Wednesday, October 31, 2007

COOL

There’s some pretty COOL legislation coming up soon in the U.S. Senate, and it involves catfish.

Ever wonder where the fish you eat in restaurants comes from?

Not necessarily from the safe environments of the USA!

But, if the COOL (Country of Origin Labeling) amendment to the Farm Bill passes, you’ll know! Just like fish and seafood at the grocery store, restaurants would be required to identify where their catfish is raised. That could be as simple as adding the name of the country to the menu.

Makes sense to me! We know where our cars are made, where our clothes are stitched and where our kids’ toys are put together, so why not something as important as the food we eat?

There was a recent scare in the catfish industry when products banned for use in U.S. agriculture were found in some imported fish. Then came the trouble with imported pet food, toys and other products.

Now it seems that while 70 percent of catfish is sold in restaurants, one-third of the catfish eaten in America is imported from overseas, particularly China.

So, COOL would give consumers extra protection in the marketplace, and a bunch of newspapers are supporting it with editorials.

In Alabama, The Gadsden Times states: “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has noted problems of contamination in Asian imports before, but still inspections are far too limited to eliminate the possibility of contaminated fish making its way to U.S. restaurants.”

The Decatur Daily says that imports were hurting the catfish industry in Alabama “…while threatening the health of the people who never knew they were eating questionable imports.”

Other editorial pages — Dallas Morning News and The Orlando Sentinel.

Now, that's way cool!


4 comments:

Nunnie's Attic said...

COOL!

Love,
Julie

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the head's up! Shopping over the weekend I could not help notice how much stuff actually comes from China. Just about everything!!! I have no confidence in the quality of anything from China anymore, especially food - so now I know I can add US catfish to my 'safe to eat list' It's running list on my refrigerator for all to see! Issy

JANET said...

Hi Issy, I was driving a child to school this morning when I heard part of an ABC broadcast from WSB-TV in Atlanta. They did a special on foreign fish. I'm going to link that video in my next post. The special even features a Dallas County catfish farmer. I know the farmer but didn't know he had done the interview. I think you'll be interested.

BClark said...

So very good. I would certainly like to know where my food came from. After the dog food recalls and now all the toys with lead. Very scary world we live in. Thank you for the information,
Barbara