The consequences of overfishing

[usenetposts]

Because we have overstressed the marine ecosystems by pollution, climate
change and factory fishing, we have started to find the traditionally prized
species such as cod, hake, haddock, halibut or pollack increasingly hard to
find and so what we find on supermarket shelves are species which 10 years
ago simply didn't appear there.

I want to talk about 2 types of fishes very popular right now in Poland,
namely the so called "butter fish" sold in Poland as "ryba maślana" and also
the species known as Panga in shops.

I hope that this newspaper will take steps to inform readers about the
dangers of eating 'ryba maslana', which can be read here:

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryby_ma%C5%9Blane
I have seen very little about this in the Polish media, but poland is one of
the main customers of this fish, which is frowned upon in most of Europe, and
indeed is likely to get restaurateurs sued if served up in more litigious
places where you can actually get your own back on people who serve you shit.

The butter fish, or snake mackerel as it was known before people started
trying to sell it to you and therefore stole the name from another fish (the
true butter fish is an unrelated genus) is incapable of metabolising certain
waxy esters, known as gempylotoxins, which appear in its diet, and 20%ish of
its meat is made up of these gempylotoxins - yes the "butter" of the
butterfish is a mild toxin. What effect does it have on humans? Violent
diarrhoea. Which is all very well if you were in need of a laxative, but
children, pregnant women or people at risk of IBS can be harmed by this, and
so there is a health advisory out on it.

Nobody seems too bothered about informing the Polish consumer, though, and so
they carry on buying it as a cheap alternative to other "oily fishes", little
knowing that we are not talking about the same kind of oil as you would get
in a herring or usual mackerel at all.

Then there is the marketing of "panga" - what is Panga anyway? I bet you
didn't see much of that in the shelves of the country you came from. When I
saw it I assumed they had started selling vast quantities of Pangasiodons and
Pangasius catfishes, and I was wondering how the rivers of Vietnam could
possibly be keeping pace with demand, and why it was that we were being fed
unfarmable tropical river fishes with all the risk of parasitic infection
that that entails. But then I did my homework, and discovered that this was a
sea fish - I did try some in the end, although reluctantly, and its flesh was
definitely that of a marine fish. So I tried to find out what it was, and
apparently it is the South African name of the fish Pterogymnus laniarius, a
fish that takes many years to sexually mature, along the way changing its sex
several times. This fish is actually undecided about its sexuality, according
to wikipedia here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panga
30% of the time. Is it any wonder that the country's morals are going down
the tubes when people are eating as food fishes containing hermaphroditic sex-
change hormones? Is this what the Catholic church expects us to eat for
religious reasons on Lent, Advent, and every Friday in the year? What are
they trying to do to us?

So I thought it was incumbent on me to warn the readers of this fine
newspaper about the issue - one which affects Poland because the Polish
consumer buys these things without being aware of the dangers - and I call
upon the editors to turn these facts given in English into an article in
Polish to put into the main edition.

They're welcome to credit me and the group by the by, of course, but in the
main it is the innocent consumer I am concerned about.

[waldek1610]

Well, its not only problem limited to Poland, but it is global issue, quality
of the fish on the markets. Threfore, there's no wonder why average country
such as Poland, despite its acces to Baltic sea, it's feeding it people poor
quality of fish.

Polish fish markets get leftovers, what doesn't sell in Western or Southern
Europe you can always sell to poor Eastern Europeans, that's the rule of the
game; the weaker always get the leftovers, whatever falls of the table of the
richer guy.....


In general Poles are meat eating people, especially pork and poultry, so your
warning to manny people is irrevelant. I myself love fish, especially clean sea
fish but the suplies are probably better in USA, so...

[usenetposts]

In fact, Polish people eat a lot more fish than the British do, and the price
is not cheap. People are eating so-called butterfish and panga and ending up as
transsexual people with diarrhoea basically because of underinformation in the
media about what they are eating, and the fact that the consumers lobby is not
strong. The media are to blame for these two problems in society. If the media
in Poland were more fearless and ready to stir up trouble, then consumers might
get some help now and then, but they want the advertisiers of rubbish products
to keep on their side, so they don't write things that will aggravate business,
and they don't want the tax office sitting on their heads, so they don't write
things that may upset the tax office and so its abuses have carried on
unchecked for so long.

Free press should be about not needing to steer clear of controversy. If the
press are afraid to raise controversial matters in the public interest because
they must cow tow to powerful interests, then they don't deserve to talk about
freedom of the press.

[waldek1610]

Why don't you brign up this subject on one of the Polish language forums, for
example the culinary forum where you could inform more people who are directly
concerned?

I'm quite confident that you can find more interest from Poles there.

[usenetposts]

Either that would involve the chore of writing it out in Polish, or if I place
it there in English someone's gonna get their knickers in a twist.

[usenetposts]

I was hoping the newspaper would pick up the story and run with it, but the
journalistic sleuths are sleeping right now, replete with their new year's
meals and wine and musings over the freedom of the press.

[waldek1610]

How about contacting consumer rights organizations in Poland? Still as you
propably figured out non for profit organizations do nat have easy life in die
hard capitalistic country such as Poland is, these days....

[ianek70]

usenetposts napisał:

> People are eating so-called butterfish and panga and ending up as
>
> transsexual people

At the risk of sounding homphobic or prejudiced against the transgender
community, this might explain why Poles wear kalesony, carry umbrellas, cry
that their poets are unappreciated, rarely have non-Polish girlfriends and
erect so many statues of camp uniform fetishists with Freddy Mercury moustaches.

[varsovian]

Do you mean camp uniform fetishists with size complexes, perhaps?

[varsovian]

Anyway, is Polish panga from Vietnam or the SE Atlantic?

[usenetposts]

varsovian napisał:

> Anyway, is Polish panga from Vietnam or the SE Atlantic?

It's from the Atlantic, not Vietnam. The similarity to the names Pangasius and
Pangasiodon turns out to be a coincidence, but very misleading for people who
are used to talking about the Asian catfishes.

Eatuing Pangasius will not make you have a sex change, but it might give you a
parasitic disease. In the main it is a good idea only to eat tropical river
fish that are farmed under controlled conditions, like Tilapia.

But you will never catch a parasite from a sea fish, that's one good think you
can say about them. Because of the way they osmoregulate there will be a higher
build up of any toxins from their environment in their flesh than in riverine
fishes though, that's the downside.

Davey

[ianek70]

varsovian napisał:

> Do you mean camp uniform fetishists with size complexes, perhaps?

I don't think size matters to uniform fetishists, otherwise they'd wear
uniforms that were too big and they'd look silly.

[minimus]

Any other source on this than wikipedia???

[usenetposts]

minimus napisał:

> Any other source on this than wikipedia???

The wikipedia articles link to the further reading and the sources, but also
the fishbase.org pages make mention of the issues, and they are all accredited
contributors, not a free-for-all like the wikimedia.