Monday, April 7, 2008P
Business Toolbox: Prices
Phillips blamed for high crab prices
Seafood restaurant managers and chefs say Baltimore crab giant Phillips Foods Inc. is worsening a spike in crab meat prices at a time when growing demand and the slumping economy are already driving up costs.
Phillips has been expanding its reach in the market for blue crab meat, the type primarily used in traditional Maryland crab dishes, and using its large market share to drive up prices across the industry, they said. A Phillips spokeswoman said the company has been buying more pasteurized blue crab meat to respond to high demand, but not to create a monopoly.
Meanwhile, local restaurants have been forced to raise crab dish prices or eat into their margins. This comes as price increases of as much as 30 percent hit during peak crab-eating season and as a slow economy limits fancy dinners for many.
Phillips' prices have gone up 7 percent in recent months, spokeswoman Honey Konicoff said. The company has expanded the types of crab meat it offers, and while it has been growing its supply of blue crab meat, the rise hasn't been "exponential," spokeswoman Caroline Tippett said.
"I think all of the crab meat producers are increasing in buying because the demand is increasing," Tippett said.
Rising fuel costs, the weakening of the U.S. dollar and other symptoms of a down economy are driving up Phillips' prices, Konicoff said. – Baltimore Business Journal
Business Toolbox: Your supply
Study shows there may be more grouper than thought
With federal regulators poised to cut the gag grouper catch by 45 percent, commercial lobbyist Bobby Spaeth and recreational lobbyist Dennis O'Hern suspended their usual rivalry and hired a Nova Scotia scientist to challenge Gulf of Mexico fishing data.
Much to their glee, biologist Trevor Kenchington quickly delivered: Landings statistics in the government's own computer model suggest that the gag population might be healthier than federal scientists thought.
The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, which sets the rules, delayed a cutback vote scheduled for this week in Baton Rouge. Instead, the council invited Kenchington to Louisiana to hear what he has to say.
"It's a miracle,'' said O'Hern, who runs the Fishing Rights Alliance. "We were dead men walking. We were a month away from execution. Now we breathe the air of freedom and truth.''
Kenchington or no, the grouper battle is far from over.
Scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service are sticking by their belief that gag may need heavy-duty protection. Grouper fishermen may yet see unprecedented restrictions. – St. Petersburg Times
Business Toolbox: Labeling
Editorial: Menus should state fish's origins
The Catfish Institute continues its effort to protect the domestic fishing industry against recurring attacks by Chinese and Vietnamese producers of catfish and Basa fish, a cheap catfish look-alike.
We all have a stake in the battle. The imported fish could cause significant health problems. The Food and Drug Administration reports that antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones, which could boost the resistance of harmful bacteria, have been found in Asian fish.
The Catfish Institute warns that most of the catfish and Basa are raised in floating cages in the Mekong River or in "latrine ponds" along the river. Slow-moving currents during the dry season, the institute says, adversely affect cage-raised fish, and the Mekong River is subject to pesticide contamination. Latrine ponds are depressions that employ the Chinese system of channeling human and other waste into ponds used to raise fish.
Knowledge of these threats apparently has not affected the market for Asian catfish -- or catfish look-alikes. They are flowing into this country at a pace that is crippling domestic producers.
There were hopes that the federal farm bill would contain measures to reduce the import of potentially dangerous catfish. The hopes were in vain. It is obvious now that the federal government does not intend to require restaurant menu labeling. The states must do it.
Due to federal government inaction on seafood imports (and 80 percent of our seafood is imported), some state governments are taking action. Under federal law, all supermarkets must label the seafood they sell by country of origin, but restaurants are not required to tell their customers where the fish on their plates comes from.
It is disturbing that Louisiana is the only catfish-producing state that has made no move to mandate such a disclosure.
Arkansas already has taken action. The laws enacted there provide a model for other states attempting to protect citizens against contaminated seafood. Restaurants incur minimal expense in showing country-of-origin labeling. It can be done with a simple sticker applied to menus.
