Don’t Eat this fish: Pangas (Pangasius, Vietnamese River Cobbler, White Catfish, Gray Sole)
Cheap cheap fish! The above is an ad (from one of the large supermarket chains in France) for the fish known as Pangas (also called, Pangasius, Vietnamese River Cobbler, Basa Fish and White Catfish, Tra, Gray Sole). It was a reminder to tell you about the dangers of this strange but increasingly popular fish. I learned about them and how they’re raised a while ago on an informative documentary online here: Documentary about Pangas. (which is in French. If you don’t speak French, read below.)
Would the French call it Poisson ou poison?
Industrially farmed in Vietnam along the Mekong River, Pangas or whatever they’re calling it, has only been recently introduced to the French market. However, in a very short amount of time, it has grown in popularity in France. The French are slurping up Pangas like it’s their last meal of soup noodles. They are very, very affordable (cheap), are sold in filets with no bones and they have a neutral (bland) flavor and texture; many would compare it to cod and sole, only much cheaper. But as tasty as some people may find it, there’s, in fact, something hugely unsavory about it. I hope the information provided here will serve as very important information for you and your future choices. Here’s why I think it is better left in the shops (and not on your dinner plates):
1. Pangas are teeming with high levels of poisons and bacteria. (industrial effluents, arsenic, and toxic and hazardous by-products of the growing industrial sector, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), DDT and its metabolites (DDTs), metal contaminants, chlordane-related compounds (CHLs), hexachlorocyclohexane isomers (HCHs), and hexachlorobenzene (HCB)). The reasons are that the Mekong River is one of the most polluted rivers on the planet and this is where pangas are farmed and industries along the river dump chemicals and industrial waste directly into it. To Note: a friend lab tests these fish and tells us to avoid eating them due to high amounts of contamination. Regardless of the reports and recommendations against selling them, the supermarkets still sell them to the general public knowing they are contaminated.
2. They freeze Pangas in contaminated river water. Ew.
3. Pangas are not environmentally sustainable, a most unsustainable food you could possibly eat – “Buy local” means creating the least amount of environmental harm as possible. This is the very opposite end of the spectrum of sustainable consumerism. Pangas are raised in Vietnam. Pangas are fed food that comes from Peru (more on that below), their hormones (which are injected into the female Pangas) come from China. (More about that below) and finally, they are transported from Vietnam to France. That’s not just a giant carbon foot print, that’s a carbon continent of a foot print.
4. There’s nothing natural about Pangas – They’re fed dead fish remnants and bones, dried and ground into a flour, from South America, manioc (cassava) and residue from soy and grains. This kind of nourishment doesn’t even remotely resemble what they eat in nature. But what it does resemble is the method of feeding mad cows (cows were fed cows, remember?) What they feed pangas is completely unregulated so there are most likely other dangerous substances and hormones thrown into the mix. The pangas grow at a speed light (practically!): 4 times faster than in nature…so it makes you wonder what exactly is in their food? Your guess is as good as mine.
5. Pangas are Injected with Hormones Derived from Urine – I don’t know how someone came up with this one out but they’ve discovered that if they inject female Pangas with hormones made from the dehydrated urine of pregnant women, the female Pangas grow much quicker and produce eggs faster (one Panga can lay approximately 500,000 eggs at one time). Essentially, they’re injecting fish with hormones (they come all of the way from a pharmaceutical company in China) to speed up the process of growth and reproduction. That isn’t good. Some of you might not mind eating fish injected with dehydrated pee so if you don’t good for you, but just consider the rest of the reasons to NOT eat it.
6. You get what you pay for – and then some. Don’t be lured in by insanely cheap price of Pangas. Is it worth risking your health and the health of your family?
7. Buying Pangas supports unscrupulous, greedy evil corporations and food conglomerates that don’t care about the health and well-being of human beings. They only are concerned about selling as many pangas as possible to unsuspecting consumers. These corporations only care about selling and making more money at whatever cost to the public.8. Pangas will make you sick – If (for reasons in #1 above) you don’t get immediately ill with vomiting, diarrhea and effects from severe food poisoning, congratulations, you have an iron stomach! But you’re still ingesting POISON not poisson.Final important note: Because of the prodigious amount of availability of Pangas, be warned that they will certainly find their way into other foods: surimi (those pressed fish things, imitation crab sticks), fish sticks, fish terrines, and probably in some pet foods. (Warn your dogs and cats and hamsters and gerbils and even your pet fish!)
Watch this Report on Pangas (in French) (Video excerpt from Capitale on M6, which aired about 3 months ago)
Links: Buying fish in France, Le Panga, nouvelle abération de la mondialisation ?
February 10th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
i work in a tesco store in england (on the fresh fish counter) and after reading this information i am a bit worried about selling the vietnamese river fish to local customers. is this info 100% true besause if it is i am going to print it off and hand it to the head offices and try to get sales stopped. Please mail back. thanks
February 19th, 2008 at 9:41 am
I bought this fish from my local Tesco for the first time and tried it on Saturday. On Sunday I spent the day vomiting and feeling very ill this continued into Monday and my body aches all over. My daughter who also had the fish started the same on Sunday evening and is also still recovering
February 19th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Does it matter what supermarket it is?, do you have any idea how other mass produced foods are made? do you know what’s in sausages even!?.
Many top brand supermarkets and stores use many sources like this for meat and fish products, open your eyes. Start buying from your local produce supplier’s, of the paltry few left these days.
When food was good and fresh, was when the U.K street markets and butchers / fishmongers and green grocers were bustling, it was a lot fresher than it is now.
since the nation has become obsessed with loyalty schemes and 50% seasonal discounts this is all you will get for your money.
Also bear in mind a fish that you have actually or should have by now seen the river farming process it uses for production is much safer than a meat product that you have not had the insight of viewing the manufacturing process.
GO FRESH, GO LOCAL!
February 27th, 2008 at 9:40 am
For Dan
did you ever get a response ? Is the fish still on sale ?
February 27th, 2008 at 10:28 am
i emailed dan but i don’t know if he did in fact contact tesco. my feelings are that they, like auchan in france, don’t care and just want to sell the fish to anyone who will buy it, no matter how poisonous it is.
March 10th, 2008 at 5:53 am
It is still on sale in Tesco (08/03/08). Is there any information yet to ubstantiate these claims?
March 10th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
you can try to contact the people who made the documentary. my suspicion is that even if tesco knew about this fish, they’d still sell it anyway. this fish is usually in the top 10 profit making items of a grocery store.
March 11th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Oh dear I have just bought this fish for our dinner tonight and now will take back to the shop for a return
Many Thanks for your comments
March 11th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
I have just taken the fish back to Tesco the customer relations were very huffy saying “Tesco would never sell anything dangerous”
I said “well why did I have to bring back Salmon encroute contiminated with diesel just 2 weeks ago”?
No comment from Ms Huffy.
I will buy my fish now on line as I usally do my fishmonger on the beach in Lyme Regis allows to you pan around the counter on- line to choose what you want, deliverd within 24 hours, expensive yes but better than being contiminated especially my children
March 17th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Oh great, I just had some for my dinner! I thought it tasted fine….will wait and see if the puking starts….(bought from the mighty “T”)
March 19th, 2008 at 7:27 am
I have been in touch with customer services at Tesco head office and they are investigating the fish and its source. My daughter ended up at A & E as the stomach pains were so bad. I hope the people who have made comments do not suffer any ill effects,but I will never buy this fish again. I will post again when I receive further feed back from the store
March 20th, 2008 at 6:05 am
A letter was received from the store informing me after investigations with suppliers there were no adverse organolepic comments for the day in question and raw materials are not allowed to be used within production without the receipt of a positive release note from suppliers. Any raw material without a positive release note will be quarantined prior to being used by production. …..well thank goodness for the quarantine department,glad to hear all those horrible bacteria are being dealt with,I feel much better now for knowing all this !!!!!!
March 22nd, 2008 at 7:03 am
I brought this fish for dinner, and i was looking on line for receipes, when i came across this page.
I think it’s a disgrace if this is true and Tesco are still allowed to sell it to the public.
I am going straight to my fridge and now throwing it away.
Why no-one doing anything about this to stop shops selling it?
March 27th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Hey, i work on a Tesco’s fish counter, we sell cobbler.
Now I’m not a staunch tescos loyalist, but I have to question this page.
First of all with the hormones, you realise most comercially raised fish are spawned using hormones now? and these hormones may have origionally been sampled from urine but now they’ll be prouced via biotechnology (engineering microbes to produce them).
Also, do you really think that this is being sold all over the country and most people who eat it are being violently ill? Marie, i’m sorry to hear about you and your daughters illness, but thats ,more likely an exception rather than a rule. We get told if someones been ill after eating our stock, and we sell quite a lot of cobbler.
Also this is mothing like the BSE, cows were fed cows, t hat was wrong. Fish on the other hand, especially catfish like cobbler, mostly eat fish anyway, its perfectly healthy.
This page appears to be mostly scaremongering as far as i can see.
March 30th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
The Pangasius fish is a fish among all others. It can be affected as to how and where it is grown however the Vietnamese have among the highest quality processing plants in the world and standards have been implemented to ensure adherence to sustainable production protocols. After all this industry began only ten years ago. We raise Pangasius on our farm in Puerto Rico. It is a very good mild fish which grows quickly and efficiently on a plant based diet. The Pangasius fish offers a sustainable solution to the food and protein needs of a growing human population which has already exhausted the natural supply of our planet.
March 31st, 2008 at 3:10 am
To michael’s : “The Pangasius fish offers a sustainable solution to the food and protein needs of a growing human population which has already exhausted the natural supply of our planet.”
This is an invalid point, the ACTUAL food production is sufficient to feed 12 billion people on the planet and still billions of people are starving. Many farmers have to DESTROY their productions in order to get subsidies from their governement.
March 31st, 2008 at 2:01 pm
The SKY IS FALLING. I’ve been in the seafood industry as a buyer, seller, importer and trader for 15 years in the United States. The EU has the highest standards in the world for illegal chemicals, compounds, and antibiotics. Last I checked, France is in the EU. Every load of seafood must be inspected, and a random sample from EACH lot must be tested in an EU-endorsed laboratory to detect the author’s described poisons. If it possesses these poisons/antibiotics/chemicals, the whole load is rejected.
When it comes to sustainable aquaculture, only a handful of seafood can be raised: catfish, tilapia, hybrid striped sea bass, rainbow trout, shrimp, crawfish, and salmon are about it. Readers, think about it; to compare feed fish to fish to the feeding of bovine byproducts to bovine (cows/steers) is ridiculous! Bovine eat grass naturally – they are omnivores. Meat is not part of a bovine’s natural diet. Fish do eat other fish as part of their natural diets; they are carnivores. Perhaps if Pangas were being fed turkey meal, they might contract the bird flu????
Get a grip on reality. The world’s wild Pollock and Cod fishery has been severely over-fished, and its supply is wholly inadequate to meet the world’s needs. Aquaculture is the only way to meet the world’s needs. Vietnam is at the forefront in the fight to promote safe, eco-friendly farming.
The largest export market in the world for Pangasius Hypophthalmus (called Tra, Sutchi Catfish, or Swai in the US) is the United States. There has not been one reported incident of illness caused by this species. Same goes for Pangasius pangasius (called Ponga in the US). Same for Pangasius bocourti (called Basa in the US). Oh, same with shrimp, either Panneus Monodon (Black Tiger) or Panneus Vannamei (White shrimp), oh, same as with Tilapia, and on and on and on.
Mercury becomes an issue only when consuming seafood at the higher end of the food chain. Tuna and many sharks, as an example, possess a real risk of mercury and other compounds because they eat fish that eat smaller fish, that eat smaller fish, that eat smaller fish and so on. The mercury is concentrated in such types of fish. This is not so with Ponga.
Readers, please do your research to get the facts, rather than taking this one lunatic’s propaganda as fact. What he/she presents as fact is far from the truth.
April 7th, 2008 at 3:00 am
I am rather concerned after reading this page however I have purchased this fish on several occasions and have even prepared this for my 80 year old mother with no adverse affect. The only reason I came accross this page was due to the fact I could not find any information on this fish in my Viertnamese cookbook.
April 7th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
My wife bought this fish from TESCO. I ate it twice in two weeks (bought on two separate occasions) and was sick and had diarrhoea both times. I should have learned the first time but thought it was a bug going around or something. I will not be eating it again! I sailed up the Mekong Delta last year and can vouch for how dirty it is.
April 9th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
NEIL.
My wife and i recently purchased smoked river cobbler from the mighty T and found it to be very tasteful and had no ill effects from it so we purchased some more and had it again for tea tonight. So far so good and i’ll let you know of our bodily functions, if any, later in the week. My wife grilled the cobbler with butter and then crumbled white stilton on mine and blue stilton on hers, both were delicious.
April 10th, 2008 at 6:59 am
It would appear TESCO have had no other complaints about this fish,and as I am unable to prove it was the fish that made myself and daughter ill,they will not persue the matter further. Had I known we were going to be ill I would have kept the wrapping and bar code etc from the fish (which is what I was asked to provide) so it could be tested,but who thinks of saving packets or wrappers from fresh meat and fish “just in case”
If you have been ill after this fish and can identify it was the cause perhaps you should report it to the store or head office.
April 11th, 2008 at 7:39 am
I and my partner are big fish eaters, when we go to Malawi our favourite food is a fish known locally as chomba, this a fresh water fish from lake malawi, and is readily available throughought the country, the correct name is tillipia, a river fish which is also sold in tescoes, and is now farmed in england. We had been eating this regulary untill we found the cobbler, which tastes and looks exactly the same as the tillipia, the cobbler I suspect is of the tillipia species. We have never suffered any side effects from either fish, in this country or malawi, and suspect those suffering side effects, may have had other reasons for these
April 11th, 2008 at 10:18 am
I can assure you it was the fish that made us ill,through a matter of elimination this was the only food that could have been responsible.I am sure Chris will say the same.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:23 am
I find some of the entries on this page very useful although I do find some of the info supplied by some users as proposterous!
