheat, steal and kill to acquire it. A few years ago RJR got caught smuggling cigarettes throughout Europe, evading $4 billion in taxes. Not the resellers, not the retailers, the RJR corporation. Tyson employes illegal aliens in their chicken processing plants so that when they're injured or crippled they can be deported back to Mexico so that they don't have to pay out workers comp claims. What makes you think that aquafarming conglomerates will be any more honest or law abiding? Oh, that's right, there won't be any regulation so they'll all miraculously discover morality.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    116. Re:God bless the free market! by orasio · · Score: 1

      I believe there is a false dichotomy here. You are making my point.
      My point was that, for this case, markets _could_ solve it. Remember, the first option was: buy locally.
      What I wanted to say was that markets do work, but some times you don't want the people to get exactly what they ask for, or what they pay for, you want to force them to choose the Right Thing (TM).
      If you leave it to the markets, people will buy stuff with shit if it's cheaper, that is their choice, so they will force retailers to sell it. Traceability is possible, you can put an RFID in a living cow, and trace their whole lives, until they are BBQed, but markets won't pay for that. People will buy the cheapest, no matter what. I see that as markets working to give people what they want.

    117. Re:God bless the free market! by blippo · · Score: 1

      They need a rooster to keep them straight. Not kidding.

    118. Re:God bless the free market! by Reziac · · Score: 1

      I always had both hens and roosters, but I imagine you're right.... it's the same with other animals, if you have only females you get a LOT more fights than when there's also a male present.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  6. Big whoop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Will people please stop shit-talking this revolutionary new system? I mean, I don't give a crap if people act like turds and blame fish for salmonella. These days all people do is dump on new ideas and flush them down the toilet rather than give them a chance. Either we can tuck our turtle heads back into the shell or we can embrace this new technique. Pass the tilapia!

  7. Don't forget... by Ignacio · · Score: 1
  8. Do you know what real microbes eat? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    'The manure the Chinese use to feed fish is frequently contaminated with microbes like salmonella,'

    Nothing ODD there.

  9. Re:And suddenly I have zero appetite for seafood.. by Loki_666 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think the answer to that is a firm Yes!

  10. nothing to see here, move along by samion.blanc · · Score: 1

    what do you think those bottom feeding insects of the sea eat in the wild.

  11. That's what a lot of fish and shellfish eat... by Gordonjcp · · Score: 1

    They eat nutrient-rich excrement that floats about in the water.

    Why do you think that prawns aren't kosher, or halal (which is basically the same thing) for that matter?

    1. Re:That's what a lot of fish and shellfish eat... by skine · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Obviously the headline is misleading, this is Slashdot.

      The basic point of TFA is that many of the practices of Vietnamese fishermen have the potential to spread disease to Americans. Also, while the FDA inspects only 2.7% of imported food, 1380 loads of seafood from Vietnam have been rejected for "filth and salmonella" in the last five years.

    2. Re:That's what a lot of fish and shellfish eat... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Clearly it's because ancient people in the Middle East did a scientific study and discovered that shellfish hang around outside sewage plants, even though there weren't any such thing.

      I mean this is clearly a long shot, but bear with me: they go off quickly when you haven't got a fridge and you live in the desert, which led to some random goat herder getting a dose of Dagon's revenge.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re:That's what a lot of fish and shellfish eat... by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      I mean this is clearly a long shot, but bear with me: they go off quickly when you haven't got a fridge and you live in the desert, which led to some random goat herder getting a dose of Dagon's revenge.

      I am possibly being thick here, but what exposure to sea food would desert dwellers get anyway?

      Isn't it a bit like a Nepalese religion prohibiting coconuts and bananas?

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  12. Mad Fish Disease? by courcoul · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ok, first we had Mad Cow Disease, which proves fatal to humans if you get it. For those too young to remember, it was caused by "enriching" cow feed with ground up sheep offal in order to recicle the waste, increase the protein content of the feed and increase the profit to the farmer. This caused the bugs to get into the cows brains and turn them to mush. Called Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in the cow flavor, Kreutzfeld-Jakobs syndrome in human flavor, basically turns your brains into a bloody sponge full of holes, then you die inevitably, be it cow or human.

    Wait for the upcoming Mad Fish Scare. Just remember every time your MacFish stick or burger tastes like shit.

    1. Re:Mad Fish Disease? by pieterh · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, there is in fact a real threat here. A common parasite in fresh water fish in tropical countries is the liver fluke, a worm that lives part of its cycle in the human gut and is responsible, in cases, for cholangiocarcinoma, cancer of the bile duct. The worm attaches near the bile duct and produces chemicals that create cancer so it can eat the by-products. Nice little beast. It's a slow developing cancer that kills suddenly because it has no symptoms until it reaches a late stage. It's one of the commoner reasons for death among 50-year old males in countries where it's endemic.

      One assumes there's more resistance in populations that have been exposed to this parasite for thousands of years. Women suffer much less from bile duct cancer than men, so there's variation in individual vulnerability. But as Chinese fish is exported, and ends up in places like cheap sushi bars in Birmingham, the parasite ends up in thousands, perhaps millions of people who have little resistance.

      Attack of the Killer Sushi.

      I should know, I got bile duct cancer a year or two ago and since there were no antecedents in my family, this seemed the most likely cause.

      If we started feeding fish on pig feces, it's a slippery slope (sorry!) to feeding them human feces.

