(PCM) It seems that every couple of months there is news stating that consuming tilapia that has been raised and farmed from China can pose some dangerous health risks. We wanted to take a deeper look and see what is fact and what is fiction when it comes to America’s favorite farmed fish.
One major rumor that is constantly circulating is that Chinese tilapia is raised on both chicken and pig feces. Unfortunately this rumor does appear to be true, as due to the increased demand for farmed fish and the cutthroat practices of competing farmers many tilapia farmers are forced to cut corners. Feeding the tilapia chicken and pig feces rather than fish food is a much cheaper alternative for the farmers, however it is definitely not the healthier option.
The feeding of animal feces to the tilapia makes them incredibly susceptible to various bacterial infections such as samonella and E.Coli. It is even claimed that the large amounts of antibiotics that the fish are given to ward off these possible infections causes they strains that they do catch incredibly hard to eradicate.
There are definitely some good and healthy aquaculture ponds that are being used to raise tilapia in Asia, however back as early as 2013 the number was approximately 50% of ponds that use feces feeding practices for their fish. The problem is that there are thousands of large, multi-national, joint venture companies and farms in China that are using state of the art equipment and safe farming practices up against millions of small independent farms and companies that often will use cheaper and less sanitary farming techniques to keep their business afloat.
China is the world’s largest producers of tilapia and about 40% is exported to the U.S., it would be nearly impossible to distinguish what type of processing plant or farm the tilapia was initially raised. Most grocery chains are required to place a label on the packaging that alerts consumers that the origins of the fish came from China.
Over the years the FDA has only thoroughly inspected about 3% of the fish that is imported in from China and nearly 30% of the seafood consumed in the U.S. comes from Asian countries. When pressed for comments the FDA defended their inspection standards claiming ”The FDA’s priority is to ensure that both domestic and imported seafood sold in the United States is safe. The agency uses a multifaceted and risk-informed seafood safety program that relies on various measures of compliance. For imported seafood, these measures include inspecting foreign processing facilities, sampling seafood offered for import into the United States, domestic surveillance sampling of imported products, inspections of seafood importers, evaluations of filers of seafood products, foreign country program assessments, and information shared from our international partners and FDA overseas offices.”
The FDA also claims that the practice of feces feeding in tilapia aquaculture ponds is false and that the practice would be a direct violation of standard FDA food safety requirements and there for not be allowed into the U.S., however there is still some concern over the amount on antibiotics used by the Chinese to treat their aquaculture ponds.
While the issue of safe tilapia is highly debated, our advice is better safe than sorry and go with domestically raised seafood.
The post The Dangers Of Chinese Tilapia: True Or False? also appeared on PCM Lifestyle.