This fish is a catfish of the ‘pangassius’ family which are natural bottom feeders which actively seek detriutus for food in nature, however a forced diet of protien rich fish derivatives is not uncommon in aquaculture I can garentee you that every salmon steak you have ever eaten has been raised on a diet of fish protien based foodstuffs unless like me you are lucky enough to catch wild salmon that has been nowhere near a ’stew pool’ , I should know as I have studied Icthyology and aquaculture for some years now.
There is nothing in the exerts from other users which strikes me as ‘out of the ordinary’ due to the scaremongering tactics of a possibly illinformed researcher; aquaculture is not an answer to sustainable food resources as the long term effects on the environment are potentially deadly for the biodiverse ecosystems surrounding these farms.
If you want an example of environmentally disastrous aquaculture, take a flight to Indonesia and look at how the damage of farming everyones beloved tiger prawns affects the environment; it is quite frankly disgusting or even worse chinese soft shelled turtle farming (another love child of Tesco’s worldwide profiteering)
Conclusion
Aquaculture is damaging to the environment and if you want to complain about it carry on but I do suggest that you research things a little more before you explain the implications of badly cooked fish.
every imported food stuff that makes its way into the UK market must be given strict testing before it is deemed suitable for our delicate european stomachs.
in the mean time, stay away from cod and hake and haddock etc and if your not sure if you can stomach it then dont sample the tastes!
I have eaten cobbler on a number of occasions in this country and the far east, its ok and pretty good eating.
Dont gang up and boycott this fish as you all definately have more shocking products in your larder’s.
entry number 3 by Adam your absolutely right,
Go Fresh Go Local
April 19th, 2008 at 6:38 am
Very unbalanced sensationalist, poorly researched article. May make a good point or two but it’s all lost in twisted deceptive narative.
Fish aren’t herbivores so it’s nothing like BSE..
Hormones are used in ALL fish and meat farming operations. Some of these hormones might be derived from urine – but it’s a long way from them being injected with pee…
Only a proportion of this fish comes from vietnam, let alone the mekong river…
Different farms use different products – so they won’t all be the same. We live in an international economy, and goods are traded worldwide, I doubt the food is brought from south america by air, so it’s not surprising that the materials used on any farm can be traced to internation origins. My local farmer use fence posts from canada, does that mean I should boycott him too? – of course not.
Marie, I’m sorry you got ill, but it sounds more like food poisoning (organic – viral/bacteria) than any kind of toxicity. I have no idea how you could pinpoint it to this fish (it could be virus say), even if it was from this fish, it’s not a problem with species as a whole, and just the batch you had, which can happen with any variety.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:57 pm
I’ve been buying, eating and serving pangasius to others for about 5 months now – I’m sure I’ve eaten it at least 20 times as well as been in the company of several other co-workers who’ve eaten the fish – and we’ve had zero cases of anyone getting sick or reported to have gotten sick at all. 145 degrees is what we cook it up to and all is well.
April 27th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
I bought this fish from Tesco yesterday for our dinner tonight. Delicious
taste and I thought it was Panga but I wasn’t sure til I saw this report. Really scary and all Pangas in this world come from the Mekiong River?. I thought it was farmed somewhere in Europe as I ate it a couple of
times before in Spain. I must say nothing happened to me then but I don’t think I will buy it anymore after reading that report. Tesco still sells because I bought yesterday and it comes with this sticker saying “new”, maybe they don’t know how and where they farm it as we customers
April 29th, 2008 at 4:33 am
I had an violent allergic attack from this fish. And i have never had any problems with eating fish. It started about 2-3hours after i had eaten the fish it started to itch allover my body but it went away after about 1hour then i went to sleep and was in for quite a surprise the morning after. My face had blown up like a balloon and i had red itching marks all over my body again. Conclusion for me is to never eat this fish again and im going to the hospital today just to check that im not allergic to anything else. I ate the fish this saturday today is tuesday and i still got the red marks and itching on me.
Mattias, Sweden
May 9th, 2008 at 1:55 am
I Live in Spain and Panga is sold in all supermarkets fresh & frozen
the locals who are very into fish use it and I use it
so far my wife and I have not had any ill affects and I have not heard of anyone being ill after eating Panga
Maybe the problem is that these people have an allergy the same as shellfish which can affect lots of people
May 10th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
We’ve been eating this fish, and Tilapia, from Tesco ever since they introduced it, with no ill effects. It’s the nicest fish we’ve eaten, and cheap too. Next time our local Tesco have a delivery I’m going to stock up our freezer with River Cobbler.
It could be that this fish isn’t farmed in Vietnam anyway, but have you ever smelled the River Severn here when the overspill soilage from the Farm fields is washed into it and the sewerage works aren’t “working” properly? You can buy nice fresh wild Salmon caught from the River Severn. Don’t eat fish from the Irish Sea…it’s radioactive (Sellafield?) and fish from the Atlantic it contains high levels of Mercury……Bon Appetite.
May 12th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Had this fish tonight (before I found this page).
Very tasty – my ‘other half’ baked it with herbs and spices in the oven and served it with peas and new potatoes and it was delicious.
I ate it about ten hours ago and have had no adverse effects.
May 14th, 2008 at 2:25 am
I found River Cobbler in Tesco several weeks ago & have been using both the Smoked & plain variety in fish pies and it makes a very tasty addition.
i have a very delicate tummy & have never had any reaction to this fish.
as far as i can see any food that we buy now a days is contaminated with something or other and we still eat it , What choice do we have really other than to starve
May 17th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Well – I was a little shocked at what I read here at first as I had just recommended it to my friends!
My husband and I regularly eat this fish (had some last night) as it is one of the few fish that is easy to eat as it has no bones and it is very tasty.
I always steam it along with the vegetables and can’t say we have had any ill effects from this and will probably continue to buy it!
So I don’t know if it is just a coincidence that others have had a reaction – or perhaps it is some kind of allergy they have to that particular fish?
May 18th, 2008 at 11:12 am
My grandson (4) absolutly loves smoked fish poached in butter and milk with bread and butter. I have cooked cobbler this way on a number of occassions. Before I discovered cobbler, costing £2-£3, I always used smoked haddock or cod, usually costing about £8 – £10. If I can’t get to Tesco’s, I use haddock or cod and have often been told ‘this is tastless’. On the other hand my husband who is a fish lover, always comments on the difference in taste, when cobbler is used. None of my family has ever suffered any ill effects after eating it and I will certainly continue to buy it!!
May 18th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Bought it 2 days ago, looked for a recipe and found this site. Yikes! Didn’t tell the wife. Cooked it, ate it and we both enjoyed it. Then I told her. We’re both okay but she hasn’t spke to me for 2 days. Must get some more!
May 19th, 2008 at 12:00 am
[...] there’s a post drawing off the French documentary on a site called dietmindspirit.org. This post adds a whole list of vague assertions: 1. Pangas are [...]
May 19th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
yes we have a choice we know about food that will be good for us but should not be lied to i will be outside my local tesco making people aware of this product
May 28th, 2008 at 5:01 am
I had this for my tea last night…before reading this. It was very nice and I recommend it to anybody. This article could be adapted for pretty much any meat that is sold in our supermarkets.
May 30th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Vietnamese River Cobbler only bought 26.05.08!!!!!!!!!!!from Tesco.
Appalling answer from Tesco just now!Called 30.05.08 at 17.15 PM complaining of what I read ref this fish ( Vietnamese River Cobbler ) and as humanly expected the excuses came out,the lady I was talking to was trying hard to convince me that type of fish WOULDN’T be sold if not fit for human consumption, well frankly since I’m fighting cancer and on the road to recovery if cancer doesn’t kill me at the end I’m lucky to have Tesco by my side to reassure me that all is safe.ABSOLUTE SHAM
May 30th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
my kids love this fish – the pangasius or basa fish – comes in frozen fillets. thaw it, then soak in beaten egg and cover w/ bread crumbs/salt/pepper mixture, then cook it deep fried – we had this for dinner the other nite it was sooo good. we’ve been eating this fish for years now and so far no allergic reaction or any illness whatsoever. what bothers me is that – Does pangasius have scales? i’ve been doing the research for 2 days still couldnt find the answer. i know that all fish w/o fins and scales are dirty by nature and should not be eaten (ref. Leviticus chapter 11 verses 9 to 12). Leviticus doesnt elaborate more, but in reality this kind of fish are the scavengers of the sea – that explains why they are dirty.
May 31st, 2008 at 8:24 am
My husband and I went out for dinner in France yesterday and engorged ourselves on this delicous fish. It came on a skewer, like a satay, on a bed of dried tomatoes, olives and pesto. It was heavenly. Now, 24 hours later, both of us are completely fine. We will definitely continue eating it.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:15 am
I strongly disagree with the negative comments regarding the Pangasius fish. We serve this fish for more than 2 years now, it is a bestseller , because it is affordable and very tasty. We never had any complains regarding getting sick or ill. I eat this fish at least once a week, steamed with garlic and lime, it is delicious. Maybe people who get sick try to put the blame on this fish, maybe they should look deeper and find the real reason.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:17 am
I strongly disagree with the negative comments regarding the Pangasius fish. We serve this fish for more than 2 years now, it is a bestseller , because it is affordable and very tasty. We never had any complains regarding getting sick or ill. I eat this fish at least once a week, steamed with garlic and lime, it is delicious. Maybe people who get sick try to put the blame on this fish, maybe they should look deeper and find the real reason. If I had any reason to believe, that people get sick or it would be dangerous to my and my customers health, I would take this fish immediately off my Menue
June 9th, 2008 at 3:55 am
I have eaten this fish before sold in frozen form by leading S’pore supermarket chain NTUC and others. I have not experienced any health problems. Maybe this is a bad rumour similar to aspartame (artificial sweetening agent) where someone or organisation got jealous and said all the bad things about aspartame and that it causes cancer. I have taken aspartame for the last 5 years (and I’m still taking on daily basis) and I’m very healthy.
June 9th, 2008 at 7:28 am
Perfect journalism
Congratulations!
June 10th, 2008 at 5:14 am
I thoroughly enjoy this fish. It’s delicious and i have been eating this fish for years and have had NO adverse side-effects. If anything, i crave to eat this fish. I seriously think that if we do go about ALL the diffrent processed food, i am sure every food that we eat is pretty much “frightening”. Turn vegetarian…..even then, there could still be frightening processes when cleaning these veggies as well……
Seriously, this fish is great.
June 10th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I live in Sydney, Australia and came across this fish(BASSA) about 6 months ago in a restaurant. It tasted good and easy to eat. Then found out they are sold in super markets Woolworths, Coles and local fish mongers, so they are everywhere. I also found that more and more chinese restaurants are using this fish for fillets on the menu instead of ‘Ling fish fillet’ which is tough & chewy . I ate it at lease 5 times over the past few months and had no side effect so far. i would not eat it constantly because I like to eat other fish too. It certainly one of the cheaper fish! It is about Aust$9.00/ kg….
June 11th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Although I don’t condone commercial aquaculture in the south feeding us in the north, one aspect of the unfortunate cases of upset stomachs above may not be to do with the fish per-se, but in fact the hygiene conditions at the big T and other sources, such as not cooking it well enough.
I seem to recall a documentary exposing appalling cleanliness and hygiene issues at the big supermarkets’ fresh food counters not too long ago, and as we all know contamination can enter the food chain at many different stages of its processing.
June 12th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
In fact 1 reason is already enough to make me stop eating Pangas or whatever, and that is because of dehydrated pee, and that’s because I’m a very hygenic person, and with all those other reasons I dont thing I’ll even have a bite of that fish my whole life!
June 13th, 2008 at 9:27 am
http://mattsteinglass.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/thou-blackguard-thou-slanderest-my-fish/
Read this, things u read on the internet are usually exaggerated.
June 13th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
We have eaten both plain and smoked Cobbler for several months now from Tesco. I had a tumour in the bowel many years ago and suffer from bouts of diarrhoea, never once have I suffered after eating this fish, so I shall continue to eat and enjoy. We would never be able to eat anything if we listened to all the scaremongers.
June 17th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
I think eating all types of fishes are safe, even the well-known poisonous puffer fish after the toxins are remove carefully. Generally fishes are safe to be eaten. The only exception then is where do they come from, how are they bred. That is the source of water where they are bred and fed. If the source is contaminated then you can say that the chances of the fish being unsuitable for consumption is high. So one must first determined if the source of water is safe. If we have knowledge that the source of water is contaminated then all of us must avoid whatever fishes that swims in it at all cost and no matter how tasty the fish is on that plater! It is just common sense and what you read on the Internet is not exaggeration but some kind soul cautioning you to be aware of such an incident.
June 21st, 2008 at 6:45 am
HI Dan
Anyone out there that is about to buy this fish. DON’T!
I bought it four days ago and after eating it I have been feeling sick and uncomfortable also vomiting. Today 4th day after eating it is the first day I have not been sick.
I will be writting to my local Tesco and asking them to investigate this fish and why they are still selling it.
And this is not scaremongering it could only have been the fish I had eaten which made me so bad.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Just read some of these stories and OH MY GOD!!! what have my family just tried to eat, initially bought in haste having picked up the wrong box in TESCO (thought i’d bought cod fillets) it was’nt until it had been cooked and put on our plates for dinner that we realised something was’nt right.The fish tasted awful, it had a kind of cleaning fluid taste and smelt strange too, i cant believe some people actually enjoy this fish. Our fingers are now crossed that we do’nt become ill.I will definately never buy this product again and shall complain to TESCO about it and hopfully it will be removed from sale as surely customers health is more important than the profit on this sh##e.Probably shop at a different supermarket too.
June 25th, 2008 at 5:14 am
Dehydrated pee ? U mean there are dried pee out there ? Do they sell Dried Beer ? Dried Wine ? All you need to do is soak it in water and BANG ! Magic ?
Some of you people are so so so guillable and I am appalled that those from so called ” industrialised country” are actually hillbillies !
June 28th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Had some of this glorious fish tonight,it is not bland,tasteless or would be for sale without rigorous testing,this is without doubt the worst scaremongering i have ever seen,it is quite scary too, comparing it with mad cow disease is ridiculous.I will be contacting tesco myself tonight,but not to complain,just to congratulate the Vietnamese fishermen on a job and a fish well sold.Anyone out there,do not miss out on a treat,this fish is tasty,inexpensive and helps take pressure off our cod and haddock stocks,try it.