      Good news is a yearly de-worming should be sufficient to prevent bile-duct cancer, if anyone cared about this.

    2. Re:Mad Fish Disease? by TFAFalcon · · Score: 1

      Wasn't Mad Cow caused by cows eating parts of other cows, not sheep? Just like human versions of it are common in cultures that practice cannibalism.

    3. Re:Mad Fish Disease? by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      I wondered when someone was going to mention this. I expect the response will be "duh, we're talking about fish and pig shit, so it's totally different from cows and sheep bits and sort-of-prawns can't get BSE anyway n00b"

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    4. Re:Mad Fish Disease? by PRMan · · Score: 1

      Wrong. CJD was caused by feeding cows ground up remaining cow parts. Cannibalism is the main cause of mad cow disease.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    5. Re:Mad Fish Disease? by phorm · · Score: 1

      Just remember every time your MacFish stick or burger tastes like shit.

      How would we be able to tell the different from now, most of it already does.

    6. Re:Mad Fish Disease? by Guppy · · Score: 2

      First, my condolences regarding your diagnosis, I hope you are receiving proper care for your condition. However, I would like to offer some corrections and commentary on your post.

      The worm attaches near the bile duct and produces chemicals that create cancer so it can eat the by-products.

      The exact mechanism resulting in the increase in cholangiocarcinoma is not known with certainty, but is thought to involve the constant inflammation and irritation produced by the parasite's presence, which results in increased cellular proliferation and hyperplasia. To say it "produces chemicals that create cancer so it can eat the by-products" doesn't make much sense to me.

      But as Chinese fish is exported, and ends up in places like cheap sushi bars in Birmingham

      Sushi fish are salt-water species (with a few special exceptions which Americans are unlikely to encounter), which compared to freshwater fish, are hosts to far fewer species of parasites able to infect humans -- the Japanese originators of Sushi recognized this, and selected only certain species of fish for use, for this reason. Liver flukes are not among the species they are able to transmit.

      In addition, in the U.S., it is recommended Sushi fish to be deep-frozen for an extended period of time, which destroys helminthic parasites. Freezing and storing at -4F (-20C) or below for 7 days, or freezing at -31F (-35C) or below until solid and storing at -31F (-35C) or below for 15 hours, or freezing at -31F (-35C) or below until solid and storing at -4F (-20C) or below for 24 hours is sufficient to kill parasites, per FDA guidelines. As you say though, cheap and unskilled Sushi places do not always reliably follow the safety guidelines, and there is also the possibility that you may be served freshwater fish fraudulently mis-identified as an accepted saltwater sushi fish species.

      Good news is a yearly de-worming should be sufficient to prevent bile-duct cancer, if anyone cared about this.

      Here's the problem -- there is always some risk with pharmaceuticals, a small proportion of recipients will experience allergic reactions or unforseen drug interactions. Due to the very low incidence of liver flukes in the U.S., the number of patients to treat to prevent one case of CCA is very, very high. Even in China, with an estimated 12.5 million infected, only about 1k CCA cases a year result (M.B. Qian et al., PLoS 2011). So even ignoring the time and cost spent, if you do a blanket de-worming of the entire population, you will likely impose a greater morbidity on the population from the cure than the disease.

    7. Re:Mad Fish Disease? by pieterh · · Score: 2

      Thanks for the information... very useful. I wish I had mod points. Yes, my point is about fraudulent use of infected fresh water fish in cheaper sushi restaurants run by non-Japanese kitchens (which in my experience is common), combined with perhaps lower tolerance of western gene pools to the parasite's effects. Sorry if my description of its intentions were fuzzy; I'm basing it off articles like http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2009/10/how-a-liver-fluke-causes-cancer/. If there's an arms race, clearly the human resistance is happening locally, not globally. You see my point.

      I'm fine myself, survived a wicked Whipple resection and chemotherapy. I'm a little concerned though that the risk to others isn't wider known; given how simple it should be to detect liver fluke in imported fish samples, and cure infections when found, balanced against the cost of one case of CCA.

    8. Re:Mad Fish Disease? by Guppy · · Score: 1

      I was unaware of the paper on Granulin-like growth factors secreted by O. viverrini, thank you.

      The effect of liver flukes in CCA in the U.S. is still thought to be minimal however. Given our lifestyles, much greater roles are thought to be played by auto-immune diseases of the biliary system; viral hepatitis; and the concentration and secretion of foreign carcinogenic substances in bile (generally, substances with aromatic characteristics and somewhat higher molecular weight, and not otherwise excreted through urine).

    9. Re:Mad Fish Disease? by cusco · · Score: 1

      It originated in sheep, which naturally get 'scrapie' (I forget the transmission method in sheep). It also naturally occurs in elk in some other cervids. Bovines only get it through ingestion of contaminated animal parts, which is mostly but not completely waste products from cattle slaughterhouse operations.

      What is a bit worrisome to me is that to my knowledge no one has tested pigs to see if they either get it or can pass it along. Because they're slaughtered fairly young symptoms wouldn't have had time to appear. There was an initiative at the (IIRC) Dept. of Agriculture to find out, but the effort was killed by interference by the meat industry.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
  13. Not actually approved by Jimmy_B · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From the article:

    "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, the article claims that Ngoc Sinh Seafoods Trading & Processing Export Enterprise is using repulsive and unsafe practices, and lying about having been inspected. Bloomberg is accusing them of a crime. The Slashdot headline, on the other hand, converted this into "Approved for Consumers" - accusing a different group, the regulators, which appear to be innocent.