Business Toolbox: The industry
In LA, fish houses in an unlikely area
LOS ANGELES – While parts of Central City East may be best known for the homeless population and social service providers, the neighborhood also holds about 45 seafood businesses. Hundreds of millions of pounds of shrimp, crab, tuna and myriad other underwater items pass through the area every year, where they are frozen, bagged, boxed and shipped all over the country.
"This is a significant employment area that you don't traditionally think of being Downtown," said Estela Lopez, executive director of the Central City East Association, which represents businesses in the neighborhood.
While the industry has steadily but quietly grown for about a century, its future may be in doubt. Although no one is predicting the demise of the sector just yet, a mix of factors, among them a politically tinged zoning tangle, could turn the tide against the seafood industry. The expanding Flower District, nearby residential development and the encroachment of Skid Row are also part of the equation.
"If I wasn't a longtime person in the Downtown area, I'd be foolish to try to do it here," said Ernest Doizaki, chairman of the company that owns American Fish and Seafood Co. at 625 Kohler St. -- founded by Doizaki's father 61 years ago -- and sushi wholesaler L.A. Fish Co. on Fourth Street. While the businesses generate more than $100 million a year, he said, "It may get to a point where no industrial business is going to be able to work in this Downtown area."
Though Central City East's seafood purveyors have grappled with similar issues for years, their predicament has recently come to light as part of a raging debate over Downtown's industrial-zoned land.
Downtown's origins as a seafood hub date back more than 100 years, to when the Central City served as the terminus for several major railroad lines.
Downtown's location made it a major wholesale and pass-through area for produce, seafood and other goods. Over the years, the area has remained key even as technology has changed the nature of the business.
"You're in the center of the freeway hub, in the center of the county and close to the airports and ports that the seafood is coming in from," said Jack Kyser, senior vice president and chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. "Downtown, whether it's fruits and vegetables or seafood, is a huge sector and supplies a huge chunk of Southern California."
Seafood wholesalers, distributors and storage facilities generate nearly $1 billion in annual revenues across the county, according to census data, and "a significant portion of them are in that Downtown area," said Kyser.
Downtown's biggest fish-related businesses include Superior Seafood on Stanford Avenue, a distributor that supplies Whole Foods and Gelson's markets; Yamasa Enterprises, also on Stanford, which makes popular fish cakes found in Japanese markets around Little Tokyo and elsewhere; 48-year-old City Sea Foods on Towne Avenue, a wholesaler-distributor that supplies restaurants, hotels, resorts and most of the cruise lines entering the Port of Los Angeles; and Ore-Cal Corp. on Crocker Street, which distributes shrimp and other seafood products to Costco and distribution giant Sysco (which in turn supplies restaurant chains nationwide). Dozens of other operations help supply markets, restaurants, hotels and more throughout the country. – LA Downtown News
Mississippi conducted a test that showed contaminated fish for sale in food stores. Legislators quickly drafted a bill requiring country-of-origin labeling on restaurant menus. It is now being reviewed by a legislative council prior to implementation.
Alabama's agriculture department did its own tests and found fish presumed to be cleared by the FDA were contaminated with carcinogens and banned antibiotics. The state is working on legislation to require country-of-origin labeling on menus.
The bottom line is that the federal government is ignoring the need to provide more protection, and states are stepping up with their own disclosure regulations.
We need action in Louisiana. With the state Legislature in session, this is the perfect time to pass the disclosure laws. We would like to see the state Department of Agriculture make it a priority, while citizens urge legislators to mandate country-of-origin labeling on restaurant menus. – The Daily Advertiser, Lafayette, Louisiana
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Business Toolbox: Your supply
Things are looking up for Lake Michigan perch
It was the middle of the day, and rainy and cold, hardly ideal for perch fishing on Lake Michigan. But then, say fishermen and fish biologists, it's been quite a while since it was ideal for perch fishing on the Great Lakes.
For years, there haven't been many perch.
Great Lakes fish biologists hope that after years of decline, 2008 will bring a significant rebound in the lakes' beleaguered yellow perch population, thanks to a bumper crop of three-year-old perch now just big enough to catch.
The recent history of Lake Michigan and most of the other Great Lakes has been one of catastrophic decline for native fish from lake trout and freshwater herring to yellow perch. But there is a ray of hope for the perch, at least, as long as those hatched in 2005 made it to adulthood and appear as expected this year.
