But fishfarming probably has limited growth anyway… be sure to watch the excellent documentary “The End of the Line” for a global overview.

Also, most fishfarming uses growth hormones and antibiotics. Best to become vegetarian.

Export fish is not grown in the river!

The Vietnamese can not afford to buy export quality fish for local consumption so they grown the fish they eat themselves however they can, usually in ponds using river water. Hotels and higher class restaurants use the export quality fish though.

Judith, banned in which countries please?

Alert, Judith is another industry protectionist propagandist.

A quick web search shows that Basa was banned in three US states not because of quality or safety concerns (its still imported to the other 40+ states in the US) but that those three states produce their own “catfish” and in order to protect the US industry the import of overseas fish was banned.

I have no vested interest in Basa either way but I have volunteered with NGO’s in Vietnam and visited several Basa farms and processing plants. This is all a scare campaign and hoax from people who have seen their market share decrease over the past 5-10 years thanks to cheap, tasty fish from overseas. They want you to buy their more expensive product.

Brian, the worst case of food poisoning will not make you cough up “half a bowl of blood”.

Recommend you have a checkup ASAP my friend, maybe after your cheque from the European fishing industry has cleared?

Its a HOAX by seafood producers to get you to buy more expensive fish from Europe, Australia, US etc. which is only more expensive because we have overfished our waters (look at UK cod for example) and we want to be able to export our own fish (which drives up the prices YOU have to pay locally) whilst hypocritically starting misinformaiton campaigns to suck in gullible people that imported fish is poisoned etc.

Basa is fine. Ive eaten it dozens of times in Australia and also in Vietnam. Its a perfectly palatable fish. Do you think your country would allow a fish which is poisonous to be imported? Basa has been available for several years now so where is the epidemic of food poisoning? How do they fillet the fish if (according to this email) the Basa is frozen in “contaminated” water? Basa is a naturally fast growing fish, it doesnt need hormones or chemicals to grow quickly. Because it is fast growing, does not have scales, can be raised in fresh water pens far inland and can be produced with much less chemicals and treatments than fish such as salmon, food security experts believe Basa will provide a sustainable fishery for the 21st century.

Basa are a predatory fish which eats other small fish in nature. Comparing feeding Basa fish meal (Im not even sure they are fed fish meal) to the mad cow outbreak in the UK is ridiculous. Basa eat other fish, Im pretty sure cows dont.

How come if a bakery produces a batch of bad bread that leads to the food poisoning of 20 people the authorities can track them down straight away?

It is not grown in rivers like fish produced for local consumption. Vietnam has some of the highest seafood export standards of any country in the world. Most seafood producers export Basa to Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and meet the quality and safety requirements for ALL of these countries.

In fact because exported Basa meets the quality and safety requirements of several countries it is probably SAFER than fish cought in your own country.

Just becuase someone wrote it on a blog doesnt make it true. The photos and text have been copied from another blog by the way.

Panga can be bread in most water environments, they are not exclusive to said river!

The EU has stepped up its imports of panga fillets from Asia at a rhythm of 60 % per annum: from 2004 to 2007 alone, the rate of increase was 235 %. The US has banned imports of Chinese panga, owing to the presence of polluting substances and the suspicion that they could contain antibiotics. Vietnamese companies raise panga in the highly polluted Mekong delta.

In view of the above factors and the crisis affecting the fisheries sector in the EU (largely due to imports of fish and insufficient controls), can the Commission state:
1. what controls have been or are being carried out by the EU on imports of panga fillets from Asia;
2. what results it has obtained from those controls;
3. whether it has detected the presence of prohibited substances or pollutants in those imports, and, if so, whether it can specify the products concerned and their countries of origin;
4. whether it is willing to intensify checks on such imports, with a view to offering stronger guarantees to consumers in the EU and ensuring strict compliance with the Union’s technical, health, environmental and social norms, while also helping alleviate the grave crisis of the Community fisheries sector in the wake of possible cases of unfair competition?

As a consequence, some people choose to be rather ’safe than sorry’ and determine that they won’t eat Panga any longer.

So far for the success of anti-Panga propaganda.

Propaganda feeds on people’s uncertainty, on their prejudices, and on common knowledge.

It is common knowledge that the world harbours some really bad, unethical food industries (check your own country!). So ‘there must be some ground’ to any story about a bad food industry.

It is a prejudice that ‘everything that comes from exotic, poor countries must be suspicious. The Vietnamese are capable of god-knows-what, so let’s all distrust their food industry’. Yet I was in Vietnam twice, and if there’s anything safe and healthy about the country, it is their food.