  14. Nothing strange about this by cptBongo · · Score: 5, Insightful
    1. Re:Nothing strange about this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you've eaten any meat, you've eaten something fed by crap.
      If you've eaten any plant, you've eaten something fed by crap.

      City people are, for the most part, complete idiots in regards to food and become panic stricken when they accidentally become exposed to reality.

    2. Re:Nothing strange about this by andy16666 · · Score: 1

      Pretty much, yeah.

    3. Re:Nothing strange about this by shalomsky · · Score: 1

      When plants convert crap to something edible, in the process, they render safe any bacteria in the crap. Or, the bacteria in the crap is rendered safe by sunlight, fresh air, wind, and maybe other environmental factors (cold, rain). When animals live crowded together and their crap is not allowed to get naturally cleaned in this fashion, and they dump the crap into lagoons, where it festers, then it gets into rivers and streams and pollutes and kills fish. Am I wrong?

    4. Re:Nothing strange about this by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      If you've eaten any meat, you've eaten something fed by crap. If you've eaten any plant, you've eaten something fed by crap.

      City people are, for the most part, complete idiots in regards to food and become panic stricken when they accidentally become exposed to reality.

      Yeah, that's what farmers said before the fucking BSE problems a few years ago. Ooh arr, we know best, you city folks don't understand our country ways, of course it's all right for cows to eat their relatives' ground up internal organs.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  15. It's all in the marketing by Farmer+Tim · · Score: 1

    Just say they come in "dingleberry sauce", it'll sell.

    --
    Blank until /. makes another boneheaded UI decision.
  16. get the drums ready by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Funny

    I went into a restaurant where they serve this. When I red the menu I shouted "bullshit!"

    The waiter said "Would madam like a large portion or a small one?"

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  17. Tilapia != fish by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Tilapia is just fish for people who don't like fish.
    It is bland, with hardly any taste. I prefer fish that actually tastes like, you know, fish.
    Feeding tilapia manure will probably increase its flavour.

    1. Re:Tilapia != fish by tehcyder · · Score: 2

      It is bland, with hardly any taste. I prefer fish that actually tastes like, you know, fish.

      Fish either tastes vaguely of sea water and piss (sea fish) or strongly of dirty rivers (river fish). Apart from the fact that no one minds killing fish but a lot of people get upset about killing lambs etc, there is no reason on god's earth ever to eat fish unless you're starving to death and there are no vegetables to hand.

      Fish is generally eaten by people who don't really like eating at all. The only exceptions I can think of are: (1) tasty smoked kippers which taste of smoke and a bit of fish and (2) fish 'n' chips but that's because of the delicious nutritious batter.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    2. Re:Tilapia != fish by RocketRabbit · · Score: 1

      I feel sad for you if you have only ever eaten dirt fish. However, this doesn't mean that dirt fish is the only fish available. Maybe where you live it is, but in most places there are many kinds of fish available each of which has its own distinct flavor. Most do not taste like piss or shit or dirt.

  18. Whole Foods by virb67 · · Score: 1

    This makes me think $15/lb for local cod at Whole Foods isn't so unreasonable.

    1. Re:Whole Foods by dywolf · · Score: 1

      Cod eat shit too. All fish do.

      And you're being ripped off at 15/lb. Little secret...whole foods uses mostly the same suppliers as Kroger and Publix and all the other stores, especially for emat and fish. They just charge you more for the name "Whole Foods".

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    2. Re:Whole Foods by cusco · · Score: 1

      They do have a great cheese selection, though.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
  19. Point being? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    after all, mushrooms are raised on horse crap.

  20. Haha by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 2

    And which country outsourced its production to China? Oh wait, American CEO's and shareholders did that for the benefit of their customers and workers.

    Nobody forced America to buy crap from China.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:Haha by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

      Actually, yes they ARE forced to. When we deregulated and went Free Trade that meant that even companies that *want* to keep their manufacturing in the US are at an economic disadvantage. A friend of mine works for a local office furniture manufacturer that found itself in this same predicament.

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  21. Everyone eats shit by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Our oxygen is plant shit, the co2 is other peoples shit, your vegetables grow on shit, your meat eats shits, you cook it on farts, you walk on shit and some of us consider clothes made from shit to be the height of luxury.

    It is a shitty world and it worse for those who believe in homeopathy.Water has memory? Oh good, so does it remember having been pissed out billions of times over the lifetime of the earth? And if water has memory, why doesn't it remember the time it was beer!

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:Everyone eats shit by Grayhand · · Score: 3, Informative

      Our oxygen is plant shit, the co2 is other peoples shit, your vegetables grow on shit, your meat eats shits, you cook it on farts, you walk on shit and some of us consider clothes made from shit to be the height of luxury.

      It is a shitty world and it worse for those who believe in homeopathy.Water has memory? Oh good, so does it remember having been pissed out billions of times over the lifetime of the earth? And if water has memory, why doesn't it remember the time it was beer!

      The point isn't feces it's the fact they are planning to use raw sewage so the bacteria is the dangerous element. I think this once again brings up the question, why do we allow food imports from China!!!! Their standards are so low much of the food is potentially dangerous. Imported foods should always be held to the same standards as domestically produced foods. Better yet raise the food locally and create jobs and reduce oil consumption.