June 30th, 2008 at 11:28 am
It is unfortunate that the people who claim to have gotten ill (food poisioning) blaim the problem on the species rather than the far more obvious cause of how the fish was kept stored, how long it was left on the shelves ect.
Please, I urge anyone who takes this article literal to investigate on their own. Pangasius hypothalmus is an omnivoires fish that resembles the American catfish. And it poses a large threat to that industry ( wonder if the propagandist who wrote this article has anystock there? hmm makes you wonder huh?)
A little actual information on the green issue. Pangasius is a sustainable fish in fact it is most sustainable. Aquaculture is a growing business in order to curb our worlds need for wild fish, if we hunted animals on lan at the same pace we caught wild fish people would think we were crazy. It is important to farm…fish. Now, most fish that are farmed are carnivores and need to suppliment their diet (fish feed) with natural fish. In order to do this millions of natural andchovies are caught ground up and made into a powder and added to soy and compressed into feed balls. Pangasius and other omnivoires like tilapia are fed just soy feed and seem to grow well on it. Eliminating the need for catching wild anchovies. We can grow soy and turn it into feed and grow pangasius forever causing it to be sustainable.
It is unfortunate that the ignorance of some people can change the perception of something foriegn into something less desirable and create fear in the eyes of the mainstream, maybe that speaks for our world as a whole and the problems there in. I encourage you to try pangasius before you judge it, and learn the truth behind it from different sources before you go on assuming that one person (a propogandist) is 100% correct.
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:36 pm
cream dory! yummy!
July 6th, 2008 at 10:28 am
I have bought smoked river cobbler every week for the last couple of month.
My daughter and I eat it at the same time and neither of us has ever been ill as a result of eating it.
However, after reading this page I will be doing a lot of investigating before I buy it again.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:19 am
I had never heard of this fish until three days and have since eaten it twice. It has a pleasant flavour, no irritating bones and I am feeling in excellent health so it clearly isn’t immediately lethal. Research on the internet suggests that US interests are objecting to competition from basa imports, so I wonder if that is driving some sort of campaign against this product?
July 11th, 2008 at 8:58 am
this is crazy
July 16th, 2008 at 9:31 am
The dangers of these salacious blogs is that ill-informed consumers and retailers will read this as ‘gospel’ and will act based on this misinformation. National Enquirer, World Weekly News, and other reputable pubs also influence perceptions and behaviors. Take a minute to investigate government and industry data on this fishery and you’ll see that it is well managed and safe. Europe consumes a significant amount of this fish now with no issues relative to safety/supply. We are just starting to see this in the States and it offers a less expensive (not going to use the derogatory ‘cheap’ term) white fish option. It goes 100% in the face of US catfish suppliers who don’t want this fish in the market. That’s fueling much of the negative press. You need only look at the tariffs passed against Asian shrimp – driven by the Southern Shrimp Alliance to see the power of lobby dollars and scare tactics.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Anyone frightened by this scaremongering, please go to the BBC Good Foods site, where you’ll find that Tesco’s Vietnamese River Cobblers are in fact farmed in Britain. It seems the name of this fish isn’t the only cobblers you’ll find on the internet.
It’s a very tasty fish. My daughter & I love it.
July 19th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
I bought smoked River Cobbler from Tesco today for the first time and made it into a fish pie topped with creamy mashed potato. It was delicious. The raw fish was good because it has no bones and had a firm texture. I was so interested in this new fish I looked it up on the internet and found this site. I think that there is a level of scaremongering on this site. I won’t have a problem in buying this fish again.
July 24th, 2008 at 8:45 am
I also bought smoked River Cobbler from Tesco today and also for the first time. I am going to try that fish in this afternoon.
July 24th, 2008 at 10:22 am
All you have to do is a little bit of research on US catfish lobbying to see why they don’t want a high quality in-expensive fish entering into mainstream US consumer acceptance.
July 25th, 2008 at 8:39 am
after reading this blog i would like to see an educated and informed response from the food standards agency or wwhat ever organisation fulfils that obligation in the U.K.
my self and family have eaten this fish without ill effect but will not continue to do so until it is considered safe beyond reasonable doubt.
July 27th, 2008 at 7:07 am
[...] according to certain reports; the Pangas breed in ponds contain industrial effluents, arsenic, and toxic and hazardous [...]
July 27th, 2008 at 7:25 am
My wife and I have been eating River Cobbler for many months now, at least once a week, and have had no ill effects at all. It is very tasty, especially with dash of lemon juice.
In fact we will be having it again very soon.
July 27th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
My family have been taking this fish for quite sometime now and have had no illness whatsoever. Fish in general are prone to bacteria just by improper handling, so do take extra care when buying and cooking.
I guess for now we’ll have to wait for some official news that indeed these species are not fit for human consumption like with other hundreds of products out there (i.e. french fries)
July 28th, 2008 at 6:46 am
I was affected at first after reading the adverse articles and emails, as I and my family members have been eating the fish for many years. The fish tasted great on its own (steamed or fried) or cooked with other ingredients.
But after doing some reading and reflecting, I realised that there are a lot of scare-mongering around for commercial interests, especially capitalising on what we fear most – health of our family and young ones. In the competitive fish market, there are a lot of competitors around who will resort to scaremongering to bring down those who are doing much better.
Testing the fish is something which can be easily done and markets like EU, USA and Australia/NZ markets are difficult to please when it comes to standards especially if there have been cases of ill-effects.
So, I will not yield to another scare-mongering (many still floating around after many years)probably with vested commercial interests. Let me go on enjoying the fish, hopefully at a cheaper price!
July 29th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
My family and I eat this fish all the time and its tasty and there has never been any problem with it whatsoever. maybe you kept the fish too long or you had a bad one. dont be put off by this page…its a load of rubbish!
July 31st, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I ate Basa Fillets for the first time last week and was seriously ill about six hours later requiring A and E attendance. Purchased and cooked the same day. In fairness three others eating the fish did not suffer any ill efects. Did anyone else suffer ill-effects other than stomach pains?
August 1st, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I bought this fish today, again from Tesco, and have to see after cooking it properly, is a fabulous and value for money fish.
To the uneducated idiots who claim to have contracted sickness from the fish, learn to cook it properly, and hey wash you hands before preparing it. Food poisoning DOES NOT HAPPEN THAT QUICKLY, you’re clearly full of shit.
THE TESCO COBBLER IS FARMED IN THE UK, WHICH MEANS STRICT REGULATION, AND LOTS OF TESTING.
August 2nd, 2008 at 5:04 am
Cobblers!
What a lovely fish, steamed it with chilli, garlic, ginger, corriander and lime juice. Yummy yummy yummy
Well filleted, fresh and cooked properley I cannot see any issue.
My only concern was the carbon footprint issue ie the fish coming from vietnam, (the baby sweetcorn came from thailand)
If its being grown in Britain we are on to a winner. All catfish eat crap and forage on the bottom infact most fish will eat almost anything.
If this fish was being bred and raised in vietnam and then shipped to the UK surely it would cost a lot more about 5 times as much infact.
We should me more concerned about all the packaging around food products and the distance its travelled than scarmongering on the food itself!
August 14th, 2008 at 4:21 am
I am eating this right now and was so impressed that I had to Google it- and this page came up. AND YES I AM STILL EATING IT!!!! Steamed it with ginger, spring onions, soy sauce and sesame oil YUM YUM!!!! and for 1.30 for a big fillet I’m going back to get some more!
With all the laws now regarding food regulations, health and safety, being PC blahblahblah — surely they can’t let a simple thing like ‘injected with URINE’ go unchecked – this page is hilarious!
August 15th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
i had river cobbler for the first time last night after purchasing it from tescos. about 3 hours after eating it i had the worst stomach pains i have ever experienced and then spent the next 2 hours vomiting.
i did not associate the fish with my illness until i found this website, i thought i had just caught some kind of bug. i only came on this website because i was looking for a picture of a river cobbler as my mum wanted to know what the fish we ate last night looked like, i never thought i would find a website where it seems the fish may be the cause of my awful night last night!
not everyone may have suffered these effects but i will definitely never be eating river cobbler again, i cannot go through what i went through last night ever again!
August 17th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Like many ppl here, unfortunately I ran into this fish unknowingly too (farmed in the Mekong-delta, Vietnam, from Tesco).
I did not vomit or got diarrhea but after having eaten one of the pieces I got bad stomach, felt very weak in 30-50 mins, my lymph nodes grew very big on both sides of my neck and could feel them when swallowing. This lasted for 3 days! This fish was the only new thing in my diet to previous days, so no doubt this caused the effects and it was not allergy.
I got very pissed and contacted the Food Standard Agency. http://www.food.gov.uk/aboutus/contactus/
Fish and Shellfish Department
They asked for my post code and according to that told me which council I should turn to.
At my local council I was taken seriously, they took the sample(I ate just one piece of the 2) and started an investigation, on one hand checking the toxic level in lab, on the other hand checking Tesco’s quality assurance regarding this product.
I was told that it’s best for their investigation if other ppl who were affected would contact them too as if it is just me, who had prolems with the fish, they won’t be able to do much (not enough evidence). But if the agency gets evidence from other sources too, it will definitely facilitate their investigation and gives them more power to act.
So I would like to ask everyone who got sick of this kind of imported fish not to be lazy and report the incident at FSA (link above) or at your local council. It is our interest to help removing dangerous products from the shelves.
August 17th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
even if the documentary proves that the featured fish farm was indeed using dirty water, bad fish meal, etc, that doesn’t mean the fish farmed itself is bad. with the pangas, they’re now farmed everywhere including other countries such as malaysia, philippines, thailand, america… most of the fish we get probably came from a fish farm rather than the mekong river. also other types of fish get treated some way or another.
what about the farmed salmon? farmed salmon don’t get that natural pink/orange color which we associate with salmon, instead they’re graying in color. so farmers feed them a form of dye to give them this distinct color. locally produced, not natural.
and if you’re scared of what they do to fish, you should be more scared of what they do to the other farmed animals. for example chickens because they put way more chemicals into chickens at least with fish, they grow naturally and farmers only force feed them to make them grow faster, chickens are injected steriods, antibiotics, etc to make them grow faster and bigger. oh and speaking of going local or natural, that doesn’t mean they’re actually better. a typical large scale fish farm still uses commercial feeds for their fish.a small fish farm might grow naturally their fish feed but to do this, they will have to use a form of fertilizer to get the natural food to grow if its not commercial fertilizer then the organic ones such as chicken manure which due to the chemicals used in chicken is also full of chemicals.
we’re bound to get sick from food sometime in our lifetimes but most likely its due to food storage or preparation more than the food itself that causes sickness – ie leaving fish in room temp, using contaminated chopping board etc.
instead of condemning a particular type of food, better just be wary of the stores you buy them from. if they’re the type who source their products from questionable sources or if they don’t have proper sanitation then you have a big problem.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Gabbs said
“At my local council I was taken seriously, they took the sample(I ate just one piece of the 2) and started an investigation, on one hand checking the toxic level in lab”
Would Gabbs very kindly post the lab result for us all to see?
thank you
August 24th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Bought smoked cobbler last week for first time for hubby. Who was most impressed and has asked it be bought again. No ill effects at all. Oh and as far as the injected pee – don’t all fish ingest fish/whale/turtle etc pee and faeces whilst swimming round anyway? Or is there a huge filter at the bottom of the sea somewhere?
September 8th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
“The pangas grow at a speed light (practically!): 4 times faster than in nature…so it makes you wonder what exactly is in their food? Your guess is as good as mine.”
So which is it, you write an article about the things that are in the pangas food then you say you don’t know what is in the food? At least be consistent.
This fish wasn’t exactly dirt cheap either. SO the reason so many people eat it? Because it’s godammed tastey. I recommend people try it wrapped in tinfoil and stuck on the barbeque, just be sure to pierce the foil at the bottom a few minutes before you take it off the heat.
This is the first page i’ve read on this site and i’ll happily be avoiding it for the rest of my happy life. Is it a pseudo science opinion site or what?
September 9th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
my local fish shop started selling this(pangasius)its alot cheaper than cod and seems popular.after having it a few times i decided to get my self a case 5kg(i know the owner)it was very cheap.i came across this page trying to find the nutritional info for it.i have also come across various other bad reports regarding it.first off the reports on toxins seem to be true random tests carried out in australia have found various toxins in the fish.also when you see where the fish lives its not nice.
check these videos out with regard to the toxins found in oz who import alot of the stuff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx4cykHy0RM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXGAgYw4JZk
lastly
i have had this fish around 8 times so far and have had no ill effects at all.i will use up what i have left but will not be buying anymore.to me its not worth the risk of eating the toxins,plus would you eat a fish that has been brought up in a sewer effectively?.i also dont believe the uk to be more on the ball to testing imported food stuffs.
also could the person who is getting tests at trading standards give an update please
let me know your opinions on eating the fish now after viewing the videos
September 12th, 2008 at 1:13 am
I had ate vietnamese river cobblers (pangasius) before. Its very tasty that I bought 2 bags of river cobbler fillets and 1 bag of basa fillets. I didn’t realized they are the same kind of fish. I was searching on the internet for a good river cobblers recipe. I came across a few different website including this one. After hearing about Mekong river and the condition of these fishes. It really frighten me that I end up throwing all 3 bags in the trash. I know its such a waste but I don’t want to take a chance of getting myself or anybody ill.
September 16th, 2008 at 6:48 am
My family and I sat down for a meal last night with the Tesco white fish (breaded I think). It had a very strong ‘chemically taste’ and thankfully my wife and kids (aged 2 and 6) would not eat it – I did persevere and ate it. It got us curious and we looked at the package a bit closer. So I thought I would research Pangasious Fish which is why I am here. I am not going to personally touch this stuff again.
September 18th, 2008 at 11:44 am
oh my god, just eaten 2 fillets, it was lovely. hope im gonna be ok !!!!!
September 20th, 2008 at 12:35 am
I at every time but i am not sick. only after i looked inside the fich using amicroscope in my school,i saw a lot of bacteria in it, YUCK.
