Reading Journal

Shrimp-The truth

All You Can Eat
By Jim Carrier

This article started off pretty good it had good shock factor.  He starts by telling you he went dumpster diving to find out where the shrimp he was eating came from.  

 "the best-run farms, two to four pounds of sea life is caught and ground up as feed for every pound of shrimp raised. Mortality rates of 30 percent are common. The dead shrimp, shrimp excrement, and chemical additives are often flushed into coastal waters."  A great shocking sentence with the wow factor.

"One story from the book I cannot shake involved Korunamoyee Sardar, a Bangladeshi woman who, on November 7, 1990, joined a protest against a new shrimp farm near Harin Khola. She was shot in the head, cut into pieces, and thrown into a Bangladesh river. A monument stands where she was murdered. It reads: “Life is struggle, struggle is life.”
Red Lobster, which buys 5 percent of the world’s shrimp, is Bangladesh’s biggest U.S. customer. The restaurant did not respond to repeated requests for an interview."  Again great wow factor.

However, even with some really good facts that draw you in he didn't keep my interest when he went on to the history of shrimping.  Some background was appreciated but some of it seemed like filler to me.  I didn't like the overall article, Even though I found some of it very informative.  I think it would have worked better if he stuck to the point more.  I would have rather read more about the reason for the decline, instead of his personal tails. 

A few of the other facts I found interesting:
90% of the shrimp we consume in America is from foreign shrimp farms.
Imported shrimp has kept the profit of American shrimpers the same as it was 30 years ago.