Is Your Fish Bloated?

STPP (Sodium Tri-polyphosphate)

Sounds delicious doesn't it?

Your carpet thinks it sounds good when it is being cleaned with it, as do you walls when it is thinning the paint off of them.

But what does this mean to all of us?

Well, we along with our carpets and clothes, we are consuming an awful lot of it. It is used as a preservative in fish, meats, poultry along with other processed goods including detergent and toothpaste as a whitening and cleaning agent. Is it preserving taste? Perhaps stopping the growth of some harmful bacteria? No, actually, it is preserving water. It is making the fish bloated and keeping them from losing water on their long journey to you. If fish is treated with a lot of STPP it means that you are paying for this extra water that fish is retaining when it is weighed.

According to Wikipedia, in 2000, in western Europe the estimated consumption of STPP from food sources was around 300,000 tonnes. Studies for US consumption? I don't know, we don't really do that kind of thing here in the US. What I can tell you is that it is a GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) substance designated by the FDA, which means...exactly nothing to me.

You see the FDA should be looking out for our best interest, unfortunately this is not the case on the whole. The partnerships forged between big business, lobbyist, and the FDA render them unrecognizable from each other. We have to remember that when it comes down to making decisions about our health, there are ultimately people in charge. These people are just people, they are the man behind the curtain, not the "Wizard of Oz." They have no special powers, no extraordinary moral code, and it seems all to often no dedication to safety. They are subject to the same laziness, lapses in judgments, and bullying that can sway even the best of us. When people's money is at stake, morality all to often goes out the window.

The fishing companies claim that polyphosphates are not harmful to humans. They claim that once you ingest them, the polyphosphates will break down into single units of phosphate they will be ingested in the same way that any other naturally occurring phosphate would enter your body. They do concede however, that large amounts of the substance may be harmful, but feel that the average consumer consumes much less than this threshold. The UK and the European Union are both in the process of studying the amount of Polyphosphate that can be injurious to the health of humans. They are considering imposing strict limits, and I believe they already have some import limits.

So, how can you avoid a chemical like STPP. With the exception of carefully questioning the fish vendor at your local farmer's market and watching them from the time the fish is caught until it hits your plate, you can't. The same goes for other products plumped up with the chemical. Trying asking the fish vendor at your local supermarket if the fish contains STPP, they are still trying to get down the wild versus farm raised question.

Here in the United States STPP consumption is dropping in the detergent industry, in favor of more natural substances. As far as food goes, it is not even on the radar of most people. And in all honesty, with the rash of problems with our food supply, before we tackle this problem, we do indeed have bigger fish to fry!