September 20th, 2008 at 5:57 am
dragon guy.i would be more worried about the bacteria in garage fore-court sandwiches, having seen the documentary that stated pre-packed sandwiches can have more bacteria than an average toilet seat. but back to topic i also just bought some cobbler from tesco but i wont be eating it till i know were it was raised
September 22nd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Oh i think Marie stomache got problems on the day she got fishes but not the fishes…we have this fish everyweek and no problems as you said….also please remember that Europe is a strict place where the authority always have the quality procedure & quality check before they could approve for any products to be imported into their countries …please read about the facts and know exactly what kind of fish before saying….dont ruin people’s business like that….if the products got problems, surely authority will investigate
September 25th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Perhaps if you read the cooking instructions, & ensure you are observing proper hygiene – you may enjoy this fish, as I have, with no ill effects!
September 26th, 2008 at 7:58 am
for those who are concerned about this fish having scales or not, it seems not according to the following link:
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-8q0H1LE5dKcT4mEKgeRotg–?cq=1&p=9
September 29th, 2008 at 8:59 am
I have just bought some of the River Cobbler, and am looking forward to trying it personally.
This page has been interesting if nothing else.
Comments have been strongly for or against, but no one who became ill after eating this has mentioned whether or not they are allergic to crayfish, shrimp or any other bottom feeding fish.
I come from Louisiana, and was raised on Catfish and assorted shellfish. The people I have met or introduced to catfish, and then had a reaction (i.e. vomiting, rash diarrheao), were all found to have some sort of allergic reaction to bottom feeding fish and crustaceans, but not to other fish like Tuna or Salmon.
Could the simple answer be for all of you who have had problems after eating, that you are just unable to eat this variety???
Either way, I’ll let everyone know whether or not we’ve become ill after trying it.
Watch this space!
September 30th, 2008 at 1:41 am
I am from the Philippines where this type of fish is selling abundantly in our big groceries. I have been serving this to my family for several months already. So far, i already came up with 3 recipes, all of which my children love, but of course without signs and symptoms of them getting ill.
October 2nd, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Is this fish the same as what they call “Cream Dory” in the Philippine market? Cream dory is now very popular in the Philippines and it just taste so good. They are also sold in fillets and i haven’t seen any of it with head that is why I can not tell if it’s the same type of fish.
October 5th, 2008 at 1:58 am
It is a ultra good informations on poluted foods, espoecially those popular ones. I am not going to eat these fish any more and also those products like fish balls, crabs claw etc.
Once my friend told me that in the midst of eating meat floss bought from Siam, while drinking, he discovered a piece of bone looked like the claws of a rat. Since then I never like to take meat or chicken floss any more. In fact there are many food products that contain toxic and heavy metals causing bad health to us. Recently Chinese milk powder is another tinted case.
To avoid ill health, I suggest that we eat more fruits and vegetables every day.
October 6th, 2008 at 4:38 am
I am french and I also saw this documentary. First it comes from a sensation magazine (not information) on M6. I spent 4 months in Vietnam on Pangasius farm and I can say that some information are totally wrong. Pangasius is omnivorous so it’s like a cow who eat cow, it’s like human who eat meat. A lot of fish are omnivorous or carnivorous, don’t confuse with ruminants!
Then there is no link between pregnant woman urine and hormones which are used for induced spawning. That’s a totally artificial hormone which is also use in Salmon and trout.
I ate panga before going to Vietnam and I continue now, I ate panga directly on the farm, not well cooked and wasn’t ill!
If you find Panga in a supermarket, it passed the same microbiological test than a trout or a tuna. This fish has certainly a lower level of heavy metal than tuna! A lot of documentation on this subject.
For information: Trout and salmon are also fed with pellets based on fish meal and fish oil!
If you want to post a comment which have right infoormation and reference, okay no problem but if it’s just to break a subsidiary, please be kind of stopping it!
October 6th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Hi Isabel/Ysmael,
Where did you buy your cobblers? We usually get ours from S&R and so far, none of us in the family have had bad effects with our GastroIntes. My mom just bought a new brand now (not sure how far long).. and I just realized last night that its from Vietnam.. which got me worried. The ones we used to get from S&R are unbranded (I guess S&R packs it themselves)… they seem ok.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:01 am
I have yet to see any evidence that the claims this article makes are true.
Where are the studies? Where are the facts?
I eat a similar fish called Hammour and have never been ill (unless it’s not cooked properly of course!)
October 8th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
ew man that’s gross
October 9th, 2008 at 4:55 am
Yup, this type of fish fillet are available in carrefour here in Al-Khobar Saudi Arabia. My wife serve this with vegies soup dish and perfect. It’s a clean fish meat otherwise those people writing against this fish maybe right. On the fish counter what i notice in one this fillet brand”which i suggets everyone should avoid” thers another type that market sells another fish fillet that has a darker red color fish meat which my friend told me cause him to vomit big time and scratch his skin because of eating it. The white meat taste good and weve been comsuming it since last year. Actually Saudi Arabia is also strict when it comes to products that are not Halal that enters the kingdom.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Are you saying that the French government is stupid enough to allow its importation without verifying its quality.
With regards to the use of HCG (the hormone used to induce the spawning of the fish is the same hormone used to spawn the salmon, channel catfish and majority of cultured fishes that are induced. It is indeed isolated from the urine of pregnant women and are purified. In fact, if you check this out in your local pharmacy, this is actually a drug used to induce pregnancy in humans. Try checking out these brands of HCG: Pregnyl, Follutein, Profasi, and Novarel.
Female fish injected with HCG in very small doses are not eaten! and never converted to fillet.
Please do your homework to verify facts first before spreading rumors!
October 10th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Many East Asian and Indo-chinese cultures have survived eating fresh-water fishes for eons. Infact fresh-water fish culture is very much part and parcel of a very stable ecological/agricultural practice the Chinese have developed. Fresh-water fishes are always grown together with pigs and market gardening activities. Vegetative produce goes to feed the people and its waste and surpluses (including water-plants) goes to feed the pigs. Human and animals solid wastes are captured and digested for organic farm fertilizer (manure)before liquid from the waste goes into pond number one. Here the organic liqor fertilizes the water plants and breeds water insects and craetaceas. The roots of the water-plants act as a filter and purifier before water are allow to go to the next pond where fish are reared.The fish feeds on the water insects and more water-plants.Fishes reared are various carp species, cat-fish, snake-heads. giant-geramis and tilapia (originally from Africa)and the fish goes to feed the human beings. What a perfect system! If some of the poor nations can adopt this methods there shouldn’t be any famine in the world. This farming method have fed billions of Chinese and East Asians since God knows when.
These days with land shortages, cat-fishes are grown in concrete tanks between rows of poultry houses in esp. SE Asia. Poultry carcasses are thoroughly boiled down and milled with poultry mesh to form a moist pellet to be fed to the fishes in the tanks. These expensive tank reared fish are sold live to wet markets or dressed to posh restaurants and hotels (maybe exported as well). Nothing is wasted! (the fish trimmings go back to feed other growing fish). How ingenious!
October 11th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I am a chef from the Philippines. I have been serving pangasius for 8 months at my restaurant. I eat it myself with a pepper-hoisin sauce after searing and baking. Speaking for myself, I have yet to regurgitate any remnants of intoxicated fish. Speaking for my customers, they keep returning BECAUSE of the tasty almost hard egg white flavored fish.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:52 am
whoever wrote the article most probably has not see the Mekong River yet. I will agree that some parts of the river are polluted but Mekong is such a huge river that it extends to other countries. The rate of exchange of water is huge bec of the monsoon rains.
BY the way, they use the same water to irrigate their rice fields..So shall we stop eating rice too?
Hormones- Pls name me a fish specie that is commercially mass produced in hathceries that DOES NOT USE hormones..ALL FISH hatcheries use hormones for faster growth and better egg yield!
THis fish is world’s most popular fish. All shipments out of Vietnam gets tested for anti-biotics, salmonella, E.coli, etc..
Did the person who wrote the article visit any processing plants in Vietnam? Probably not.. I have seen a lot of plants in vietnam. They all have metal detectors that can detect differnt kinds of metal including stainless steel.
Maybe the writer can do tests on panga fillet and salmon and see which fish has higher mercury content?
My family eats it all the time. My 7 year old son loves it and never got sick from eating panga fillet.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
I bought a pack of ‘4 breaded Chunky White Fish’ frozen portions, thinking they were Cod, Got home read the small print, Pangasius fillets ??????, farmed in Vietnam,produced and packed in Poland for Tesco Stores Ltd.
Looked up Pangasius fish, top of the list this site, read site contents. Result, fish in bin,and resolved to read the small print on ANY Tesco product and others. Just do’nt eat King Prawns, re the Daily Mail article !!!!!!! NO trust in any multinational food supplier.
October 16th, 2008 at 5:51 am
Me and my girlfriend enjoyed some very tasty river cobbler with chilli, garlic and lime last night. I’ve eaten this fish many times and found it to be delicious each time and have never been ill.
There’s nothing clever about this kind of Daily Mailesque scaremongering. If the food wasn’t safe to eat and didn’t meet strict British and EU guidelines, Tesco and others simply would not be allowed to sell it. Fact.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
There is such a rave about a particular type of fish in our local groceries here in the city of Manila, Philippines. It doesn’t have the fishy odor and sold packed in fillets. They are labeled CREAM DORY. Are these one and the same type of fish? Please advice because many of my friends and family have been buying this for quite some time already. Thank you
October 20th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
YES. Cream Dory is indeed Pangasius. Most of the stocks that you will see in the supermarkets here in the Phil. still come from vietnam (especially the very white fillets). Although our local aquaculture industry is starting to be successful in commercial scale production of Pangasius (cream dory, basa, river cobbler, etc.)and you may have started buying locally grown CREAM DORY fillets (a yellower shade fillet).
Fact: Although vietnam imports seem to be cheaper than locally produced fillet, their products are glazed during their freezing process so you are actually getting only 75 to 80% of the weight in actual meat. The rest is just ice.
I have been in the aquaculture industry for more than 10 years (tilapia, bangus, catfish, etc.) and I have to say that there is nothing different to how Pngasius is being raised or cultured.
The use of hormones to induce spawning in fish species is a technology used worldwide. Did you know that hormones are even used for sex reversal in tilapia? and how long have you been eating tilapia?
Commercial feeds are used to feed fish in aquaculture and use feed formulation technology to ensure a balanced diet for the specie. The use of fishmeal in the diets is but normal if not essential to provide a balanced protein and amino acid profile. fish are naturally carnivores or omnivores so it doesn’t make any difference.
In fact, feed-fed fish are safer in a sense for the raw materials used to manufacture feeds(e.g. plant proteins, animal proteins, grains, etc.) go through a strict quality assurance system and are analysed for salmonella, e. coli, aflatoxins, heavy metal contents, etc. before they are used.
I have to say that this article seems to say a lot about aquaculture without knowing the facts behind the industry. EU and the US have the strictest quality assurance systems in the world when it comes to food and if it passes the retrospective analysis they have in place then there’s nothing that can top that. The US have even heightened their acceptance parameters to protect their local channel catfish industry and still pangasius fillets find their way in their supermarkets.
In the Philippines, the goal of the aquaculture industry is to first, provide the country with top quality products at affordable prices. Second, to be globally compeitive and tap the export market potential in the US and EU. This can be realized through efficient farming. The use of falthering or substandard products, processes and/or raw materials goes against this very principle.
Regards
October 21st, 2008 at 11:41 am
Bought 2 lovely looking fillets from ASDA today.Pale pinky white flesh, no suspicious smell when raw. It’s just been cooked in butter, garlic and ginger and it looks great, but after reading this lot, I’m ringing ASDA right now to ask where they got it from. The lady who served me said it was farmed in Vietnam and is a cod/haddock alternative. I had never heard of it, and asked if it was indeed a sea fish, but was told ‘No’ I decided to try it anyway, but am worried about giing it to my daughter, so she’s going to have the baked potato we were going to eat it with, and something else! Surely it’s farmed closer to the UK than Vietnam? Will let you all know what ASDA said, and as I write, the oven timer is going off . . . dare I eat some? I don’t know!
October 21st, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I have sold thousands of kilos of this fish since february of this year and never since received any complaints about it. in fact, people have been ordering more since everyone who has tried it, loves it! it seems that most people who have had bad experiences from this fish have purchased from tesco. maybe you should check their sanitary standards. i think it is a storage issue. here in the philippines, everyone loves it! however, sites like these really have a way of scaring gullible people. i have had a number of inquiries about these ill-effects and some who are already thinking twice about it. I wish someone would come out in the news and speak about this wonderful product!
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:36 pm
my husband eats this fish at least twice a week. He bakes it with butter, salt and pepper. He has never suffered any ill effects from this.I will continue to buy this fish, as he prefers the texture of this fish.
October 23rd, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Due to customer demand ASDA now stocks Cobbler, However its not that much cheaper than Cod or Haddock.
October 26th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Only just seen this article – but have been buying and eating Pangasius in Belgium for last 4 years to no ill effect. It has aways been a standard choice at all the fish stalls in the local markets
October 29th, 2008 at 8:00 am
Apart from all the environmental reasons for not eating either wild or farmed fish, and apart from the possible risks to my health through the eating of contaminated fish, I would not eat this fish again (I tried it once)anyway; it hardly tastes like fish. It is the fish equivalent of battery chickens – tasteless.
October 29th, 2008 at 8:31 am
I am shocked that people are kind of missing the point here, firstly I am unsuprised that some people have had ill effects from the consumption of this fish as many people will show allergic and sometimes violent reactions from the strangest of food stuffs, mine is (oddly) white chocolate.
Also it is NOT unusual for consumers to develop gastroenteritis of varying severity from eating ANYTHING from a deli-style counter, I have eaten (at the same sitting) scallops and Bream from a Sainsbury’s fish counter and developed mild gastro-intestinal sickness from the scallops but not the bream, this was confirmed by my GP as I was able to provide samples of both.
I am shocked however that people are not up in arms about the HUGE carbon footprint the farming of this food creates, also I’m shocked that people are not outraged that farming of alien species (that is species not native to their country) is allowed to happen in their country, there is a HUGE problem when these “invaders” escape into the local environment and happens ALL the time and is often IMPOSSIBLE to rectify for example (In the UK) Red Signal Crayfish, who have decimated the native species as they are more voracious and agressive (see Charles Darwin’s “Survival of the fittest”).