  22. Typical American attitude... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That practice is dangerous for American consumers

    but the rest of you can go fuck yourselves ;)

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:Typical American attitude... by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 2

      That practice is dangerous for American consumers

      but the rest of you can go fuck yourselves ;)

      My thoughts exactly. Who the hell would write something like that????

    2. Re:Typical American attitude... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Apparently, Michael Doyle, director of the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety would, probably because the American consumer is what his job is concerned with.

    3. Re:Typical American attitude... by strikethree · · Score: 1

      I saw the wink but you are moderated insightful so I felt that I must respond.

      If Americans said something was terrible for everyone, there would be huge outcries about Americans deciding what was good for others. Other people eat some pretty gross shit that would never be accepted in America. A group can and should only talk about what is good for themselves. It has nothing to do with "fuck everyone else".

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
  23. Fertilizers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    And? You haven't been in the countryside for a while, or did everyone in the US switch to artificial fertilizers to grow seeds and such?

  24. Don't eat shit from China by JakFrost · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A few years ago on a whim I bought some generic branded local supermarket Stop & Shop seafood and came up with an upper body skin rash for a month. Later looked at the label and the stuff was made in China. Later found that there was a bunch of seafood enriched with some kind of a protein additive causing such bad allergic reactions to people that show up as an upper body skin rash just like I had. I had and still have no seafood allergies at the time and ate and still eat tons of seafood at restaurants weekly and sushi of all kinds, never have any bad results.

    Last few weeks I tried to expand my home diet to include more seafood and looked at my new super market chain called Kroger and found that all of their generic fish was imported from China, including freezers full of tilapia and other fish. I could not find any non-generic seafood in this store that wasn't from China. Decided not to buy any this time around after I learned my lesson the last time. I had to travel to their competitor HEB to find some non-Chinese seafood and luckily found some Alaskan salmon at a hefty price.

    I wish America would get it's shit together and wake the fuck up and stop importing food from China because of the horrible abuses of the environment that that country is perpetrating in the name of capitalism and profit and complete disregard for environmental and human safety as long as their shit infested products sell.

    China will cut its own dick off in the name of profit and sell it to anyone willing to buy a small fried spring roll.

    1. Re:Don't eat shit from China by bsercombe72 · · Score: 2

      Dude, I hate to break it to you, but since we've already decimated 70% of global fish stocks your options are limited.

      By Juliet Eilperin
      Washington Post Staff Writer
      Friday, November 3, 2006

      An international group of ecologists and economists warned yesterday that the world will run out of seafood by 2048 if steep declines in marine species continue at current rates, based on a four-year study of catch data and the effects of fisheries collapses.

      The paper, published in the journal Science, concludes that overfishing, pollution and other environmental factors are wiping out important species around the globe, hampering the ocean's ability to produce seafood, filter nutrients and resist the spread of disease.

      "We really see the end of the line now," said lead author Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Canada's Dalhousie University. "It's within our lifetime. Our children will see a world without seafood if we don't change things."

    2. Re:Don't eat shit from China by dywolf · · Score: 1

      made up and disproven statistic.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    3. Re:Don't eat shit from China by Amouth · · Score: 2

      made up/dis-proven or not.

      If your an actual fisherman you will know that yes there are a lot less fish out there now then there was 10 years ago and even less than 20 years ago.

      I can remember fishing for flounder with coat hangers, treble hooks, and weights. you would throw it into the surf and just drag it back snagging them. We could catch all we want any time. Now you go out and are lucky to get one or two in a full days fishing.

      We have been extremely irresponsible in how we have managed fish populations. I don't have an answer but i do like and encourage farm raised fish as that is something that is inherently sustainable.

      --
      '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
    4. Re:Don't eat shit from China by bsercombe72 · · Score: 1

      Why don't you go back and read your original post again and ask yourself why buying your fish from America cost so much. This link might help you too- once you get your head out of the sand you might begin to discuss things rationally.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfishing

      The thing you really need to understand is that in your little world people can afford conservation and regulation. In 80% of the world it is either unaffordable or unenforceable.

  25. Kosher!=Halal by ryzvonusef · · Score: 2

    While Prawns are not Kosher according to Jewish Dietary laws (something about shell fish not having horns?...I dunno, anybody wanna clarify?), *ALL* seafood, (from prawns to sharks to sea cucumbers and what-have-you) is deemed Halal according to Islamic Dietary laws; heck the laws are *staked* in favour of sea food vs land meat; no ritual regarding sacrifice, no restrictions either. I can go to any fish serving place and eat their produce, no questions asked.

    --
    I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
    1. Re:Kosher!=Halal by Arker · · Score: 1

      Under kosher law (bearing in mind there are some minor differences between branches of Judaism here) fish have the same favourable status as in Islam, but other seafood (anything in the water without fins and scales) does not. Like pig prohibition (common to Judaism and Islam today, common across the entire ME in ancient times) it's tempting to see a health benefit, whether that had anything to do with the origin of the taboo or not it probably has something to do with its continued strength. The seafood prohibited under kosher, scale-less bottom feeding fish, crustaceans, etc. are in fact the ones that are most likely to wind up making you sick, assuming they are wild.

      The article is about farm-raised Tilapia, however. Tilapia has fins and scales so the GP was incorrect, it's a kosher species. The problem here appears to be an artifact of fish-farming, rather than something inherent in that species of fish.

