Well said.....
I'd love to see industry put more effort into finding ways to improve quality and yields without using chemicals - training and educating from time of harvest about the handling of products has never been a high priority...
When the integrity of the industry at stake take no risks
Cheers Roy Palmer
----- Original Message -----
From: Jack Wekell
To: Donny Donny ; seafood@ucdavis.edu
Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2007 6:08 AM
Subject: Re: phosphate based for shrimp treatment
Donny
I think George's point is a valid one because, let us face it, human nature has its potential a greed in the marketplace; this can propel us to use and abuse food additives. If I can add water (which is basically free) to a product and get somewhere from $5 to $20 per pound for it, this is a mighty incentive to perhaps overuse and additive such as the polyphosphates. I had an old college professor who used to say that the aim of the food industry was to "sell 'em water and air"! A bit cynical and an overstatement, yes, but there is a grain of truth here.
Sad to say many food additives (old and new) can provide such an excuse. On the one hand, I am providing a moister product but I am doing so by including extra water. Is my motivation a "better" product, e.g., water added hams, or perhaps to make a few cents more per pound. Of course, one can never know what the real motivation of the processor might be. For the average retail consumer, this extra water is small and perhaps only represents a few cents worth of profit for the processor. The retail consumer, even if he/she knew the facts (the processor is selling me water), might not even care--it is all part of the price for the product. However, this might also be considered something akin to the old butcher putting his thumb on the scale when he was selling you meat. Here we would agree that this is illegal and economic fraud.
Most modern food additives are double edged swords. For example, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide (used in modified atmospheres), polyphosphates, etc. have properties that can impart useful properties to a finished product. But at the same time, they can also be used to hide or mask abused products that most buyers would reject if the additive were not used. This is precisely why regulatory agencies were created. They at least attempt to level the playing field for both end consumers and among processors.
John C. Wekell, Ph.D.
Donny Donny wrote:
Hi George,
Thanks for your response.
don't prejudice, i mean here is the moisture holding capacity of some chemical which can used other than STPP, earth has produced natural wonder ingredients that we can use for evey human's economic activity, weight pick up here has the meaning of or is an equation of moisture is not going away after we conduct every steps in processing which required the liquid decreased / depleted, like cooking, if the moist or liquid gone, if you are in shrimp processing floor, you can understand, it can affect the quality pretty much it will affect our selling price because everyone is looking for high quality products, if you think every shrimp processing company is the same, they produced same products with same raw materials, then you are wrong, in fact they are all unique, this uniqueness is the plus or can even be the drawback point for a company, but we are going to preserve this uniqueness, by proper research on many aspects, we never take any single tiny action that can harm our reputation as a good and responsible shrimp processor and exporter. Hope this can answer your question of "economic fraud". I certainly knows that, and no, we are not into that, we are the one who like to innovate rather than cheat. Please perceive my posting as an innovation - "To Share Knowledge". Thank You.
Best regards,
Donny
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: SnGHoskin@aol.com
Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 11:43 PM
To: Donny Donny; owner-seafood@ucdavis.edu; seafood@ucdavis.edu
Subject: Re: phosphate based for shrimp treatment
The weight pick-up is not quite satisfying?! Have you heard the term "economic fraud"?
George Hoskin
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