You DO have a choice, when shopping ASK where the “fresh” food you are about to by has been sourced from, if it’s anywhere outside of your home country, or for those of you in the States, if it takes longer than 4 hours to ship it simply say “No thank you”. Food shipped from overseas as tempting as it may be is NOT “fresh” by any stretch of the imagination and you’d be suprised at the other VERY delicious and CHEAP foods your native land has to offer, for consumers in the UK I beg you to try Tub Gurnard, it’s a fish with a face only a mother could love but it is SO tasty and VERY affordable (I know of a fishmongers in Devon that retail this at £6 per kilo)
I urge you all to buy local and try something new that you never knew existed, ASK your local butcher, fishmonger, greengrocer about local foods, more affordable foods and how to prepare them, you’d be suprised at how happy to help these folks are especially as you’ll be showing an interest in something that they are PASSIONATE about.
I also ask all readers to check out this news article on carbon footprints and how countrys must stop relying on other nations to support their consumption.
http://environment.uk.msn.com/climate-change/article.aspx?cp-documentid=10472974
October 29th, 2008 at 10:27 am
I’m from Romania and indeed this pangasius fish is also very cheep in our supermarkets.it has althought a good taste but it is suspiciously very greasy for a file fish.i wasn’t feeling bad after eating it but…after what I’ve read up on this page….I’ll walk away from this one..an the fish sector.
October 30th, 2008 at 9:06 am
I had panga the last two saturdays 18 and 25 october 2008 served up by my local fish & chip shop violently ill on both occasions admitted to hospital on the 26 october after collapsing early morning due to dehydration, because i had lost so much fluid vomiting & diaorhea.Spent three days in hospital on a drip being rehydrated.
I for one will never touch this fish ever again.
November 1st, 2008 at 1:26 pm
To Richard, I say: “I’d be more worried about you local F&C”.
To most of you, I say: If you feel you can trust the “governmental QC (no, not Queens Council”) on imported food, Eat and be merry! If you however, have any doubt, emigrate!
November 5th, 2008 at 10:21 am
The River Cobbler that anyone has bought from Tesco on this blog is farmed in the UK, and is perfectly safe to eat.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Never assume; also question, scrutinize, and research. Think critically: This photo op of someone literally injecting an individual fish with “something” bad makes an idiot out of anyone who does not think logically. How is it possible that these 500,000 farmed fish raised in just 4 months are injected one at a time, apparently on a guerney or hospital-type stretcher to give the appearance of a medical experiment of some kind-PLEASE! Don’t insult our intelligence with such obvious mental trickery. If this site were legitimate as well as carefully researched, there would be a more objective presentation, or at least a less obvious staging of this superficial “imagery.” We need special classes taught on critical thinking in our educational system, as this skill just doesn’t seem to be naturally intuitive to the masses.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
What a load of unsubstantiated bollocks and scaremongering.
If you are going to make claims such as this I’d prefer to see the scientific studies and results that bear them out than your wild allegations based upon opinion.
I’ve just finished some lovely Tesco cobbler which I poached in milk and butter. It was excellent as it always is thanks.
November 10th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
have just purchased lightly dusted river cobbler from tescos,and the label clearly states its farmed in vietnam
November 13th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
i had this fish for my dinner today i also had it last week and iv been fine i think its just a coinsidense that some people have been sick after eating it, they probably had a tummy bug.
November 13th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
had some tonight with the old man and it was stunning.some of you buggers on here who have nothing better to do except put down the economic values of the uk should move to bloody vietnam!!!
November 14th, 2008 at 9:26 am
I ate his fish and i died!
November 15th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
i’m a dickhead so read further and you will laugh!! Oh no we’re all about to be poisoned by this fish. The free world as we know it will be gone by Christmas!! LMAO really think about what you are saying, anyway got to go cus i am cooking man o war for tea tonight for my family with a little poison ivy and toadstool.
November 16th, 2008 at 4:29 am
I bought this fish friday and ate it yesterday absolutely lovely lightly dusted with herbs and crumbs and no ill effects whatsoever shall definetly buy again
November 17th, 2008 at 7:42 am
they just started selling this fish at Winn/Dixie.
tasty and cheep! better then chicken!
November 18th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
I wanted to make it for dinner tonight and i didn’t get it from TESCO. It says it’s imported from Vietnam. I’m worried! Is it ok if i eat it coming from there?
November 21st, 2008 at 1:20 pm
this is freaky. my gf love fish and so do i. the fisheries should be shut down and not have these fishes being abused that way. so cruel and inhumane! all for the dirty money
November 23rd, 2008 at 5:12 pm
my family has eaten this fish twice now and both times my wife has become very ill and spent hours vomitting about two hours after eating it. I seem to be ok but I am really worried about her as she is 38 weeks pregnant. I think this factor may make her more susceptable to the poisons in this fish. Off to the hospital again – she will probably spend another day on a drip. The first time they told us it was gastroenteritus but could find no sign in the tests they did. My guess is it is some kind of chemical poisoning. Feel like writing “Toxic” on all there pretty packages… Be careful out there!
November 24th, 2008 at 10:10 am
I ate this fish (bought in Tesco) for the first time last night and two or three hours later started to feel really, really ill. I felt extremely nauseous, passed out, came round but couldn’t speak, and finally threw up violently. I eat a lot of fish but have never had a reaction like this. Either that fish was polluted in some way or it is more likely than other similar fish to cause allergies. My friend ate the other fish in the two-pack we bought and was absolutely fine, which makes me think that an allergy is more likely.
To the people above who said “You didn’t cook it properly” etc, etc – don’t be so patronising. My fish was kept properly, cooked properly and I have a food hygiene certificate due to my job. The problem wasn’t me, it was the fish. I will NEVER eat this fish again.
I wish someone would do more research into the number of violent reactions to this because there’s obviously something strange here. I’m still not feeling right today and I honestly thought I might have to call an ambulance last night – and I wouldn’t do that unless I was really ill. I was scared – it was a horrible, horrible feeling.
November 25th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
i ate this fish yesterday. to my suprise this was the BEST fish i have ever eaten, much to my suprise as i mainly only eat sea food. Now Tesco WOULD NOT sell this fish if indeed it was harmful to eat. Please dont listen to the rubbish spouted on here the fish is fine to eat and by god the best fish ive EVER eaten.At the end of the day the people writing bad comments are probebly animal rights campainers, i think you should worry more about kfc(who boil the birds alive and break their necks) than this fish. JUST TO ADD IM FEALING BETTER THAN EVER AFTER HAVING A GREAT TASTY MEAL.
November 26th, 2008 at 5:46 am
hi. im really confused. But most of the people of the people who contradicted the article seem to have more credible background info.
i’m from the philippines and this entry was passed through email. but in ours, they added dory to the list. i dont really know much about fish cause im just 20 and i don’t buy them..but i do eat them so this concerns me.
its just so confusing because aren’t dories and gray sole different from pangas anyway?
and since the china milk industry is still an issue here, i just really want to be careful.
so, is this entry just really a hoax? these fish are still safe to eat?
November 30th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Have been buying this fish from Tesco for about 6 months now. on a weekly basis.
All I can tell you as a family of 3 , none of us have had any ill effects- However will watch and wait.
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:25 am
Well I bought my River Cobbler from Asda a couple of weeks ago and put it in the freezer. I was going to have it for dinner tonight and was looking for some ideas how to cook it. It didn’t even occur to me to ask where it was sourced from! I think I will give it a go and then not buy it in the future. However, I will question Asda regarding this fish and see what their comments will be.
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:14 am
I bought this fish frozen from a Chinese food store. But it was my ma’s friend that introduced me to it – I love the fish. Hmmm…I haven’t had any problems yet..oh dearrr…maybe it’s going to slowly become more concentrated inside me then explode! In all seriousness – I have some still in my freezer and I can’t afford to just chuck it away
December 10th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
[...] Wanna read all about it? Check this out. [...]
December 11th, 2008 at 11:34 am
EU… france is one of the member nations where importing goods passed thru a very thin and fine line before admitted and accepted for public consumptions. thus the coming of panga fish into the french door must be a mistake coming from the goverment agency controlling the importation of such fish. this i supposed is a handiwork of people who are insecured.. and threatened by the salability and acceptability of the panga fillet thus creating something to destroy the image of the product.. this fish taste good ..for people who eates vegies and fish …try this panga fish and you will not regret it…its good for the body and good for your pocket because its cheap. Happy eating!!!!
December 14th, 2008 at 7:10 am
As we all face never ending complaints about toxic river fish, bird flu chicken, mad cow disease beef, contaminated pork, chemically poisoned vegetable, genetic grains, and bla, bla, bla…. and so on. I suggests it’s better to move away from earth and migrate to another planet if possible.
December 15th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
One question…. if this fish had been highly-priced and hence not do so well in the market… WOULD THERE BE AN ISSUE?
December 17th, 2008 at 6:55 am
Going way back on this blog, I thought bovines were herbivores?
Pangasius is a highly regulated and controlled species, that is subjected to rigorous checks at both the point of farming processing through to the point of sale.
December 19th, 2008 at 7:41 am
I bought some from Tescos last week so they do still stock it. Does any one know if the oilyness has any benefits like containing omega 3?
December 19th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I’ve just had enjoyed cobbler for my tea (for about the 3rd time in the last 3 months), yet here i am 10 minutes later, and despite the warnings i read above i have not yet dropped dead of whatever the poor, brave souls above claim to have suffered.
My Advice to them.
Life.
Get One.
December 27th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
gosh my family always eat this i make a steam fish out of this fish
December 29th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
As many others on this thread ate this fish for first time. Was poached in milk with mash and peas etc. Was curious as to exactly what it was and here I am.. It was tender, nice and flaky in texture and a cheap smoked haddock substitute.
Wouln’t hesitate to buy again.
Well, if it ws bad to eat I’m sure in the year or so since this thread was started it would have been with drawn, I’m sure Tesco’s would not have had it on sale, and I’m here with no adverse affects.
Maybe iI’m wrong but can’t see whats wrong with farming fish as we do cattle, sheep etc..we as humans have farmed for ever..and cheap is good these days, especially for the poorer amongst us who could be eating FAR more unsavory unhealthy and more processed food than this fish…think about them!
January 3rd, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Stop scaremongering you ill-informed retards!!!
January 8th, 2009 at 8:24 am
I find it very difficult to belive this fish would cause such acute cases of Gastroenteritus unless the guts of the fish had been consumed too. The guts and bladder of the fish is where all the nasty bacteria lies and they are removed from the fish before being filleted and packaged.
Conclusion – not-one will get ill from eating a piece of well cooked fillet of ANY fish.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Cobbler is ace yummy i love it never been sick all our food now a days is poisioned with some thing. Enjoy!! lap it up while its cheep get it for 58p at tescos on the whoops a daisys counter mmmm yum nice cooked in a microwave for 5 mins then fried in a spoon full of olive oil and lemon juice with chopped freash parsley and black pepper… Served on a bed of Thai Jasmine rice MMMMM..
January 8th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
We have had this a few times. I have had a strange underying pain in my stomach after eating the smoked cobbler. Surely this fish gets through UK stringent tests, but what would give me confidence (or not) is maybe a comment from somebody like Jamie Oliver? or UK top chef??
January 9th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
the fish is very tasty and Im sure foods sold in tesco’s undergoes strict safety regulations. Also public would be informed if any health and safety regulations were not met at a reguied standard.
Ill keep eating it until I see it on the News
January 13th, 2009 at 4:24 am
People who start these protests really need to get out more..! I eat this fish regularly, and will continue to do so.
Think I will start a protest against “Do Gooders” who want us all go back to living on nuts and wild berries and living in eco-friendly grass huts
January 13th, 2009 at 8:31 am
I made a wonderful and cheap dinner for 6 people with this fish and NONE of us had any food poisoning, no stomachache or diahrea. And i bought it from a small local shop, so if what is said here is true we would definitely have some ill effects! Call us lucky or what?
January 13th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I EATING THIS FHIS MORE THEN TEN TIMES .I DONT HAVE NOTHING .END IN ROMINIA IT IS A LITLE BIT EXPENSIV ,LET SEE THE LAST YAR WHY HAVE ;MAD COW , ILL PIG , MAD CIKEN ,SOME THING WITH THE SHIP NAW WHITH THE FISH WHAT THE NEXT ??????? SORRY FOR MI ENGLESE
January 13th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
i’ve never heard such cods wallop (if ya’ll pardon my pun)in all my life. The same people who claim ill health and adverse side effects due to this lovely inexpensive fish really do need to get a life. these are the same people that sat down to their big juicy farmed turkey over christmas, who guzzle copious ammounts of fizzy drinks, who buy bottled water contaminated with residue of the plastic they’re bottled in, who let their kids eat fast food like mc donalds and eat supermarket sausages,white bread, buy chopped shaped chicken products like chicken nuggest…. now come on!!! otherwise you wouldn’t have thought to yourselves oh look cheap fish!!! Don’t take this the wrong way but if you knew what went into your food even ten years ago you’d be at the side of the road eating grass, and even thats polluted with exhaust fumes. my father worked for an animal bi-products company (disposing of dead animals and bones)and my husband was a butcher and the long and short of it is we’re eating crap food all the time but because it has been produced in the uk or great britain we assume it must be ok. Well folks its not… far from it!!The bigger picture has been glossed over!!We’re inporting this fish and paying peanuts for it. Do the maths folks cheap fish-tesco’s profits -packaging -fuel charge -uk re-processing = pretty much nothing for those foreign plant production staff who probably eat it every week too. We all want something for nothing so what do you expect!! I work along side asian nationals who introduced me to this fish over a year ago and man can those guys eat fish!!! they eat many fish nearly every day and we all but it from our local asian food supermarket. I’m a nurse and can hoestly say i’ve never came across anyone admitted to A&E who can pinpoint the exact cause of their sickness unless it has been through a mass outbreak or sole ingestion of an individual meal in one day. I only found this site by chance while trying to find a recipe for smoked river cobbler pie!! go figure i wasted half an hour an still found no recipe lol so the long and short of it is don’t eat meat fish or dairy… in fact no animal products at all or by-products. eat only vegetables from a reputable source…. your own back garden, since the majority of mass production farmers use pesticides or fertalizers and even the ones who don’t still have natural fertalizers from animals dying on their land and rotting into the soil and micro particles carried in the air and the rain.I could go on but I decided to poach my cobbler and have half of it eaten as i type!Planning my funeral as we speak…NOT!!