      --
      =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
      Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
    2. Re:Kosher!=Halal by SternisheFan · · Score: 1
      And for those who haven't heard about this recent story, it is advisable that you do not eat uncooked cockroaches!!!

      http://gothamist.com/2012/10/09/man_dies_after_winning_cockroach-ea.php

      Now... Fugu me!

  26. Fish shit by TheGoodNamesWereGone · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Your seafood's always been eating fish shit. Your vegetables are grown in shit. I'm sorry this is a shock to people.

    1. Re:Fish shit by SternisheFan · · Score: 1

      The U.S. govt. has always permitted small amounts of bone and rat feces in meat products sold. Yep, rat feces. And bone gets purposely ground up and added into hamburger meat. It's a trade-off between the convience of store bought or having to go out and kill my own food myself, then I have to spit out any errant buckshot.

    2. Re:Fish shit by tgd · · Score: 1

      Your seafood's always been eating fish shit. Your vegetables are grown in shit. I'm sorry this is a shock to people.

      And virtually all, if not all, tilapia is raised on fish feces. In fact, that's the *entire* reason it became marketed -- they were used to clean the fish farm tanks that other fish were being raised in and someone got the idea to sell them, too! Twice the fish for the amount of feed!

    3. Re:Fish shit by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 1

      If you're right - and it sounds plausible - then tilapia is the most guilt-free fish that you can get in the supermarket. Not only does it consume resources that would otherwise be wasted; it actually provides an environmental service as well. Now also feeding them pig shit, that's disgusting. However, all the dangers mentioned sound merely potential. Can salmonella, for example, be transmitted through frozen tilapia to humans? Has anyone been actually harmed by pigshit tilapia? If the tilapia is a wonderous creature that can transform dangerous shit into delicious, healthy, protein-rich meat, maybe we should call that a giant win for both people and the environment!

    4. Re:Fish shit by dywolf · · Score: 1

      False. Bone is not intentionally ground up into ground meat. That is a lie.

      And it is most certainly not part of a trade off. Some bone and gristle will always make it in. It is not intentional. There are rules about how much is allowable (which in turn causes people cutting up the carcass with a saw to be careful so they dont take a loss on several wasted cows). Becauses which people would complain, the grocer would contract to a different supplier, etc. And the bones screw up the meat grinder too.

      -source: worked as meat cutter

      And as for the rat thing, you ever actually read the rules? Typically its something like "1 particle or hair per 100grams". When you work it out, its basically 1ppm or less. Besides which the plants that make/package the food are required to sterilize. So the sky isnt falling. Your post is only more FUD.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    5. Re:Fish shit by CowTipperGore · · Score: 1

      I am neither a bacteriologist nor an ichthyologist. However, it is my understanding that tilapia is so popular for food for a few reasons - they grow rapidly, tolerate heavy stocking, tolerate less-than-perfect water conditions, and will thrive on purely vegetarian diets. This last point is important because it makes them cheaper to grow and less likely to have heavy metal contamination. They're popular with consumers because the commonly used hybrids have a pleasing white flesh, nice size fillets, a very mild flavor, and low costs. They are sometimes raised in polycultures where the tilapia clean up the messes and the other species help keep the tilapia population in check but that is not the common scenario for commercial fish farming.

      I am doubtful that salmonella in the water will actually contaminate the fish living there. However, I imagine the fish themselves will be covered with infected water that then gets on the fillets in their less-than-sterile processing environment. Freezing doesn't kill salmonella. So, yes, a frozen tilapia fillet could be coated in salmonella-laden ice that then gets spread around the kitchen or directly into your gut if the fish isn't sufficiently cooked (at least 10 or 15 minutes at 140 F).

    6. Re:Fish shit by SternisheFan · · Score: 1

      I didn't say it was a lot of rat feces, but that there is some. And not every meathouse is working within US guidelines, you know that. And, off topic maybe, but I worked with a guy who filled and emptied the ships carrying orange juice. If I wrote here what he told me about what goes on, you'ld never go near oj again. Facts of life, but if you have a healthy enough immune system the stuff in food won't kill you. You might just get sick without knowing why sometimes.

    7. Re:Fish shit by tehcyder · · Score: 2

      The U.S. govt. has always permitted small amounts of bone and rat feces in meat products sold. Yep, rat feces. And bone gets purposely ground up and added into hamburger meat. It's a trade-off between the convience of store bought or having to go out and kill my own food myself, then I have to spit out any errant buckshot.

      Really? I just pull the arrow out. (unless it passed right through).

      You must be Herne the mighty motherfucking Hunter if you can fire an arrow all the way through a cow.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    8. Re:Fish shit by PeanutButterBreath · · Score: 1

      Your seafood's always been eating fish shit. Your vegetables are grown in shit.

      What kind of shit? How is that shit metabolized? The devil remains in the details.

  27. Re:Cooking kills diseases by oneiros27 · · Score: 3, Informative

    The origins of cooking likely had little to do with disease; you don't start having the problems at the scales we see in modern times until you've had domestication and keep them in more confined areas than they'd have been in nature. (which is basically, all farming, not just the factory stuff).

    The early advantage of cooking is that it although it may destroy some nutrients (hence the raw food movement), it makes others more available for human absorbtion, so there's a net gain. This is what's attributed to human's large brains -- they're rather costly in terms of energy, but cooking lets us spend less time eating for the same nutrients.

