Are we to believe that Walmart’s Indonesian shrimp factory-farming operation doesn’t adhere to food safety standards?
Is there gambling in this establishment?
Color me shocked!
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Cesium-137, which the FDA reportedly discovered in imported shrimp bound for Walmart shelves, is a manmade radioactive isotope produced through nuclear fission.
In other words, it probably shouldn’t be in shrimp — but it is, and it’s likely present in all manner of seafood and other foodstuffs.
Via U.S. Food & Drug Administration (emphasis added):
Product and stores affected
Certain raw frozen shrimp products processed by PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati (doing business as BMS Foods), a company located in Indonesia, and sold at Walmart stores in AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MO, MS, OH, OK, PA, TX, and WV.
These products include the following product names, lot codes, and best by dates:
Great Value brand frozen raw shrimp, lot code: 8005540-1, Best by Date: 3/15/2027
Great Value brand frozen raw shrimp, lot code: 8005538-1, Best by Date: 3/15/2027
Great Value brand frozen raw shrimp, lot code: 8005539-1, Best by Date: 3/15/2027…
If you recently purchased one of the impacted lots of Great Value raw frozen shrimp from Walmart, throw it away. Do not eat or serve this product.
Distributors and retailers should dispose of this product and should not sell or serve this product.
If you suspect you have been exposed to elevated levels of cesium, talk to your healthcare provider.
Walmart, always magnanimous, committed to corporate responsibility, and with the health and safety of the public always on the top of its mind, issued a statement assuring the public that it’s looking out for its cherished customers.
Via CBS News (emphasis added):
Walmart said it is recalling some frozen shrimp after the Food and Drug Administration warned that the seafood items, sold under the Great Value label, are at risk of radioactive contamination and shouldn't be consumed…
"The health and safety of our customers is always a top priority. We have issued a sales restriction and removed this product from our impacted stores. We are working with the supplier to investigate," Walmart said in an email to CBS News.
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I’ve had the privilege of doing a little wild shrimp harvesting with a guy named Carlos in a Mexican village you’ve never heard of off the Pacific coast called Santa Cruz. I was shocked by the degree to which wild-caught shrimp looks absolutely nothing like the stuff Walmart sells.
Probably because of the “unchecked water pollution” that these shrimp are grown in and/or the copious amounts of industrial chemicals these factories dump into the water and feed to keep production up, not to mention the unskilled child slave labor.
Via Fast Company (emphasis added):
The other ugly, not-so-secret truth about shrimp farming is its close ties to slave labor, especially child slave labor. Shrimp farming, peeling, and other industry operations in and around Thailand have been consistently discovered using the labor of enslaved people, mainly migrants from Burma and Cambodia, to produce shrimp that will eventually end up being sold at major U.S. retailers. Slave labor is so deeply embedded within Thailand’s seafood export industry that human rights advocates say the industry would probably collapse without it…
The people formerly enslaved by these operations report witnessing and living under threat of graphic violence and working alongside children too small to even reach their workstation…
Unchecked water pollution can lead to weakened immune systems, and in extreme cases, death by asphyxiation or poisoning; high population densities in shrimp farms contribute to the spread of disease among the living crustaceans.
To be wildly charitable to Save Money. Live Better™ Walmart:
a.) Cesium-137 is almost certainly in most, if not all, commercially produced seafood products, not just Walmart’s.
b.) The FDA did report in its advisory that the Cs-137 levels found in its Third World factory shrimp didn’t exceed “the current derived intervention levels for Cs-137 (1200 Bq/kg)” — so take that for what it’s worth. Personally, I would prefer zero radioactive material in my shrimp, but we live in an imperfect and soiled world.
At any rate, the problem is not one-off exposure to a modest amount of cesium-137 but rather long-term, continuous exposure due to almost all commercial food products being contaminated with these and other harmful substances.