And as this discussion shows, there is a lot of uncertainty about the healthiness of eating Panga. Raising suspicion almost always reaches its goal: disseminating distrust and uncertainty. It is a sure win. If me and my friends start a similar propaganda tomorrow against surimi sticks, spreading the word that they consist of fish intestines and foetuses and carry heavy metals, we are sure to lower its market share by several millions. Because people are uncertain about surimi, and many of them are rather ’safe than sorry’.

The more sensible arguments have been raised above. Panga has obviously passed strict EU member states’ regulations on food health and contamination. That alone should suffice to prove this article erroneous, if not outright deceitful. In various countries Panga has been on the menu for ten years or more. No problem whatsoever. Those who *believe* that all those desastrous effects are still to come, must be so brave to admit that such effects, if any at all, can be attributed to hundreds of other factors, and that the association with panga is apparently very weak if not non-existent.

It is anyone’s guess who is responsible for the anti-panga propaganda. My best guess is that the culprits are among those whose business suffer from the succes of Vietnamese panga.

It is up to you, reader, whom to believe. Are you going to give in to your uncertainty, helped by your prejudices, and the common knowledge that ‘bad food’ is all around us? Be my guest. Just don’t kid yourself (or me) that Scandinavian salmon, Dutch smoked eel, or British cod beat panga in health-related respects. There is no excuse for ignorance.

Any feedback on the results of lab test c/o Pol?

What’s your status on the toxicological analysis?

in conclusion, i just can’t figure out is there any food considered “safe” in today world???!!! Regardless of all standard measure that has been established for so called food safety.

thanks and always good luck…

In vietnam it’s process in model factories with newest tech equipment. control follow HACCP princible.

Just think about the right and ignore the funny joke from some illegal competive business.

Thanks for read this

Bought a couple of fillets from the big T store to make some thai fishcakes, thought I would check up on the origin of the fish, came across a lot of conflicting info. I work in environmental health / food safety and have brought the fillets in for toxicological analysis. I will post results of this partic sample when they are avail.

Cheers, Pol

It is fair to say that nearly all the sea and river food stuffs we eat have a potential scare story attached.

Muscles, Farmed Salmon…. they all taste good but in recent times have had bad press……..

Ever realized that some of these little beasts that live in these murky waters – mid bottom dwellers have a role to filter the systems they live in?

In times they take on taste at the same time…

As our polulation grows and we seek ways to give our poor traditional fish a chance to re establish, we simply have to look elsewhere!

Would Panga be so bad if it was genetically modified to be commercially farmed in the Mersey??

Simply food for thought..
P))

It is fair to say that nearly all the sea and river food stuffs we eat have a potential scare story attached.

Muscles, Farmed Salmon…. they all taste good but in recent times have had bad press……..

Ever realized that some of these little beasts that live in these murky waters – mid bottom dwellers have a role to filter the systems they live in?

In times they take on taste at the same time…

As our polulation grows and we seek ways to give our poor traditional fish a chance to re establish, we simply have to look elsewhere!

Would Panga be so bad if it was genetically modified to be commercially farmed in the Mersey??

Simply food for thought..
P))

There is always 2 sides to a coin.

It is irresponsible for people to spread fear without clarifying the truth.
Yes, there may be some truth to the in the early development of this spices of commercial farming.
There are many contradiction in the whole article.
The pictures used in this illustration were not sequentially taken from the farm it’s investigating or writing this “so called” informative article.
The pictures were gathered from different sources and put together and therefore do not truly represent the actual production sequent and truth about the product.

The argument in the article for e.g.:
1. Pangas are teeming with high levels of poisons and bacteria. – during the early days before commercial farm commences – there may be some degree of truth in this as the river was not properly managed(in the year 1991). Since 1991 to 2001 the WWF has classified the Mekong as the river of life and had many “MOU”s signed and managed the development along the whole Mekong River which runs from Tibetan – Qinghai Plateau and makes its way through tropical evergreen forests that shroud Laos and Myanmar. After winding through Cambodia and Thailand it ends in the Mekong delta in Vietnam. This vast region contains irreplaceable treasures ranging from communities with rich cultural heritages to wildlife in spectacular natural landscapes.

2. The reasons are that the Mekong River is one of the most polluted rivers on the planet and this is where pangas are farmed and industries along the river dump chemicals and industrial waste directly into it. – this is a out-dated fact. Our Singapore River and Kallang River were both the sewer discharge for Singapore and the busiest waterway during the 60’s. Today we have water sports and and our Minister even challenged us to drink the water from the rivers after micro-filtration during one of the water week a few years ago.

3. They freeze Pangas in contaminated river water. – no truth to this. All the processing plants are HACCP certified. These products are exporting to all over the world and used by most restaurants that sell Fish and Chips and many fish products now uses this product as their main ingredient. The EU is known to hold the world highest standards in Food Safety requirement especially for imports. (Local production in EU maybe “compromised for some” you know i know reasons. But for imports they are very strict in they implementation of the Food safety Standards. As stated in the article this product is exported to French – a EU member.