January 14th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
I bought and ate this fish yesterday. My girlfriend left me exactly one hour after I’d ate it
Do not buy this fish
January 14th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
did you ill people ???? go to the doctor whith with the fish to see what the problem is ////you or the fish ????????
January 15th, 2009 at 5:07 am
I took a chance and bought 4 kilos of pangasius from my local Pakistani supermarket about 3 weeks ago. It was cheap and looked like cod. I must say, I fried the first batch in batter and it was delicious. Myself and three children ate it without any side effects. I steamed the second batch, not so nice this way but still no side effects. I am about to make a fish pie with the rest so fingers crossed. I agree with those who state that most of what we eat is contaminated in some way. Tesco, Sainsburys etc have all been on news reports for selling rotton or substandard meat products. I suggest continue eating the fish but change where you purchase it from. Bare in mind that although you may have great hygiene standards it may be that Tesco’s storage method is allowing the fish to defrost and be refrozen prior to sale. I bought chicken from Morrisons and had diarrhoa afterwards. Does this mean that all chicken is bad and no-one should eat it?
January 18th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Having mother-in-law over for dinner next week. Any recommended sushi recipes I could try with pangasius? BTW she is filthy rich.
January 19th, 2009 at 10:59 am
this is all bulls**t…there us nothing wrong with this fish
January 19th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
This fish is just a fish!!! why can’t we eat it like other countries that eat absolute rubbish-literally!!! I’m sick of reading crap that just has not been proved. My dad baked me a piece for my lunch today and i have not yet thrown up, ran to the bog or even died…. hallelujah… it’s a miracle………..
January 19th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
I have just eaten ‘River Cobbler’ this evening and it was delicious!
I had never heard of this species of fish, so I ‘googled’ it, and the first website in the results list was this one.
It seems pretty obvious that the author of the article is either; trying to gain financially by dissuading people from eating Pangasius, or is a mis-informed idiot! By the way, who is the author? I could not find their name anywhere.
The article is so full of holes it is laughable…
The French documentary: By whom?
The ‘Fish testing’ friend at his lab: Who? Where?
Dehydrated Urine: The author actually stated that the female fish were injected with this.
The author also goes to great lengths to describe the diet of the Pangasius, then two full sentences later wonders what exactly is in their food.
The most amusing statement though, was the ‘Growth at the speed of light’ ‘practically’.
The folk who claim to have been made ill after consuming Pangasius, have either become ill coincidentally, or have become ill as a result of the fish being contaminated by human hand – i.e. poor hygene in handling, or fish that has been incorrectly stored and has ‘gone off’. A couple of people reported a ‘cleaning fluid’ smell from the fish. What they were probably smelling was Ammonia, which is given off when any fish starts to rot..
When you are buying fish – any ‘fresh’ fish, use your nose! If it is truly fresh, It should have little or no smell at all. I know this sounds odd, but if it smells strongly ‘fishy’ then it’s most probably past it’s best!
I bought my ‘River Cobbler’ from a local supermarket, where I also bought a piece of cod. The Cod was £14.67/kg,for a species that we are fishing to extinction, the Pangasius was £6.18/kg for something that is sustainable…
Finally, the internet is a wonderful place, with a wealth of information available for free. However, due to the unregulated nature of the internet, there is nothing to stop people posting anything they like. Take it all with a pinch of salt folks
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:07 am
I just discovered all the negative PR surrounding the Cobbler fish after being curious after buying it at Tesco.
Anyway, I wrote to Tesco asking for some more information on this fish and the conditions which tesco farm them in, just for my own curiosity. Tesco wrote back to me in 24 hours saying that they were investigating my request and would get back to me soon.
Any correspondence from Tesco I will post up here.
I ate the fish, and apart from being bland, it was ok. And no, I wasn’t ill! But I won’t be buying it again.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Here is tesco’s reply: Seems to be a very thorough and thought out response. Make your own conclusions.
*****************************************************
Thank you for your email.
I appreciate your concerns over our sale of the River Cobbler fish.
The Mekong river is not heavily polluted as suggested, the water quality is monitored by the Vietnamese authorities and the results are published. The river cobbler are grown in ponds alongside the river and the water is pumped into settling ponds first to remove any silt.
Fish from every pond is tested before harvest for both microbiological and chemical contaminants and random sampling is carried out by the Vietnamese authorities.
Tesco and their suppliers have audited the farms and we are confident that the river cobbler are of excellent quality and totally safe to eat.
The river cobbler are filleted and frozen in modern factories that are of a very high standard and they use clean drinking quality water to wash the fish during the process. The factories have to meet the same high standards that we require of our UK suppliers and they have been independently audited and approved.
The river cobbler are farmed in the area where they are also caught in the wild. The farming operation provides employment to many thousands of people who would otherwise not have the same quality of work and life. The farms are much more efficient and use much less energy than fishing. The fish are then prepared in local factories providing more local employment and value to the local economy. The local Vietnamese people are highly skilled in hand preparing the fillets and do the work much more efficiently than it would be done in Europe by machine. The working conditions are very good and he rates of pay are higher than the alternative employment in the area. A small proportion of the feed is made from the sustainably managed South American fisheries that ensures the river cobbler have both a sustainable diet and that the feed contains the best quality nutrients including this important Omega 3 rich fish.
Shipping the feed materials and the finish product by sea in large container ships has a relatively low carbon footprint per tonne of finished product. The arguments about where our food is produced and the relative impacts and costs are complex and a responsible retailer has to balance the benefits of farming / processing efficiency, impact from transport, and the benefits for the local economy. We think we have got a good balance with river cobbler and our customers should not be concerned about the environmental costs.
The feed is of very high quality and its production (by large reputable specialist international companies) is heavily regulated and monitored. The diet is made from sustainably harvested vegetables and fish. The process of making cooked and dried fish meal is safe and produces a highly nutritious part of the feed. They never use river cobbler to make river cobbler feed, it is all from sustainably managed fisheries in South America so the analogy with cows is completely incorrect. The feed does not contain any growth promoting hormones or any @dangerous substances’, these are unfounded comments.
River cobbler brows better in the farms simply because it is fed consistently nutritious diets at the optimum feeding rate for growth without waste.
The river cobbler in the farms are not injected hormones so you need not be concerned.
The river cobbler grown in the hatcheries, to produce the eggs needed to stock the farms, are sometimes injected with hormones to stimulate spawning, not growth. This practice is regulated and safe and no hormones are carried over into the eggs.
The river cobbler are safe to eat and free from the bacteria associated with food poisoning. The fish are tested prior to harvest to prove they are free from contamination then the fillets are tested after processing. Tesco suppliers also take random samples and they have proved the fish to be of very good microbiological quality.
The river cobbler in Tesco is selling very well, with most customers becoming regular purchasers and big fans of this high quality, nutritious and easy to prepare fish. River cobbler offers Tesco’s customers a great value alternative to cod and haddock that they can be very confident to enjoy.”
We find all customer feedback incredibly valuable as this helps us when we are looking at ways to make our service better.
If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact us at customer.service@tesco.co.uk quoting TXXXXXX.
Kind Regards
C*******
Customer Service Manager
Tesco Customer Service
January 27th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Rod,
I go to the local Table Table restaurant in Preston Brook Runcorn. My parents both in there 80s often have the fish and chips, they say the fish is the best they have had for a long time. Last Sunday 25th January, we asked what was the fish. The waitress told us it was Pangasius, so I did a google search. To my horror I came across this site, I can tell you now “my parents will not be have fish and chips there again” At there age you just cannot take the chance, and I will never buy it again…………Paul
Tesco are bound to give favourable answer to protect themselves.
January 27th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Oh! Rod,
Back on to Tesco, there was a program on TV the chickens that Tesco sell, the conditions that these birds are kept in prior to being killed is disgrace So Tesco don’t care they just want to get you in there store and save face by giving these long winded letters of how they make sure this and that is of high standards……….Paul
January 29th, 2009 at 10:20 am
I ate this fish 3 weeks ago and dies. It was not pleasant and i had wish i hadnt ate the stuff!!
If i was alive i wouldnt touch this fish!
January 29th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
[...] Don’t Eat this fish: Pangas (Pangasius, Vietnamese River Cobbler, White Catfish, Gray Sole) By zbolena Don’t Eat this fish: Pangas (Pangasius, Vietnamese River Cobbler, White Catfish, Gray Sole) [...]
January 30th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
I think this is scare mongering on a huge scale! The Mekong river has now been classified by the WWF as the river of life and is now closely monitored. And with the EU having the best health and safety records in the world, you honestly think they’d sell the fish over here if they were full of poisons and bacteria? The fish has to be processed and packed in strict HACCP environments, not riverside shantytown workshops the report is leading us to believe. And for those people who have been sick after eating it, my advice is COOK IT PROPERLY! I reckon this report was made by a cod trawlerman.
February 4th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
ive had this fish in a smoked version many many times and have never ever been ill.
The texture is a bit like tail end of cod i think.
Its great and a lot cheaper.
February 9th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
I have not read every single post in this string, but I have been eating this fish at least once a week for six months and never had any adverse effects. It is delicious when cooked thoroughly, and it is very easy to tell when it is cooked through, since it can be cut with a fork or spatula.
There is a lot of hysteria concerning this fish, and much of it has its origins in the self-interest of catfish farmers (especially in the USA), who are really feeling the competition. By generating a hysterical reaction, they hope to scare people away from a perfectly healthy and quite reasonably-priced product.
Steve in France
February 21st, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Can we trust Tesco? Over a year ago, I bought a “pouch” of 2minute rice which after microwaving per packet instructions was found on opening to be full of a noxious smelling slime. Returned it to bigT and had a full report made out, and Customer Service girl nearly threw up when she smelled it. Waited weeks, reminded and was told it had been returned to supplier’s lab for report. Waited more weeks, went back to bigT, saw the manager, found the package in their cold store, got promise of rapid action. Waited weeks, went back, saw manager…etc. Waited weeks, went back and GUESS WHAT? No trace, no record, no sample, NUFFINK! “Lost it” Bloody liars.
BTW, my wife and I just enjoyed Vietnamese River Cobbler from Tesco. Excellent. PROPERLY COOKED and prepared. Still standing and feeling fine…….
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Wife and I eat ‘river cobbler’ a lot, still alive and loving it. Hasn’t put us off.
February 25th, 2009 at 4:56 am
[...] acest articol inainte de [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Well, I must admit I wasn’t very impressed with the response I got from Tesco, although it did come in good time! I could pick holes in their reply and raise points all day long, but it wouldn’t help anyone.
I’m a qualified Environmental Scientist (not in this field any more), and all things considered, I will be avoiding this and several other Supermarket products in future…not just Tesco. I suppose that as the end of the day you have to make a life choice on balancing your moral beliefs with you income and nutritional necessities.
I personally would not choose to eat any fish that I’d caught in the Thames – let alone the Mekong Delta. I have travelled the length and breadth of Vietnam and am familiar with the Mekong and all it’s horrific river lining factories and industrial plants. I don’t care how well Tesco think that they monitor, I’ll be avoiding the stuff in future.
Each to their own though…
February 28th, 2009 at 12:48 am
i got curious regarding this fish(pangasious)im a loca resident of manila last week i had a visit on my relatives in our province. a fish vendor approach me, selling this kind of fish (pangasious) im 29 yrs old and this is my first time in mylife seeing those pangas.the fish vendor told me that this was an imported fish but he is not familiar where it come from. just because of his inadequate information i decided not to take the fish but instead i promise to myself to have a reseacrh regarding those pangas. thanks god i was not be able to buy those
February 28th, 2009 at 4:55 am
you people are idiots… me and my family ate this fish since we were born and never had any problems. beside, all imported food is controlled. none of my relatives or friends had any health problem that can be connected to this fish, or eating fish in general. do you eat chicken? cow? pork? well, bad news, all are fed chemically, all are living in a polluted world, all are breathing exhausting gases from cars and factories. pig lives in mud and eating its own shit, eating rats and worms. God! I love pig, it is so tasty… are you eating fruits and vegetables? well bad news, some of them favor cancer and all of them are watered with pee or “fed” with enhancers and chemicals. God! I love my salad! (I love my cigarette too, excellent after some meat – including pangasius fish – with salad… but don’t tell anyone about the cigarette, please!)
March 3rd, 2009 at 3:13 pm
[...] Originally Posted by go_slow Thats nothing, I dont even know what a pangasius fish is and I have no interest in googling it. Don’t Eat this fish: Pangas (Pangasius, Vietnamese River Cobbler, White Catfish, Gray Sole) | … [...]
March 3rd, 2009 at 7:10 pm
I live in Solihull and chose the fish off the menu in a local pub that has got a great reputation for fish dishes, the Winged Spur in Ullenhall. The fish tasted fine although a little bland as I chose to have it grilled without any oils or butter. It had a lovely texture and I wouldn’t hesitate to choose it again albeit cooked slightly different. Prawns love to feed at sewage outlets but their system is designed not to pass on any danger. So chill out and enjoy! Pete
March 5th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Just about to have this fish for the first time (could do with a good shit feeling a bit bloated) looks good smells good and is gonna taste good. You people do like a conspiracy theory so leave the fish alone and get your teeth into this.
March 6th, 2009 at 4:27 am
This rubbish is from some Vegan nut who wants people to stop eating fish etc.
Do NOT believe a word of what’s in this blog–its all made up scaremongering. Common folks, think for yourselves!
March 6th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
you people can do things usefull instead of trying to make horror storyes just for fun…
March 7th, 2009 at 7:42 am
Bought some today at Makro (Philippines). Incredibly cheap. 2 kilos for $1.20 only. Had some hesitation why it’s so cheap until I was told by one buyer that it’s popular in Thailand and Singapore as fillet.
My wife and I tried it tonight so far we’re both ok. Let’s see tomorrow…
March 8th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Just had smoked river cobbler (first time) poached in milk and butter with a poached egg, delicious. I am a firm believer in having small quantities of good and bad, to build up the bodies resistance. I don’t believe in sell by dates, as I think we should all be able to tell if food is off, which a lot of people can’t as they just read labels and don’t learn how. I eat yoghurt a month after the sell by date, nothing wrong with it. A lot of the problem is in peoples minds. Use your eyes and noses thats what they are for.
