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Friday, September 22, 2023

California woman loses limbs after battling bacterial infection from tilapia

There’s a warning about a dangerous bacteria that might have infected a California woman who’s still recovering after nearly two months in the hospital. 

An online fundraising effort says she contracted the bacterial infection after eating fish and is now a quadruple amputee.

*****

I've eaten tilapia couple times and just didn't care for it. Then a few years ago I saw an episode of Dirty Jobs where they explained the fish farming process. Basically they feed them shit. Yup, shit. Then they sell them for human consumption.
No more tilapia for this kid.

I can't find the full episode video, but here's a youtube short:

28 comments:

  1. A handful of people swimming in the Atlantic from Connecticut down the East Coast contracted vibrio vulnificus infections. They usually strike people with already compromised immune systems, but occasionally a healthy person gets the disease. So, don’t eat raw oysters in a month that doesn’t have an “R” in it, and cook all your fish. And don’t go swimming in warm waters with open cuts.

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  2. Tilapia is FUCKING GARBAGE .. with apologies to real garbage/refuse/rubbish everywhere. I too saw that Dirty Jobs episode, and that put an immediate end to my tilapia consumption. In my part, try to find a restaurant offering a fish sammich which isn't tilapia. I found one place, about 20 mins from the house, offers blackened grilled cod. May not be much better, but is not the dreaded shit-eating tilapia.

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  3. When we were in the Philippines, we saw them excavating the pits next to the ocean for the fishponds. They would layer in 2 ft of chicken dung and then open the sea gates to let in the tide. Close the gates and the Tilapia would grow and eat the shrimp and the critters that lived on the chicken dung. After a couple years they would net it out and start again. Yuck.

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  4. My second ex-wife had a brother-in-law in the fish business that explained to me that tilapia is considered to be the trash fish of the ocean. That was enough for me; fortunately I hadn't had the pleasure of dining on it and guess I dodged a bullet.

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  5. Tilapia = trash.
    Same goes for Swai.
    I'd pass on Bonito and mackerel. Also roughy of any color.

    Pro tip: Avoid the "catch of the day."

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    Replies
    1. Catch of the Day around here is catfish. Matter of fact I had a delicious meal of catfish and fried okra for lunch.

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    2. I love catfish! Sometimes I fry up a batch for breakfast. But NEVER Swai.
      I was talking about restaurants that offer substandard or "elderly" fish at a discount before it goes bad.

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    3. Oh, I know, I was just harassing you.
      Around here though, if you eat fish, it's catfish. There's one local diner here that buys their fish from local fisherman. Trotline catfish. Good stuff.

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    4. Love fresh catfish on the grill, with some garlic salt, pepper & lemon.
      Got to be fresh, though.
      CC

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  6. There was a video several years ago concerning tilapia farming in the far east. What they're fed and the conditions of the fish farms. It was totally disgusting. And surprise, surprise the video disappeared off of Youtube.

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  7. Years ago I saw a documentary about them feeding Tilapia in Asia. Bleh! Didn't care for it before, but never touched it since.

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  8. Watched a show several years back that was “under cover”. Indonesia, Vietnam, India etc. Their “farmed raised” was so disgusting!! I buy from locals

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    Replies
    1. I think that's the documentary I saw too. Bleh!

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  9. "She cooked it and ate it alone."

    Obviously she didn't cook it enough.

    I'm not really a tilapia person, and the fact that it seems to cost about a quarter of what other fish does at the store always gave me pause.

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  10. Tilapia are introduced to salmon farms after the salmon have been harvested and they eat the salmon feces and clean up the fish waste. No-one would eat tilapia if they really knew how they were raised.

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    Replies
    1. As I recall, that Dirty Jobs episode showed the same thing at a striper fish farm in California.

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  11. That exact dirty jobs put me off tilapia as well. They grew bass, I think first. After the bass had eaten everything good and all that was left was bass poop and garbage, they harvested the bass and put in the tilapia. Which, then at all the garbage and bass poop. I never ate it again.

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    Replies
    1. We both had our Come to Jesus moment the same day. Right on.

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  12. Bought some shrimp at Aldis and read the label- farm raised in Vietnam. Never again.

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  13. Tilapia isn't the only seafood that's "farmed". A lot of them are. And the process is pretty disgusting. If you didn't catch it yourself you really don't know where the fish came from and under what conditions it grew. Same for a lot of other things like chicken. Greed drives food production and quality isn't even a factor for a lot of food producers.

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  14. Commenters on the article claimed that the department of health and food safety found no evidence of an infection of vibrio vulnificus. Clearly someone is either lying or simply mistaken. Idk. Either way, that's freaking awful and tragic. All four limbs. Damn. Prosthetics have come a long way, but they're still prosthetics, and that's assuming you can afford the good ones. Better than paraplegia, I guess, but only barely.

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  15. Catfish are bottom feeders, so the same goes for them. They just eat the shit they find there. I think I recall that a lot of those are farm raised as well.

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    Replies
    1. I've caught too many cats on trotlines and by jugging many feet above the river bottom and using live baitfish to know they're not just bottom feeders eating shit. Also, farmed catfish are fed pellets until they're big enough to harvest.

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  16. Hell fire man! Anything you get from a fish farm or catch should be suspect! Tampa Bay had some study of (Government Folks) on Red fish (which is delicious right up there with Grouper , Trigger fish Etc Etc) the study found that the Red fish and Trout had large amounts of drugs as well carcinogenic in the bodies! Even Cobia!

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  17. aint trying to start no wars, but, ya'll ever think about that stink bait we use to catch them cats? hell, i have my best luck with some of the most gosh awful smelling schtuff ever made. ya caint beat fried cat though.

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  18. I'll just leave this here.
    https://youtu.be/VhoUfVzACNo?t=37

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  19. I don't like Tilapia. It's shit fish and that's why it's so promoted. Hell, they sell it as Catfish in a lot of stores.

    I stick to farm raised catfish and that's about it.

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