Since 1995, falling perch numbers have spun out waves of recreational and commercial fishing regulations, bans on commercial fishing and probes of the lifestyle of Perca flavescens, among the Great Lakes' last surviving natural predators.
Hope pierced the gloom in 2005, when research boats chugging through late summer fish counts in Lake Michigan reeled up their trawl nets. In them were as many as 2,000 young perch every hour. In 1998 _ a recent low point for the perch _ trawls caught just 300 fish an hour, so the 2005 catch was surprising. – Chicago Tribune
Business Toolbox: Your customers' health
Oystermen fined for harvesting in polluted waters
Oyster "tongers" fishing in condemned waters are paying a price, according to Karl Yunghans of the Division of Fish and Wildlife's Bureau of Law Enforcement.
Tongers found harvesting oysters at the mouth of the Maurice River on Jan. 2 went to court and were found guilty, losing their privilege of harvesting oysters for three years and forfeiting their tongs.
On various dates in February, nine individuals were found harvesting from condemned waters, Yunghans said.
"We seized 10 pairs of tongs, destroyed 12 bushels of oysters, restored 56 bushels to the water, and confiscated six boats, one motor and one trailer," he said.
"Tongers" harvest oysters by using long-handled rakes, or tongs. They work in shallow water from small boats and usually in areas set off for them to harvest. Some of the areas they traditionally harvested from have been condemned because of pollution, however. -- Gloucester County Times, N.J.
Business Toolbox: Your customers' health
Beware of miracle foods
Health conscious consumers have been urged to take the majority of nutrition studies with a pinch of salt and stick to the basic food pyramid.
The advice comes after a study released reported there is no evidence that drinking eight glasses of water a day improves skin tone, aids dieting or prevents headaches.
Now health experts have advised people who are inundated with conflicting nutrition advice to ignore the mountain of inconsistent data and stick to the five-a-day guidelines on fruit and vegetable consumption.
Sarah Keogh, a consultant dietician at the Albany Clinic in Dublin and a member of the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute, says hidden agendas often get in the way of good guidance.
"Qualified dieticians and nutritionists in Ireland have been saying the same things for the past 20 years. If you look at the healthy eating guidelines, they really haven't changed much because we know what works for the body.
"Unfortunately you often get information from someone who is selling a book or promoting something and if they don't have a big dramatic new piece of information they won't get the publicity they need."
In relation to the most recent debate over the health benefits of drinking eight glasses of water a day she says, "Your body needs two litres of water a day but it can come from a whole range of sources, from fruit to milk. It doesn't mean you have to drink it straight from a glass. People also often ask if water makes them lose weight, it doesn't."
Fish has also come under much scrutiny in recent years, with advocates promoting the health benefits of oily fish and others warning against toxic chemicals.
"Fish can be contaminated with dioxins but a lot of that information comes from a study where they looked at farmed fish in different locations around the world.
"In some of the farmed fish they did find high levels of dioxins and it was coming from the fish feed and people panicked a bit. -- Irish Independent, Ireland
Business Toolbox: Oddities
Celebrities use seafood in very strange ways
HAVING blood-sucking leeches attached to your body in an attempt to boost your health and well-being is just the latest celebrity craze to hit the headlines.
Actress Demi Moore revealed she recently had 45 leeches gorge themselves on her blood.
The strange "leech therapy" treatment, which she had carried out in Austria, aimed to purify and detoxify her blood by releasing an enzyme as the blood-suckers bite down.
If you think Demi's alternative therapy treatment is a step too far, here are a few more weird remedies celebrities swear by that will either leave you in disbelief or reaching for the sick bag.
Ex-Darling Buds of May actress Catherine Zeta-Jones rarely washes her flowing locks using traditional shampoo and conditioner.
Instead, the Welsh stunner splashes out on a expensive treatment consisting of truffles and caviar. She claims the truffle-based shampoo and the fish eggs -- which are smeared in to her hair and cost £200 a time -- give her tresses an unbeatable shine.