March 8th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Still hear to reply to this site. Had panganis last night at a local restaurant in Bristol. Sister-in-law and myself thoughly enjoyed.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:07 am
I recently bought this fish in Tesco, unawares that there could be any problems with it, and that there was a huge debate going on about it.
My husband and I had it last night, gently fried with a little oil, and I have to say it was lovely. My husband (who doesn’t like fish really), thought it was bland, but enjoyed it due to having no bones.
I have read alot of the posts left here and I have a couple of questions to ask…
If the female fish are injected in these farms, how do they go about doing it? Surely there would be far too many female fish, and how do they know each one had been done?
Not an easy task!! That alone makes me wonder how true some of the stories surrounding this fish are.
That said, will I buy this fish again…
Not sure!!
March 10th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
My wife and I have been eating this fish regularly for the last two years and never felt ill or had any adverse reactions of any kind and will continue to buy it !
March 13th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Just had it for my tea 3 hours ago… not feeling anything yet….
March 14th, 2009 at 2:31 am
That first post made me laugh!
Im 25 and have suffered with servere crohns disease since i was 8, i’ve receantly recoverd from a long relapse slowly regaining my appetite and strength, as a result im starting to cook with diferent foods at the mo i got a thing for fish!
Only 2 weeks into remission i bought a couple of river cobbler fillets from tesco, simply pan fried in abit of olive oil, butter and garlic was very nice and will use in fish pie next i think. Now if this scare was even slightly true i’d be in hospital right now! even though im not a fan of supermarket so-called fresh meat and veg, i do still believe they wouldn’t delibratley risk there reputation with the FSA and secondly the general public.
I think people should take advantage of these underated fish, they taste great are cheap, healthy and help sustain fish like haddock and cod which are becoming more sparce these days.
Personaly i think this article was made with very few true facts by a very bored teenager.
March 16th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
I have just eaten a fillet of smoked ‘Vietnamese River Cobbler’ i placed the fillets in a stoneware dish, sprinkled salt and pepper on the fillets, placed goats butter around them, then covered in soya milk, sealed with tin foil and placed in the oven @150c for 25 minutes, served with potato and yam mash, (i made a cheese sauce with the fish juices) it was absolutly delicious!! really, very good indeed:) i was a little aprehensive after reading this article, but decided to persevere regardless:) i will post if im sick tomorrow!!
March 17th, 2009 at 8:18 am
yep all well here
March 18th, 2009 at 6:51 am
I’m in the states and never heard of this fish till I saw it yesterday at a Sams Club which may be similar to TESCO. I googled it to find some recipes and found this. This was the only negative article I could find so I wonder about it’s accuracy, however, after reading it I have no desire to cook the stuff and it is going in the rubbish bin today.
March 19th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
What a complete load of utter drivel. If you seriously believe the nonsense in the first post then go veggie or better still go on the water only diet; that way nothing will get you, but hey what a boring life ! Live a little for goodness sake !
March 20th, 2009 at 6:31 am
Generally I don’t like fish, but tried this in batter last night and thought it was amazing! I will definitely be having it again!
March 20th, 2009 at 8:07 am
my husband bought a case if this fish from his buddy (restaurant owner) on the box it says farm raised-grain fed imported from vietnam. we have been eating it during the lenten season on fridays- we all enjoy it and not one of us has gotten sick- my mom and brother both have eaten too and they have not gotten sick either. we have never gotten a bone in it either. it is rather delicious. this site makes me sick- most people have no clue what garbage they are eating- processed foods lodaded with chemicals. we like this fish and will keep eating it on Fridays.
March 20th, 2009 at 10:38 am
I can’t believe you are saying this about Panga. I have been eating it for over two years and no problems. What you have said to readers is causing something like a panic effect. Maybe these people just can’t cook.
Infact having it yet again tonight.
Why don’t you look into all the other foods sold?? I’ll think you’ll find they are not exactly saintly.
March 24th, 2009 at 9:38 am
I bought this fish in spain as frozen fillets thinking it was just white fish. The smell itself was a bit wierd almost like amonia but i cooked it anyway but as soon as put in my mouth spat it out as it tasted as it smelled.
felt quite sick when i read about it today.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
I have eaten here at home several times, no ill effects. also had it in Australia in batter with chips,in Sydney, again with no bad results. For many years we ate self caught fish mainly Codling and Bass in the Thames Estuary in an area were the “Bovril Boats” dumped thier waste from the sewage works at Becontree, still here many years on.
March 27th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
My husband and I had this fish for dinner tonight the smoked version steamed (delish) at about 6pm,it is now 10pm and we are both fine no problems at all, we looked the fish up on the net as we had never heard of it before and found this site, we were worried to start with but then sense prevailed, we live in the UK for goodness sake i’m sure the food standards agency wouldn’t allow this fish in our shops if it wasn’t fit for human consumption, get real, it souds like those people had an allergic reaction to me.
March 27th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
I had River Cobbler from Tesco’s for the first time last week and I am just about getting my appetite back! I would not touch this fish with a barge pole ever again and will be lodging a complaint with Tesco’s. This site should be taken as info and not slated. I can’t stand people who have to be smart arses and say it’s a coincidence that those who got sick after eating Cobbler! Get real will you! How patronising! People will have a fair idea about what causes their sickness. When I ate the fish it tasted of dirt, but had tasted that in fish before, up until eating this fish I had never been sick from eating fish, would not touch seafood. I have a dodgy stomach and have to be careful what food I eat, I never eat out and my food is homecooked by my lovely mom. She is OCD about fish and will wash it out first! I suffered nausea, stomach pains and diarrhea and thankfully I was saved from suffering harsher symptoms, I must point out I didn’t just pick up a stomach bug because I have been recovering from an operation and did not have close human contact due to been off work. Due to having the operation I was taking Bi2muno which is food for the immune system that lives in your gut, the factcthat I was taking this reduced the effects of the bacterial/poison from that fish!
As far as I’m concerned there are people out there susceptible to feeling i’ll after eating this fish and maybe there should be a warning on the pack, personally if this fish is farmed in dirty waters why is it being sold here in the UK. Please don’t back Tesco’s either, because I used to get bleached chicken from them a few years and won’t eat meat now, this meat was supposed to be for pet food not shoved back into the food chain!
March 29th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
this is a really bad thread… i dont know anything about the rearing of this fish but i do kno that in my TESCO store it is the best selling fish. I recommend it as it’s a good quality fish and i have NEVER had a single complaint about it… we sell loads of river cobbler every week all the staff on our deli counters have had it and never had a complaint. The customers come back time and time again and the buy three or four fillets at a time. Our best selling fish. I think a lot of the complaints on this thread are a lot to do with their cooking of the fish although i do know a customer who cooks her cobbler for only 2 minutes either side on the frying pan.
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:37 pm
My husband, friends, and I have eaten this fish on at least 5 different occasions, and not ONCE has there been a problem, other than we eat too much, because it is so delicious. I will continue to buy and eat it, as it is also about the least fishy tasting fish I have ever bought. As with Tilapia and Basa, which also used to be very inexpensive when first introduced, the price will probably go up as this fish gains popularity.
April 5th, 2009 at 3:27 am
I have eaten this fish twice and both occasions 3-4 hours later violently vomitted for 5-6 hours. There is now way this was a coincidence. The 1st cobbler was smoked and from Asda. The 2nd Basa was from Morrisons. My husband ate the same but it did not affect him. It obviously just reacts with some people. We shall never be eating this fish again.
April 5th, 2009 at 3:45 am
My wife & I had some cobbler last night it was fantastic. We have had no illness. This is a very tasty cheap fish. I highly recommend it.
April 5th, 2009 at 4:30 am
[...] Don’t Eat this fish: Pangas (Pangasius, Vietnamese River Cobbler, White Catfish, Gray Sole) | Diet… You might also likeCondensed Knowledge – March 29, 2009Condensed Knowledge – March 22, 2009Condensed Knowledge – March 15, 2009 Subscribe. It’s easy and free. « Can the WD TV be networkable with firmware upgrade? [...]
April 6th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I’ve regularly eaten and enjoyed Panga for the last three years and somehow lived to tell the tale – my apologies to all members of the Paranoid Tendency, the National Food Allergy Association and contestants in the Eurovision Nutritional Intolerance Contest.
Ever thought what else you could do if you didn’t spend most of your sad lives looking for something to worry about…..?
April 6th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
I would just like to say that myself and my daughter have been eating river cobbler for months and never felt ill ma by because i buy it and eat it that day i also have frozen the fish and it defrosted and cooked very well with no aftereffect’s and can agree with the aspects of injecting the f email fish with hormones one at a time this sounds ridiculous,probably done the same way as farmed salmon that is why salmon is sold cheaper than haddock these days,the people who fell sick never said weather they eat it the day it was bought or left it for later and as we know all fish unless its frozen that day should be eaten on the day of purchas.
April 8th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Dear all…..Apart from the mostly inane wittering of the many uninformed people in the above emails, does any one have any REAL evidence that this fish is harmful? I would consider the facts presented by a fish or food expert as the best way to furnish myself with the truth. Otherwise, it’s all just supposition and therefore scare mongering, is’nt it? Sincerely….Gary Stuart
April 14th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
I like this fish. Its so delicious. The fish we eat are cultured in an environmentally friendly ponds. It’s just a matter of cooking it right.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Just to set a few minds at rest, my family and I have been eating Panga for many years (having lived in France for 6yrs) with no health problems to date and found it to be both delicious, very versatile and extremely easy to cook as it doesn’t fall apart easily so excellent in stir-frys. However I would agree that it is far better to eat local fresh produce when at all possible for all of the already mentioned reasons. Maybe we should be farming it in the UK?
April 15th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
This is a load of BS; French BS at that. There is nothing wrong with this fish and I challange the owners of this website to provide documented, independant and reliable evidence of these outlandish claims or have the guts to take down this article.
They won’t, however, as they are cowards who are only interested in sensationalistic crap that promotes French products!!
Poor!
April 16th, 2009 at 7:04 am
All people here who claimed they been eating the fish for awhile and they healthy and fine, please keep in mind, in time, when some of you will get sick (cancer, hepatite, diabete etc), one of the reason for your desies might be the poison you keept eating from this fish.
April 18th, 2009 at 7:10 am
I personally dont eat fish from the farms especially in countries where the governements did not come to the point to insure food safety regulations. Even if the products are checked by laboratories it doesn’t mean that its safe, simply because not everything is detectable in the lab and also we dont know about a lotof toxic compound how it acts and when their negatif effects can appear.In this case ” safety first” is better to follow.
April 19th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Hola. I live in the States, and I just purchased a frozen bag with this fish. The taste was not bad, in fact, I admitted my husband and I liked the taste. But after eating it we just felt sick: we vomited, we had diarrhea and we did not not why was it. I purchased the bag in Sams club, a chain that is affiliated with WalMart.. thanks for the info…
April 20th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
We had a birthday fish fry! Great–until someone looked up the fish and found this article.
What is one to do?
We know the FDA is nothing more than a bunch of deceitful, lazy bureaucrats who couldn’t care less about their job responsibilities; let alone the American people.
No doubt most are from foreign nations anyway since 2000 with the H1B hiring process where Bill (Gates)TRAITOR proclaim” No can find American workers!” Then Ted TRAITOR Kennedy who has been the USA first priory an-ti et all American followed through with millions of VISAS which stole jobs from Americans–students, graduates: now we have ID THEFT as a routine daily life style.
We are slaves–and most Americans are either in it for themselves or non Americans taking what they can prior to BANKRUPTCY!
GOD BLESS our B E T R A Y E D and B E H E A D E D US TROOPS being systematically sacrificed on foreign soil each generation for OPEN BORDERS USA CRIMINAL ILLEGAL and LEGAL INVADERS…
Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto YOU
One Nation Under GOD
April 20th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
We had a birthday fish fry! Great–until someone looked up the fish and found this article.
What is one to do?
We know the FDA is nothing more than a bunch of deceitful, lazy bureaucrats who couldn’t care less about their job responsibilities; let alone the American people.
No doubt most are from foreign nations anyway since 2000 with the H1B hiring process where Bill (Gates)TRAITOR proclaim” No can find American workers!” Then Ted TRAITOR Kennedy who has been the USA first priory an-ti et all American followed through with millions of VISAS which stole jobs from Americans–students, graduates: now we have ID THEFT as a routine daily life style.
We are slaves–and most Americans are either in it for themselves or non Americans taking what they can prior to BANKRUPTCY!
GOD BLESS our B E T R A Y E D and B E H E A D E D US TROOPS being systematically sacrificed on foreign soil each generation for OPEN BORDERS USA CRIMINAL ILLEGAL and LEGAL INVADERS…
Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto YOU
One Nation Under GOD
PS NONE of the attendee have had any side effects whatsoever. We enjoyed the fish!
April 24th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
lets hope more people find this site and it put them of buying this fish, that will mean nore for the rest of us who enjoy it !
having eaten it weeky for over a year i hope others don’t find out how good it is!
April 24th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
why should this low quality fish be brouht in to this country when there is a sufficant supply of fresh local fish all around the cost of england and do to this low quality fish the majority of fisn landed in suffolk is being transported to holland why is this bye fresh bylocal at a true fish monger dont bye crap
April 27th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
What an absolute load of bollocks!
Cobbler is absolutely gorgeous…..tin foil, butter, salt, pepper and a bit of lemon juice, 20 minutes at 180 Degrees…tastes better than sex (smells the same though!)
April 28th, 2009 at 6:55 am
HAD SOME COBBLERS THE OTHER NIGHT , DIDNT KNOW WHAT THEY WERE SO LOOKED UP TINTER AND FOUND THIS SITE. WHAT A LOAD OF COBBLERS ; LOVELY BIT OF GRUB SMOTHERD IN SALT , VINEGAR AN KETCHUP IT TASTED JUST LIKE FISH WITH SALT, VINEGAR AND KETCHUP ON IT . WILL DEFINITELY BUY AGAIN DESPITE ALL THESE COMMENTS , WILL INVITE INLAWS ROUND JUST IN CASE THOUGH
April 28th, 2009 at 9:55 am
as a fishmonger for 30 years who buys his fish every day from market unlike a supermarket who would find it imposible to do ,,THERE IS FRESH FISH AND THERE IS CRAP ,,but a lot of people dont realise there are proper FISHMONGERS out there who know about there fish ,IF ITS CHEAP THERES SOMETHING WRONG ,I DONT SELL THIS FISH I ONLY SELL QAULITY NOT WHAT I SEE IN A SUPERMARKET
April 28th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Re Tesco Panga. I have visited a site in Kenya that produce french beans for Tesco. I know that Tesco regularly and thoroughly audit their suppliers for Quality Control and hygeine and that their suppliers know that if they do not meet the strict criteria on these terms they lose their contract. Simple as that.