4. Pangas are not environmentally sustainable, a most unsustainable food you could possibly eat – the writer better learn to eat grass and shit in the field and not take the bus or drive a car, don’t use any electrical equipment, so that the environment is as natural as it was created. The writer should only consume what is growing where he/she is and not consume anything that comes a mile away.

5. There’s nothing natural about Pangas – want to be natural? take my suggestion as above “4″.
What wrong with “They’re fed dead fish remnants and bones, dried and ground into a flour, from South America , manioc ( cassava ) and residue from soy and grains. This kind of nourishment doesn’t even remotely resemble what they eat in nature.” this is food cycle. Do you know that the water in our reservoir are collect from rain water from the rain cloud that bring the rainfall, it in turn got it water from evaporation from earth (urine, watery shit, rotten corpse, spits, whatever you can think of….)

6. Final important note: Because of the prodigious amount of availability of Pangas, be warned that they will certainly find their way into other foods: surimi ( those pressed fish things, imitation crab sticks ), fish sticks, fish terrines, and probably in some pet foods. ( Warn your dogs and cats and hamsters and gerbils and even your pet fish! ) The writer really need just to learn how to glaze grass like a cow (and must practice free-range cow).

A lot of research and technological development is been done to ensure that Mekong River remains the most efficient food resource to the world.
Read this article:
To prevent the depleting water levels from worsening – consequently drying up the food supply of people living in the Mekong basin – an international research body unveiled a plan here on Thursday to pursue studies aimed at producing more food using less water. This research effort, under the Challenge Program on Water and Food by the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR), is also geared at striking a balance between achieving food security and protecting the river’s rich biodiversity.
The Challenge Program is funding eight projects focusing on agriculture productivity and the efficiency of water use in the Mekong region, states a background note by the MRC. They include designing farming systems that will serve multiple purposes, such as having a wide variety of crops being grown along with other food sources and fish. Also earmarked is a study to “develop improved technologies for rice-based cropping systems, with the aim of increasing yield without more water use”.

Okay lah… I think I am writing too much.

Best of luck.

Open to any comments.

you can eat something with aspartame and not feel ill just afterward, but down the line, your health will most likely be adversely affected by it.

another example is smoking. have a cigarette today and you feel fine, but after years and years of something like that – well, if you get lung cancer, you can’t wonder where it came from.

Thought the report very interesting, but always rely on my own judgement regarding foodstuffs also.

It’s not scaremongering, just scientific fact.

I figured a net search might throw something up, and by chance, I scrolled down and found Daves interesting comments.

I loved them (the comments) – well articulated, and definitely the right tone for any counter argument.

As for what I think:

Probably the greatest ‘impact statement’ referred to the River Mekong Panga fish farms, due to common knowledge of its polluted state, and that this water is also present on the fish.

On these points – clearly:

a) Washing the fish will be sensible
b) Don’t eat the fish every week

On the issue of excess bacteria – this is a normal everyday life issue: you make sure that you cook the food first, before eating it, in order to kill off the bacteria (just like with burgers).

So from an ‘edible protein’ perspective, the report makes us aware of certain concerns, and reminds us to maintain a varied well cooked diet.

For the other stuff – the carbon footprint craze:

As far as most serious scientists are concerned (including Britains top scientific advisor to the gov. remember?) – there is nothing we can do to prevent climate change.

It is a repeating flip-flop hot to cold – the only bizarre element is that for the last 10,000 years it has been extremely stable ie. the period when human civilisation has had chance to develop(or not, some might say)!

Overall, the key issue is this:

The only people who advocate paying 12€/kg for protein, are the people who can afford to pay 12€/kg.

Same as increased taxes to stop people travelling – that means – to allow only the wealthy to travel (cos by definition, the common man would be taxed off the road).

Yes – be aware.

But as Dave says – don’t be duped.

I wonder who’s bankrolling reports such as this one about Pangas? Admittedly I know nothing of this fish, it’s market or its popularity. But it seems to skeptical little me that claiming the fish is horribly unsustainable and injected with urine by queer Third World boogies would be just the kind of sleazy thing some group opposed to this cheap fish taking market share would put out there for public consumption.

Maybe some sort of French commercial fisherman association or something?

Is this blog and its well-intentioned owner being used as an unwitting dupe? It’s possible since this page is reporting on a hysterical report.

I don’t know.

But NEVER, EVER take anything like this at face value, kids. Don’t allow yourselcves to be manipulated, either by the people who fund such “reports” or the perhaps well-intentioned folks who disseminate them.