Rumour has it, Beluga caviar is flown in from Iran five days before Zeta-Jones attends her appointment at her beauty salon.
While fighting breast cancer, singer Sheryl Crow chose to dramatically alter her diet and opted for the Eskimo Diet.
The traditional Eskimo diet consists largely of meat and fish, fruit, vegetables and carbohydrates.
During the strict regime Sheryl ate a lot of fish, particularly salmon. Studies have shown that fish-eaters -- such as Eskimos -- have lower rates of cancer.
A blue-green algae from Klamath Lake is dubbed a "miracle superfood." The slimy substance is a herbal medicine bursting with nutrients and anti-oxidants.
As well as her leech therapy, Demi Moore also indulges in this. She claims that stresses in her life are combated by injesting Klamath Lake algae, which is found in the volcano bed of Lake Klamath, in Oregon. It boosts mental clarity, helps cell regeneration and strengthens the immune system. – Glasgow Daily Record, UK
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Business Toolbox: Your supply
West Coast salmon fishery sees dismal year ahead
The question before government regulators this week is not whether to restrict salmon fishing in the Pacific Ocean, which would hit restaurantgoers and West Coast fishers hard. It's how much.
Faced with an unprecedented collapse in the number of Chinook salmon from California's Sacramento River, the Pacific Fishery Management Council has proposed significant reductions in recreational and commercial salmon fishing for much of the West Coast. Proposals include the possibility of a complete shutdown for the season, which normally begins in March.
Salmon fishers, many of whom support the restrictions to protect the fish population, predict that businesses will suffer alongside consumers, who should expect to pay more for wild salmon.
"We don't want to catch the last fish," says Larry Collins, 50, president of the San Francisco Crab Boat Owners Association.
Collins and his wife make 70% of their income off salmon. Collins says he's not sure how he's going to survive if the season is canceled, but doesn't see another option.
Most of the high quality wild salmon in the USA is caught in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, says Paul Heikkila, a third-generation salmon fisher and a retired fisheries biologist with Oregon State University Extension Service.
The Sacramento River is the primary feeder river for Pacific fall-run Chinook salmon, which also are called king salmon. After they leave the river, the salmon migrate along the Pacific coast until they return several years later to spawn.
In 2002, 775,499 adult Chinook salmon returned to the Sacramento River, according to the council. Last year, the number dipped to about 88,000 and this year, the council predicts, 58,200 will return. The council believes that at least 122,000 fish must return to the river annually to maintain a healthy population.
"In my lifetime, I can never remember it this bad," Heikkila says.
Federal scientists aren't sure what caused the Chinook population crash, but believe it may have to do with changing ocean temperatures, which altered the marine food chain, says Jennifer Gilden, council spokeswoman. Other factors, such as river water quality, dams and water diversions to urban areas also may be to blame, she says.
Overfishing is not considered the culprit, Gilden says. "It's sort of like the bottom has fallen out," she says.
The council, which is meeting in Seattle, is expected to act by Thursday. Its recommendations must be approved by the secretary of commerce.
All options before the council would significantly restrict recreational and commercial salmon fishing along the Pacific coast.
The most restrictive option would forbid all commercial and most recreational salmon fishing off California and most of Oregon.
Rep. Mike Thompson, a Democrat from California, and other West Coast lawmakers plan to ask for federal disaster relief funds to help fishers and other businesses affected by the fishing restrictions, Thompson's spokeswoman Anne Warden says. – USA Today
Business Toolbox: Your customers' health
Moms eat fish, kids get smarter
BEIJING -- U.S. researchers studied 341 3-year-olds and discovered those whose mother ate more than two servings of low-mercury fish a week while pregnant generally scored higher on tests of verbal, visual and motor development.
On the other hand, tests scores were lower among preschoolers whose mothers had relatively high mercury levels in their blood during pregnancy. And mothers who regularly ate fish during pregnancy were more likely to have such mercury levels than non-fish-eaters were, the researchers report in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
The findings add to evidence that fish can be brain-food, but underscore the importance of choosing lower-mercury fish during pregnancy.