    And I say this as someone who's not allowed to give blood, as I'm an increased likelihood of Mad Cow. And I should mention that just bringing to a boil isn't enough for some food borne illnesses (eg, botulism or other spores), particularly if you're at an elevation significantly above sea level.

    --
    Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
  28. simple green solution. by queazocotal · · Score: 1

    Use part of the waste stream to make biogas.
    Use this to pastuerise the rest before feeding.

  29. I wont eat seafood... by SternisheFan · · Score: 1

    I won't eat seafood. I refuse to eat anything that swims in it's own bathroom.

    1. Re:I wont eat seafood... by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      I won't eat seafood. I refuse to eat anything that swims in it's own bathroom.

      I refuse to eat seafood because it's either tasteless overpriced rubbery crap or tasteless overpriced snotty crap. But each to his own.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  30. Re:To all USians by SternisheFan · · Score: 1

    ESAD. :)

    I once worked for a guy who had "ESAD" printed in the lower left of his business card (he had, you might say... anger issues). Had to ask him what it meant, he told me, but that he tells his customers that it's an acronym for, "Excellent Service And Dependability". But that's not what you meant, huh? :-)

  31. How is this news? by argStyopa · · Score: 1

    I saw an episode of Dirty Jobs where Mike worked at a fish farm.

    It was a 'green' (brown?) part of the relatively-closed process that the last step in in the chain was Tilapia that ate the waste of all the other fish and then were sold for food.

    They were quite proud of it, actually.

    --
    -Styopa
    1. Re:How is this news? by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 1

      Mike Rowe was also in the "World's Dirtiest Man" episode of the show Curiosity. At one point he was with a food inspector at a fish market. The inspector picked some worms out of fresh fish on camera. Mike asked "So those are bad?". The inspector replied no, that was perfectly normal. They then had Mike eat some sushi and they shoved an endoscope down his throat to try and catch the worms being digested.

      The moral to the story: if it is biological, someone will stick it in their pie hole. Also: study hard so you don't have to endure the abuses Mike does.

    2. Re:How is this news? by dywolf · · Score: 1

      From wiki:
      "Mike Rowe attended Overlea High School, where he excelled in both theater and singing under the tutelage of choir director Freddie King, whom Rowe credits for first interesting him in performing.[5] An early stutterer, Rowe was able to overcome the handicap while in school.[6] After graduation from high school, he attended Essex Community College,[5] and briefly sang with the Chorus of the Chesapeake, which at the time was directed by King. He later graduated from Towson University[7] with a degree in Communication Studies.[8]

      Rowe sang professionally with the Baltimore Opera.[9][10] He says about this job: I joined the opera to get my union card and meet girls. I was a saloon singer, so I went down to the Baltimore Opera and learned an aria and auditioned. I figured I'd do one show and quit. But the girls were everywhere and the truth is, the music was really decent.[11]"

      Looks like Rowe both studied and worked hard. And remember he created the show, he loves the, show. He is a self-made man.
      So lets not be putting him down.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    3. Re:How is this news? by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Studied hard? Communication studies? LOL That's a football player type degree.

      Lets not put him down. But he is a success without any real education. He won the entertainment carrier lottery.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  32. Knee-jerk reaction by Dave+Emami · · Score: 1

    It's possible that there are specific problems in this case (someone else on the thread mentioned liver flukes being a danger), but the general "oh no, they're growing things with shit!" reaction is silly. People who buy organic produce pay a premium to have their food grown using shit, a.k.a. "natural fertilizers." Either it's the more obvious kind (farm animal or similar manure), or it's compost -- which is just worm and bacteria manure from digesting plant matter, mixed with the bits that didn't get eaten.

    Heck, alcohol is basically the waste product of yeast cells digesting sugars.

    Again, I'm taking issue with the overall "eww" reaction, not this specific instance. I don't want feces in my food directly, but whenever we eat something that was alive, feces was consumed somewhere along its food chain. I don't want to eat rotting carrion, either, but the vegetables I ate today probably drew nourishment from a little bit of it, even if it was only dead earthworms or insects.

    --

    "The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
    1. Re:Knee-jerk reaction by CowTipperGore · · Score: 1

      I agree completely. However, it is worth consideration that pigs regularly excrete salmonella and it can live without a host for days or weeks, which means the fish will be living in a salmonella bath. I have no faith in the cleanliness of US processing facilities so I am certain that the Chinese ones will be less than sterile. Salmonella isn't killed by freezing so it is likely that these frozen fillets will show up in our food chain coated in salmonella.

    2. Re:Knee-jerk reaction by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Heck, alcohol is basically the waste product of yeast cells digesting sugars.

      God, I love yeast and their funny little appetites.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  33. I love sushi... by CheshireDragon · · Score: 1

    ...but I'll pass on it now.

    --
    "That's right...I said it."
  34. Net Improvement over "Garbage Fish" by retroworks · · Score: 1
    As several posters have commented, this isn't that uncommon in nature, and its certainly not uncommon in commercial meat industries (as "mad cow" reminds us). But the point no one has made yet is that the excrement based feed replaces commercial harvesting for "fishmeal". Wikipedia defines this as:

    "Fishmeal can be made from almost any type of seafood but is generally manufactured from wild-caught, small marine fish that contain a high percentage of bones and oil, and is usually deemed not suitable for direct human consumption. The fish caught for fishmeal purposes solely are termed “industrial”.[3]

    It is the reason why commercially raised fish, and Vietnam raised commercial fisheries in particular, have been called unsustainable by environmentalists. They have been using extremely fine nets which catch everything, mashing it up into fish-meal, which if commercialized broadly would make the oceans a bigger desert. While we are right to have concerns about this, "recycling" is actually always better than "mining", and reusing lost protein in excrement is better than catching smaller and smaller "fishmeal" from nature.

