Shrimps

I love shrimp. Which makes what I'm reading about shrimp in Bottom Feeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood more than a little depressing.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not much of an ethical eater, though I'll try if it doesn't inconvenience me too much. But, more and more, ethical eating, and vaguely natural eating (which I am interested in) intersect. To wit:

"According to Tamil Nadu's fisheries department, a dry pond should be prepared by spreading urea and superphosphate to encourage plankton growth. Once the poind has been filed with brackish water . . . it is typically covered with diesel oil . . . The water is then treated with a piscicide = a ubstance that poisons any competing aquatic life - such as chlorine or rotenone; the latter has been strongly linked to Parkinson's disease in humans. As the shrimp grow, the water is treated with pesticides and more piscicides, but by far the gravest area of concern is the use of antibiotics to ward of disease. (p. 158).

And, p. 170.

If the shrimp in your supermarket display case glisten unnaturally, or if they taste soapy even after being cooked, they have probably been treated with STPP . . ., the suspected neurotoxicant used to prevent drying. . . A grainy substance coating the shell could mean the shrimp has been treated with caustic borax.