"Recommendations for fish consumption during pregnancy should take into account the nutritional benefits of fish as well as the potential harms from mercury exposure," write the researchers, led by Dr. Emily Oken of Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Oily fish such as tuna, salmon and sardines contain omega-3 fatty acids, which are important in fetal and child brain development. The problem is that fatty fish are more likely to be contaminated with mercury, a metal that is toxic to brain cells, particularly in fetuses and young children.
Because of this, pregnant women are advised to avoid certain fish altogether: shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish. These fish are particularly high in mercury because they eat other fish and are long-lived, over time accumulating mercury in their fat tissue.
Fish that are high in omega-3 but relatively lower in mercury include canned light tuna, which has less mercury, and smaller oily fish like salmon. White-meat fish such as cod and haddock tend to be low in mercury, but have less omega-3 than fattier fish.
Currently, U.S. health officials recommend that pregnant women eat no more than 12 ounces, or roughly two servings, of fish per week. -- Xinhua, China
Business Toolbox: Your resource
Fish farm plan in Gulf of Mexico hits opposition
A plan to allow industrial-scale fish farms in the Gulf of Mexico has come up against strident opposition from environmental and fishing interests in recent months, forcing federal fisheries regulators to revisit details about ecological health and safety.
At a meeting this week in Baton Rouge, regulators will resume discussions on introducing the offshore aquaculture concept to the Gulf. If approved, the area would be the nation's first testing ground for open-ocean fish farms, which use submersible cages or industrial-strength nets to raise fish for commercial sale.
With the United States importing 80 percent of the seafood it consumes, industry proponents say the fish farms could yield more domestic seafood supply and break the dependence on imports. But the plan has sparked concerns about the effects on wild fish populations and the extent of government safeguards on production.
"To say 'no' and to stop it is shortsighted," said Chuck Wilson, executive director of the Louisiana Sea Grant College program based at LSU. "But we need to make sure that first it's economically feasible and environmentally safe, and that those safeguards be in place. It's all about taking risks and understanding the benefits."
The offshore aquaculture plan comes amid heightened public concern about the safety of imported food, particularly from China. Farm-raised seafood is at the center of that debate, with evidence of the Chinese product, particularly shrimp, being tainted with banned antibiotics and other chemicals.
The environmental concerns center mostly on the large concentrations of fish in one spot, increasing the risk of disease transfer and pollution from fish wastes. Gulf facilities would be limited to federal waters from three to 200 miles offshore: a much deeper and more free-flowing environment than the shrimp farms in shallow Chinese bays or the near-shore salmon farms of the Pacific Northwest.
Commercial fishing groups argue the excess supply could drive out of business fishers already hobbled by overseas competition.
"The argument can be made that you can sell it, but at what cost?" said Margaret Curole, a former Louisiana shrimper who now works on international fisheries issues with the World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers. "I'd rather eat something that's naturally grown and say, 'I'll only eat it three months a year.' "
Aquaculture supporters counter that imports are not going away, and that any method of boosting U.S. seafood production -- farmed or caught wild -- is the only way to correct the trade deficit.
"I like to think that we have the experience in the U.S., in terms of management practices and environmental regulations, to do it in a way that minimizes those impacts," said Michael Rubino, the aquaculture program manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Nobody ever said this was going to be easy, but we've got to take some baby steps to get it going." – The Times-Picayune, Louisiana
Business Toolbox: Fish fraud
Company hit with fine for false labels
True World Foods Chicago, LLC, was sentenced on March 11 to pay $60,000 for its role in purchasing and re-selling falsely labeled frozen fish fillets in violation of the Lacey Act, the Justice Department announced. The Lacey Act prohibits, among other things, the receipt, acquisition or purchase of fish that was taken, possessed, transported or sold in violation of U.S. laws or regulations.
The corporation further forfeited $197,930, the purchase value of the fish, and agreed under a plea agreement entered on Dec. 10, 2007, to publish a full page advertisement regarding this incident in a seafood industry publication of wide circulation.
True World Foods Chicago, LLC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of True World Foods, LLC, a Delaware corporation, of which the sole shareholder is True World Holdings LLC, a Virginia corporation. True World Foods Chicago, LLC, admitted in its plea agreement that between Nov. 24, 2004, and May 5, 2005, it bought and received from two other corporations, in a series of six transactions, approximately $197,930 of fish commonly known as basa or Vietnamese catfish (Pangasius hypophthalmus).