    --
    Gently reply
    1. Re:Net Improvement over "Garbage Fish" by CowTipperGore · · Score: 1

      One of the big reasons for tilapia's popularity is that they thrive on completely vegetarian diets. They do not require fishmeal and have very little risk of heavy metal build-ups. However, this does not mean that dumping fresh pig shit in the pond is the appropriate next step. There's a reasonable middle ground where the fish are fed actual plant-based foods.

  35. Anotehr PETA conspiracy! by clickety6 · · Score: 1

    Seafood Raised on Animal Feces Approved for Consumers

    How dare they feed this shit to fish. If this shit was approved for consumers, then we consumers should get to eat it, not some lousy fish! I expect PETA is behind this making sure the carp get the crap instead of us!

    --
    ----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
  36. Re:And suddenly I have zero appetite for seafood.. by yotto · · Score: 2

    You better stop eating vegetables too, then. They subsist on a steady diet of shit.

  37. Don't worry... by KrazyDave · · Score: 2

    the Chinese assure us that it "tastes like chicken."

    --
    www.chihuahuarescue.com- Help to end dog abuse, abandonment and cruelty
  38. Nothing new by hardburlyboogerman · · Score: 1

    You've eaten Talipilia? What do you think they eat? Yep,SHIT! Nothing new under the waves

    --
    Geek Hillbilly
  39. Don't violate the laws of nature. by hoboroadie · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You can eat raw steer manure and live. (Well, at my farm you could, I would hesitate about CAFO waste.) Bird shit is chock-full of dangerous pathogens, you don't want the chicken coop anywhere near where the other critters live. Fresh air, sunlight, and happy composting organisms are used to convert nasty poop back into wholesome dirt that will grow safe edible food. Always wash your hands after you touch a bird. Wetlands- nasty, stinky swamps, are where water gets cleansed of pathogens and purified so that normal fish can live in it. Tilapia can live in warm, nasty water, but it would make them unsafe to eat.

    --
    They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
    1. Re:Don't violate the laws of nature. by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      You can eat raw steer manure and live

      And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  40. The ecological cycle by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 1

    Does your local Wal-Mart store have badges on the bags of frozen tilapia that says which ones were raised on shit and which ones weren't?

    Amazing how people are apparently ignorant of how biology works.

    100% of your food grows from recycled feces. What the heck did you think happens to fecal matter after it's excreted; you think it is put on a rocket and shot to Aldebaran? This is the ecological cycle; input goes to output which is recycled back into the organic chain.

    Water too (or whatever it is you drink): It's all been cycled through the bladders of countless animals.

    You want only carbon that has never passed through the digestive tract of an animal? Move to a different planet.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    1. Re:The ecological cycle by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yes, but there are safe cycles and unsafe cycles.

      The reason very few cultures eat the meat of carnivores is that the closer the physiology and biology of two animals, the higher the chance of the same micro-organisms infecting the two animals. I had to explain this to my mother once, to explain why cow dung is a good fertiliser, but cat shit should be kept out of the compost heap.

      If you're going to farm an animal that can harbour parasites than can also infect humans, you need to go out of your way to ensure that they don't come into contact with those parasites.

      That doesn't mean "don't feed them shit", but "be selective in which animals' shit you feed them". Which basically means ruminant shit.

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    2. Re:The ecological cycle by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      There's a difference between fecal material which has been recycled back into the organic chain and fresh shit filled with salmonella and the like.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    3. Re:The ecological cycle by ravenshrike · · Score: 1

      No, the reason most people don't eat carnivores is because carnivores are both a much smaller population, and tend to taste fucking nasty. At least mammilian carnivores do. Alligator's actually pretty tasty.

    4. Re:The ecological cycle by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      I pretty much exclusively eat carnivorous fish. They taste good, the rest tastes fishy.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    5. Re:The ecological cycle by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

      I may have worded my argument wrong, then, because that, in a way, proves my point. Fish as quite biologically different from us, so safer than many other animals. But the carnivores are more desirable. In the fish world, the rule's kind of inverted, because carnivores aren't the ones who each shit and concentrate the microorganisms.

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    6. Re:The ecological cycle by cusco · · Score: 1

      Swine, poultry and cattle all pass parasites and diseases to humans, and we consider them pretty tasty and value their manure. Tapeworm, trichinosis, influenza, smallpox, roundworm, etc. Pretty much every animal that lives with humans long enough to be domesticated will end up sharing diseases and parasites with us.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
  41. But, But But, It's ORGANIC! by Bugler412 · · Score: 1

    Get real folks, EVERYTHING that lives lives on shit, directly or indirectly. That's why cooking over fire was such a revolutionary breakthrough a couple of tens of thousands of years ago. Ate any mushrooms lately? I have news for you....

  42. Yes, I know what animals eat. by hoboroadie · · Score: 1

    All the fungi that I am aware of (I am not a mycologist) are very specific about the medium that they will grow in. Certain types of dead wood, certain types of manure, &c. I am not aware of any edible fungus which is harvested from avian feces. Please cite.
    I do prefer to wipe the horse manure from the mushrooms I put on my pizza, though many don't bother.