The fish had been imported from Vietnam by one of the other corporations falsely labeled as sole in violation of U.S. laws prohibiting the making or submission of a false label for fish, and prohibiting the entry of merchandise by payment of less than the amount of duty legally due. – Press release
Thursday, April 10, 2008P
Business Toolbox: Your supply
Will we see $40-a-pound salmon?
Some fear that the answer is yes, given the ominous signs: Federal officials are meeting near Seattle this week to slash or even halt salmon fishing off California and Oregon.
Washington's salmon catch also looks iffy, prompting Gov. Chris Gregoire this week to contemplate calling for emergency federal aid.
And Alaska's bountiful wild salmon catch is expected to be trimmed by one-third from last year's bumper harvest.
Overall, expect a boost in prices for the famously cyclical catch of wild salmon, say government officials and fishing-industry observers. That's particularly true for the highly sought-after Chinook -- or king -- salmon, whose numbers in California collapsed this year.
"All the California markets don't have fish, and they (will be) saying, 'We'll buy that fish for a dollar more a pound,' " said Craig Bowhay, an analyst with the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.
"For a piece of the action, you're going to have to pay."
It's simple economics: With few or no salmon coming from Oregon and California, and Washington's catch constrained by the need to protect runs under the Endangered Species Act, the overall salmon catch will be smaller.
Meanwhile, demand has skyrocketed -- to the point that even the lowly chum salmon, which once sold for perhaps $1 a pound or even $1 a fish, is now routinely going for $3 a pound or more.
"America has become a nation of salmon eaters," said Laura Fleming, communications director for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.
But once Alaska's commercial salmon fisheries kick into high gear next month, there will be salmon available.
More than 90 percent of North America's wild salmon harvest comes from Alaska. While the salmon catch there is being slashed by about 35 percent from last year, 2007 marked Alaska's fourth-biggest salmon catch ever.
For 2008, "we're looking for a very healthy year," said Mike Plotnick, an analyst with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, who emphasized that Alaska's first priority is letting enough fish get past the nets to preserve abundant runs.
But you'll pay more. In the last few weeks, with just a limited winter fishery in gear, at least one Seattle market was selling wild Chinook for $32.95 a pound. Even in Juneau, practically on top of the winter fishery, Fleming recently forked out $26 a pound, she said. – Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Business Toolbox: Law and order
Fish monger gets prison time in Boston
BOSTON — A federal judge sentenced a New Bedford fish dealer to one year and one day in prison for underreporting fish purchases to federal regulators and hiding how much cash he withdrew from the bank.
In addition to serving prison time, Aristides M. "Steve" Couto, 57, of 155 Winston St. must immediately pay the government $10,000 in fines, said U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton.
"When you cheat as you did ... it is a crime," Judge Gorton told Mr. Couto during a sentencing hearing at John Joseph Moakley Courthouse in Boston. "We are sending a message through you to the entire industry that we are not going to put up with this."
In November, Mr. Couto pleaded guilty to two counts of making false statements about fish purchases to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and evading currency transaction reporting requirements by structuring hundreds of cash transactions with Webster Bank in New Bedford.
Court documents filed by U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan's office show that Mr. Couto ran a fish wholesale business, Steve's Fillets, in the South Terminal area of the New Bedford waterfront. The company bought fish from commercial fishing vessels and resold it to fish wholesalers.
Mr. Couto paid about 12 vessel captains partly in cash under the table for their catch in order to gain an "unfair competitive advantage over other, law-abiding fish wholesalers," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan F. Mitchell.
From June 2002 through September 2006, Mr. Couto induced fishermen to sell their catch by paying them up to $10,000 per trip in cash, according to court documents. In exchange for his cash payments, boat captains lowered the price of their fish. Mr. Couto also paid the captains cash for so-called overages, or fish caught in excess of regulatory limits. The cash transactions allowed the illegal catch to go unreported to fishing regulators. -- SouthCoastToday.com
Business Toolbox: Your customers' health
Omega-3 won’t cure Crohn’s disease
WASHINGTON -- Supplements of omega-3 fatty acids, taken by many with Crohn's disease, do not work to manage the incurable inflammatory bowel ailment, an international team of researchers said.