    --
    They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
  43. You've obviously never seen what catfish eat. by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 1

    Dead alligator bits. Old turtles. Vulture feces (It was bad going in!). Pig feces would be an improvement.

    --
    Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
  44. Tilapias are natural crap eaters... by madhatter256 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I remember a Dirty Jobs episode where Mike Rowe was at a fish farm that recycled their water.

    They used tilapia/carp to eat the poop.

    Here's a clip of the show on youtube.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGoR4dbE1os

    Regardless, stay away from fish harvested by Chinese. They are either grown in poorly maintained farms, or fished from endangered parts of the ocean where fisheries are nearly depleted.

    --
    Previewing comments are for sissies!
  45. Re:And suddenly I have zero appetite for seafood.. by hoboroadie · · Score: 1

    I lost my appetite for imported Chinese products long ago.
    OTOH http://news.discovery.com/human/cow-dung-medicine-spiritual-india.html, tastes vary.

    "This will end the market for carbonated fizzy drinks," predicted the facility's bullish director Om Prakash.

    --
    They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
  46. don't eat your veggies either by camazotz · · Score: 1

    Well that settles it, I'm going vegetarian. Oh wait.... (Clearly there are not a lot of farmers on /.)

    1. Re:don't eat your veggies either by camazotz · · Score: 1

      Okay, now that I've said my snarky comment, if you RTFA it does point out that the problem here is that the seafood eating the pig feces are being contaminated with salmonella and other microbes that, of course, get passed on to us, and as we all know shellfish in general are prone to acting like dynamic little toxic waste containers when given the chance to absorb harmful materials, so this specifically is a real issue and I'll be avoiding Chinese imported seafood here on out.

    2. Re:don't eat your veggies either by PeanutButterBreath · · Score: 1

      (Clearly there are not a lot of farmers on /.)

      Farmers probably know the difference between how vegetables convert nutrients into energy and growth and how animals convert nutrients into energy and growth, and why that makes a huge difference to this issue.

  47. Re:Interesting wording by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

    On the other hand, there appears to be a statistically significant correlation between intelligence and hygeine/access to medicine. Childhood exposure to illness increases the immune system, but at the cost of brain development.

    --
    Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
  48. Eat Shit... by geoffball · · Score: 1

    and die!

  49. Re:Interesting wording by tehcyder · · Score: 1

    Ask yourself - why a brit in Africa could likely go blind, or worse, drinking tapwater while the locals drink it with impunity. Ask yourself why a brit (substitute any aforementioned nanny state here) spends the first week of his exotic holiday eating imodium and sitting on the shitter, if he's not careful what he eats and drinks.

    But surely there hasn't been time for any evolutionary change in Western bodies? Or is it just something we acquire after we're born?

    --
    To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  50. Integrated aquaculture by mynameiskhan · · Score: 1

    1) Integrated aquaculture is a very old concept. Combining livestock with fish rearing has been in practice for hundreds of years in South and South-East asia. 2) Tilapia is not seafood.

    1. Re:Integrated aquaculture by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      And the life expectancy for a male born now in cambodia is 60 years......coincidence?

  51. Dogs better than you by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Dogs are stupid. Cats and pigs don't eat their own shit.

    I would say the ability and willpower to be able to eat your own feces makes them superior to you or I. After all, if they can do so without consequence it's one more thing they can eat that you cannot (although usually it's not their own shit they are eating).

    Honey is quite safe - some people actually use it as an antibiotic on cuts.

    Of course it's safe, it's just the manner in which it is produced many would find disgusting and some would probably stop eating honey if they knew - despite as you say Honey being one of the safer things to eat.

    Why not just point out that alcohol is yeast-piss?

    I would have had I remembered that.

    We grow crops with shit too

    Exactly, thanks for the support. These all reinforce my main point that there is often a disgusting element to the many foods we eat, yet people continue to consume them. Fish eating manure is no different.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  52. Re:And suddenly I have zero appetite for seafood.. by PeanutButterBreath · · Score: 1

    You better stop eating vegetables too, then. They subsist on a steady diet of shit.

    But they don't ingest it, which makes a huge difference.

    You aren't going to slice open a tomato and find actual manure in it. Pathogens found in manure, and in the guts and bloodstreams of animals fed manure, are less likely to survive the process of their original host being synthesized in to vegetable matter.

    Comparing manure used to fertilize plants and manure fed to animals is specious.

  53. Re:Dangerously wrong by hoboroadie · · Score: 1

    Okay, science guy, with a background in digging cowshit, I can assure you that I have ingested fresh, dried, and/or nebulized cow dung on numerous occasions. With an infectious dose of one organism how can you explain my lack of Escherichia-induced illnesses. I don't have any immunity that I know of, I get sick easily when I get a dose of bad fast food. Don't believe everything you think.

    --
    They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
  54. Re:Dangerously wrong by DirtyLiar · · Score: 1

    Luck?

    --

    THINK! It's patriotic

  55. Blame China by ToddInSF · · Score: 1

    But it's American corporations that just can't wait to shove this shit down our throats.

    And if you don't think they've already shoved plenty of similar shit down our throats, you hav enot ben paying attention.

    We have the most adulterated food supply in the world here in the US. We don't even have the most basic right, to know everything that's IN the food we buy. Our labeling laws have given the US food industry unprecedented control over our lives and health.

    It's time American consumers demanded full food disclosure. The dirty little secret of the food industry needs to be told.