The findings cast doubt on a popular alternative treatment used by perhaps a fifth of Crohn's patients to try to stave off symptoms that can be painful and debilitating.
The researchers studied 738 Crohn's patients in Canada, Europe, Israel and the United States whose symptoms were in remission.
Patients were given either four grams a day of omega-3 free fatty acids in capsules or a placebo for up to 58 weeks to see if the treatment would prevent relapse, but both groups relapsed at essentially the same rate.
"We're still looking for the optimal drug or combination of drugs to prevent relapse. But I think we can take omega-3 fatty acids off the list," said Dr. R. Balfour Sartor of the University of North Carolina, who serves as chief medical adviser to the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America. – Reuters
Friday, April 11, 2008
Business Toolbox: Fish fraud
Mississippi law requires catfish menu honesty
A new Mississippi law will require restaurants to disclose whether the catfish they serve is imported or raised in the United States.
Gov. Haley Barbour signed a bill, and it becomes law July 1.
If a restaurant sells imported catfish, its menu will have to include that information, and the letters will have to be the same typeface and size as the listing for the catfish dish.
The new regulation is the latest move to protect the catfish industry from Asian imports.
In 2007, basa catfish from Vietnam were banned in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama -- three of the top catfish producers in the country -- after illegal antibiotics turned up in basa samples. – Forbes
Business Toolbox: The economy
Restaurants cope with changing fortunes
Americans love to eat out, but the weak economy could be testing their appetite for restaurant food.
Rather than just an infrequent treat, a restaurant meal has become a daily ritual for many people. Almost half the money spent on food in the U.S. is spent at restaurants, a number that's been rising steadily for decades, says the National Restaurant Assn. And on any given day, almost one in two Americans patronizes a restaurant, the group says.
On Mar. 31, New York-area Chipotle restaurants hiked prices almost 10%. A spokesman for the chain, which offers Mexican fare, said the price rise, the first in more than three years in that region, was due to higher food costs. "Even with the new prices in New York, Chipotle remains a great value," he said in a statement.
At first glance, a 10% menu hike seems likely to scare away customers, forcing them to get lunch and dinner at cheaper fast-food restaurants or buy food at the supermarket instead. But cause-and-effect in the restaurant industry isn't so simple. For one thing, nearly all chains are increasing prices, giving consumers fewer cheap options.
Because of their low prices, fast-food restaurants are expected to hold up well in a weak economy. McDonald's, with its "Dollar Menu," and its rivals offer cheap food to customers who can't afford fancier sustenance. Rather than a luxury item, fast food has become a staple to many Americans, says Morningstar analyst Jim Owens.
"It's very hard for consumers to prepare food on their own for a cheaper price than that," he says.
It's still cheaper for Americans to cook most food at home, but the costs of food at the supermarket are actually rising faster than menu prices at restaurants—3.9% in the past year at restaurants, vs. 7.6% food price inflation in the past year, says Hudson Riehle of the National Restaurant Assn.
Still, if the U.S. enters a recession and menu prices continue to rise, analysts don't expect everyone to start eating off the McDonald's Dollar Menu, leaving more expensive chains empty. Customers will seek out not the cheapest food, but the places where they think they're getting the best value, Owens says. One example is Olive Garden, the Italian food chain owned by Darden Restaurants.
Olive Garden should be a classic victim of recent economic trends. "The people that were stretching their budgets to eat at casual dining restaurants are pulling back," says Owens. However, while rivals have suffered, Olive Garden's sales figures have held up well, because the chain makes customers "feel like they're getting a good deal for their money," he says. -- Business Week
Business Toolbox: Your supply
Watch for steep cuts in blue crab
Maryland may cut the crab harvest by up to 40 percent to help restore the population in the Chesapeake Bay.
To reduce the female crab harvest, crabbers may be limited in the number of bushels they can harvest, the size of the crabs or the times they can harvest, according to draft management options released from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
“We have a series of ideas here that we are putting out that are designed to get us to a certain reduction in the harvest of females,” said Frank Dawson, DNR’s assistant secretary for aquatic resources.
The regulations may be combined to reach between a 20 percent and 40 percent reduction in the female crab harvest. The results of a winter survey of crabs, to be released next week, will direct how drastic the reduction needs to be, Dawson said.
“We are hoping for a time in the near future where we have a larger population of crabs,” he said.
The crab population has dropped dramatically since the early 1990s. In 1990, an estimated 800 million crabs were in the Bay, according to DNR. Last year’s winter survey estimated about 260 million crabs, down from 324 million in 2006.
Regulations put in place in 2000 helped stop a drastic dip, but the population hasn’t rebounded, said Lynn Fegley, a DNR fisheries biologist. – Baltimore Examiner
Business Toolbox: Your customers' health
Maybe mercury isn’t a big problem
In recent years, Americans have been drowning in stories about "toxic" tuna sushi and mercury levels in fish. Since most of those reports — including the federal government's — have relied on activists for health advice, it's no surprise that so many consumers are shying away from the seafood counter. But thanks to new research from Harvard University, the tables may finally be turning in favor of the scientific evidence about the benefits of eating seafood.
As this research confirms (again), fish really is brain food. The Harvard study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, found that pregnant women who eat fish regularly — more than two servings per week — have smarter children. Needless to say, this new finding flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that eating fish is risky business.
In reality, scientific experts have been telling us for years that the health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids in fish far outweigh the risks associated with consuming the trace amounts of mercury which have always been in fish. Unfortunately, much of that advice has been counterbalanced by a handful of noisy activists. These alarmists have exploited understandable concerns about contamination to hijack a national debate about food safety.
Anti-seafood groups like Oceana and Greenpeace are driven by political ideology, not human health. Some are interested in shutting down coal-fired power plants. Others want to promote vegetarianism.
But the entire medical literature contains zero fish-related cases of mercury poisoning in the United States. Not one. So, why all the worry about mercury in fish?
Largely due to the influence of these environmental radicals, the federal seafood advisories overestimated the dangers from mercury exposure and turned the scientific consensus on its head. As a result, much of the scientific evidence about the health benefits of consuming omega-3s in fish has been overlooked or ignored.
The Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency based their seafood guidelines on a single study of an island population that eats massive amounts of whale meat. Since whale is unusually high in mercury content, low in omega-3s and generally not part of the U.S. diet, that study was a poor model for advising Americans.
But the FDA and EPA skewed the seafood risk even further by building a 1,000 percent safety cushion into the mercury limit of 1.0 part-per- million. That number, according to the FDA, is "10 times lower than the lowest levels associated with adverse affects."
Despite its flaws, the federal fish advice is still held up as the standard on which to evaluate seafood safety. As millions of Americans will recall, a January New York Times article cited the 1.0 limit to absurdly conclude that there were "high mercury levels" in tuna sushi. Since then, dozens of local news stations have followed suit and jumped on the fish-testing bandwagon. Nearly all of the resulting reports emphasize fish intake among pregnant women, which has steadily declined since the 2001 federal advisories.
Environmental groups have had a field day with the fish panic, putting out mercury wallet cards, alarmist calculators and even "choose your fish" text messaging services. But if the latest Harvard study shows anything, it's the unintended consequences of giving in to knee-jerk activist fears too quickly. Because of the unnecessary alarm about the "risks" of eating fish, pregnant women have actually been discouraged from eating enough fish to give their unborn children an intellectual head start.
Writing last year in the British medical journal The Lancet, National Institutes of Health researcher Dr. Joseph Hibbeln explained that the federal fish guidelines were "causing the very harm they intended to prevent." With the new Harvard study, Hibbeln's verdict seems sadly accurate.
Public health debates should be brought back into the hands of scientific experts. Our government's seafood guidelines should be amended to reflect the healthfulness of eating seafood. And American women of childbearing age should be running toward the fish counter, not away from it. – David Martosko, research director at the Center for Consumer Freedom, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting personal responsibility and protecting consumer choices, writing in the Daily Press, Virginia.
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