April 28th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
I would treat this article with some suspission. I can not comment on the morality of eating this fish, whether or not people buy local and from sustainable resources is their personal preference, but as a fish nutrition researcher I think I am qualified to comment on the 4th point (about the feeding/accelerated growth).
Firstly the “ground up fish parts” are commonly called fish meal. Fish meal is the premier food for carniverous farmed fish species, in fact its so good it is becoming too expensive and alternative protein sources are being sought but are currently not upto the same standard. The comment about the fish meal coming from Peru is actually a plus point for eating the fish. Currently peru has one of the most sustainable and highest quality fisheries for anchovys and sprats (the dominant ingredient in fish meal). Finally on this point, the non-sensical comparison with mad cow disease is complete and utter rubbish. Fish eat other fish full stop!!!!! The proplem with cows eating other cows (even though I’m pretty sure the problem was cows being fed sheep, but hey lets not be too critical of this drivel) is a problem with one of the amino acids found in meats which herbivors (especially ruminants)should not be fed. Fish is a the only natural source of protein for other carniverous fish.
Finally the first point the author made may possibly have some weight but should probably be of no more concern to any one than eating any other substrate dwelling fish (plaice, sole and turbot) and certainly less of a concern than eating filter feeding molluscs (clams, mussels, oysters etc..)
My genuine and relativly informed opinion of the rest of this article is that if the author knows so little about one area that he/she is happy to make sweeping statements about I doubt the rest is based on solid fact and is in fact a rather obtuse rant.
April 28th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
I saw in a supermarket in Bucharest Pangasius from… ITALY. Was that a lie? Could someone tell me?
May 1st, 2009 at 4:24 am
Not sure what to believe about the safety of it – but I ate some once, not realising what it was -and it was absolutely TASTELESS, and the texture was just like mushy slime – revolting. One mouthful was MORE than enough YUK! I would never buy it or eat it. I really do not know why so many people have described it as “very tasty”. – Well, actually most said they smother it with garlic, herbs, spices lemon etc. I suppose a piece of sponge rubber would be tasty if cooked like that.
May 2nd, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Da’, de mujdei a auzit cineva?
Noi mancam acest peste de peste un an si jumatate, de cel putin 2 ori pe saptamana. Nu am avut probleme de sanatate niciodata, dupa o masa copioasa cu file de pangassius (asa se numeste la noi). Il prajim in ulei de palmier, dupa ce sta cateva minute la fezandat cu mirodenii si vegeta. Il asezonam cu lamaie si mujdei de usturoi si…cu mamaliguta, e minunat. Celor care au scris articolul si mai ales celor care l-au tradus in romaneste, le recomand calduros sa mai studieze putin limba franceza. Filmul spune usor altceva decat ziaristul/ziarista care a scris materialul in limba engleza.
The translation of the movie is different than the comment of the french journalist. You must see it all and learn a little bit more French!
May 3rd, 2009 at 1:16 pm
I wondered why I was getting diarrhea when I ate this fish – now I know!!!
May 3rd, 2009 at 1:17 pm
We live in Cyprus amd frequemtly see this fish as ‘locally fished’ Yat another lie!
May 3rd, 2009 at 3:12 pm
I’am from Buhcarest- Romanaia I have been eatting this fish labeld as pangasius for 2 years now ( about once a month) we are all ok … never had any problems
May 4th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
I eat smoked river cobbler from Tesco all the time and it’s never made me ill.
It is just cheap, bonless (allways a bonus), and highly tasty. (make sure to get the smoked river cobbler rather than the unsmoked though, as the unsmoked doesn’t have as much flavour to it). Then just bake it in the oven for about 10 mins.
I suspect the maker of this site has something to gain from making river cobbler look bad, which is a shame, as it seems lots of people seem to believe them and are thus missing out on something rather tasty.
May 6th, 2009 at 5:03 am
bullshit, How the hell can you get hormones tha is functional from urine?
This is the biggest bullcrap i have ever read.
May 6th, 2009 at 10:18 am
[...] AICI SI AFLATI SINGURI… Tag-uri incluse:bio, despre, Informatii, mancare, Sanatate no [...]
May 6th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
JUST THINK ABOUT IT.
TILAPIA are fed with algae that grew on chicken poohs as fertilizer. Did anyone get sick or die from eating Tilapia?
Farmers grew delicious FUJI APPLES (taste much better than WASHINGTON)in China using human poohs. Did anyone get sick or die from eating them?
joeylee
May 13th, 2009 at 8:47 am
My husband and I have eaten Pangasius frozen fillets from Tesco several times but we have never been sick and thoroughly enjoyed them each time! Perhaps a certain number of people may be allergic to this fish for some reason or other or it all depends which fish farms these fish were originally imported from?….but we certainly have lovely meals out of these fillets. I will certainly continue to buy these fish from Tesco!….. I am sure there are other kinds of food which are more dangerous to our health than these…..
May 13th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
13/05/2009
Im a fishmonger and we sell a huge amount of this beautiful tasting fish and people come back time and time again.
Also have eaten Pangasius/river cobbler and i have lived to tell the tale and was not ill in the slightest.
Had to try it to see what all the fuss was about…
Highly recommended!
If you listen to everything people say you wouldnt do/go / eat anything.
Try it for yourself- you will love it.Im not put off by this.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
This was the first wedsite that popped up as I conducted research on a fish I’d never heard of while gobbling down a meal of it purchased from the inhouse cafeteria at work. The owner and cafeteria workers raved about and tasty it is fried! The warnings here gave me slight concern, but as I compose this note my plate is clean and only the container went into the waste basket! If you don’t hear from me further assume I am alive and awaiting my next serving.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:06 am
My husband has eaten this on 2 occasions and been violently ill both times. The first time we put it down to a stomach bug. I didn’t eat it as I am a vegetarian so we could definitely identify the fish as the rogue element. Please be cautious when dealing with this food. It’s obvious that only some people are affected (perhaps it’s an allergy) but in 10 years together I have never seen my husband more ill;. Approach with caution and definitely don’t give to small children would be my advice.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:18 am
why all this fuss
is it because the fish comes from vietnam
should we eat pangasius that comes from the States only
and then it will be a good fish
come on
May 20th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
just bought 2 breaded fillets from tesco in Ireland for the princely sum of 3 euros.
i have no allergy to fish , or anything else for that matter. i am at university , studying food tech.
the 1 thing that strikes me is the cooking temp. 150c is too low . im now going to prepare the dish and will post again in 24hrs
symptoms of food poisoning would not be present until then , however , symptoms of intolerance.i.e allergy would occur alot faster . wish me luck
Billy.
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:16 am
Crappy arguments, conspiracy theory, naive people can’t help believing this stuff. And what about Tesco? Almost all the worried comments make a connection with Tesco. Come on, folks! You can do better than this, you know?
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:53 pm
People need to get a grip. Do you really believe what you read in newspapers and see on TV all the time? Remember they show you what they want to show you to get the best response.
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:05 pm
(poisson d’eau douce/de rivière) THAT MEAN – RIVER FISH – LIVES IN RIVER
poisson frais – FRESH FISH
tout sur le poisson panga – EVERYTHING ABOUT RIVER FISH PANGA
May 31st, 2009 at 11:56 am
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/04/a_fish_called_river_cobbler.html
Get a grip you stupid people!
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:27 am
[...] Articolul original si poze il gasiti aici: Don’t eat this fish: Pengasius [...]
June 6th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Hi,
bought and ate loads of this fish from my local supermarket and no adverse effects. A lot of toxins do take a long time and may build up in the system over time….
If anybody does fall ill please raise the alarm.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:35 am
I recently bought a pack of Seamus O’Bean’s Original Unsalted Irish Dairy butter from Trescos. The suspiciously low price led me to investigate. I was shocked to find that the O’Bean cows graze on grass that is heavily contaminated with faeces from an infestation of lumbricus terrestris*. The O’Bean company also discovered, don’t ask me how, that if the cream is laced with sweat harvested from Irish gypsy peasant armpits, churning time is reduced thus contributing to the ridiculously low prices. Be warned, if you buy this product you will be supporting the seedy world of gypsy traficking and exploitation of slave labour.
Not to mention the grave risk to your health! You want proof? I cooked my family some fillets of river cobbler dabbed with nothing other than a knob of O’Bean’s butter and a pinch of salt. Flash fried in a pan for 30 seconds (my family like it rare) it was scrumtious but within 2 hours my whole family was doubled up in agony, vomiting and feverish. I took the butter back to Tresco’s but the incompetent numpty on customer service tried to tell me that all Irish butter strictly adheres to EU regulations on perspiration quotas. Pah!
In future I am sticking to ethically sourced Români Unt butter from the Cro-op. Nuff said.
*earth worms.
June 8th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Id eatn sum of thiz phish an I got bad guts man the stinck in the looz was way bad for days. Doc sez no way eat that fud again, it is baaaad stuff i tell u. mebbe i unnercook it you know i jus fry for few minuts like jamie sez but cook or not it shoodn’ mayk u ill like you know.
June 8th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
I have been enjoying Bassa for well over 5 years and I have had no illness what so ever.
The company I worked for served Bassa 3 times a week to a camp of over 300 men and not once did we recieve and bad comments.
It seems if someone reads something about bad food, the minute they eat it they feel sick, its all mind over matter, if you convince yourself your getting ill from the fish because you read somewhere that you would, your brain is going to make you believe it.
June 13th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
My family has been eating this fish often twice weekly (both standard and smoked) for a long time.
Not ever, on any occasion, has any of us become ill.
It is a lovely fish, and clearly perfectly safe – if it wasn’t, my young children would surely have become ill at least once during all this time.
We will certainly continue to enjoy it and ignore all this ridiculous scaremongering.
June 14th, 2009 at 6:24 am
i stepped on a cobbler today
hurts like hell!!!
June 15th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Me and my hubby just ate River Cobbler for Lunch today, Bought from Tesco! Even worse, i just noticed the use by date was yesterday. Never herd of River Cobbler so i looked it up, I really feel ill at the thought that this fish can be harmful. I am really fussy what meat i eat at the best of times and never buy it from a supermarket. Don’t know why i bought the fish. This has really turned my stomach.
June 16th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Ive eaten this fish regularly with no ill effect…. in all honesty, these people claiming to be ill after eating river cobbler are in my opinion hypocondriacs or want to blame anyone but themselves for them being ill… majority of these claimed illnessed will more likely be attributed to the following
a) sensitive to changing diets
b) undercooking the food
c) using food passed its optimum time of use…. if it smells like fish….the fish has gone bad! fish should not smell at all “fishy”
d) just plain telling porkies to try and substantiate the whole “where theres a blame theres a claim” scenario.
get a grip, if it was unsafe to eat it would have been taken off the shelf ages ago, coupled with the fact that the author hasnt backed up A SINGLE point to his theories… merely making sweeping remarks.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:11 am
River Cobbler was still on sale in Sleaford Tesco yesterday 16th June. When I enquired abouy cooking it I was told to treat it like cod. Then I saw where it came from and how cheap it was and alarm bells rang. What is Tescos doing, for crying out loud, leaving a carbon footprint that big! now I’ve read this report I’m emailing it to everyone I know.
June 17th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Don’t be so ridiculous. If the fishes are so dangerous as it is stated then how is it even possible that they are on the market all over the world.
Please, don’t be so paranoid over everything. The internet isn’t always a reliable source of information. Even though some of it might be true.
June 17th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
what a load of bullshit! i run a pub kitchen in the west midlands and have had panga fillets on my menu for the last month or so and we’ve shifted a shed load of them (battered) not 1 of our customers has been taken ill from eating this fish and also all of the feedback we’ve received regarding this fish has been positive. dont believe everything you read on t’internet guys!! or just try cooking it properly in the first place u muppets!! cya
June 18th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Ive been eating this from tesco for 2 weeks, its cheap and tasty, no adverse effects have been experienced!
only found this page as I was curious about the fish, wouldnt of thought tesco would sell dodgy fish, interesting read though.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:47 am
heres the proof its ok
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/04/a_fish_called_river_cobbler.html
June 19th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
I ate a lot of pangasius fish lately and I’m fine. Some friends have had problems after consuming it mainly because it has a lot of fat – I cut that off before preparing it even if it means losing one quarter or more of the fillet and I never fry it. Do not consume the fish fat or add more fat to it, ask any doctor, to much of that in one meal can make you very nauseous.
June 19th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Your just insecure of the fast sale of this fish.. why dont you mind your own business.. before someone will step on you!
June 20th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Fileul de pangasius ajunge in Europa prin diferiti distribuitori, unul dintre ei este din Italia altul din Olanda…etc. Oricum in UE sunt standarde sanitar-veterinare destul de inalte asa ca cel putin din punct de vedere sanitar este supus unor controale care vizeaza niste parametri fizico-chimici,microbiologici, toxicologici s.a.m.d. care ar scoate in evidenta imediat orice neregula si care ar avea ca rezultat interzicerea imediata(partiala su totala)a acestui produs de pe piata…Pana acum fileul de pangasius face fata cu brio si gusturilor mai rafinate si celor mai simple, iar celor ce prefera somonul si anghila sau dimpotriva parizerul si slanina le urez ,,Pofta buna!” Ceeace trebuie verificat intradevar este prospetimea si conditiile de depozitare-vanzare.Daca faci shopping prin hipermarketuri nu esti scutit de surprize neplacute in privinta prospetimii tuturor produselor.Eu obisnuiesc sa cer relatii angajatilor si daca nu-mi dau raspunsuri lamuritoare mai bine nu cumpar. //(Nu stapanesc engleza, asa ca daca e cineva amabil il rog sa traduca si pentru paranoici macar o idee-rezumat a ceeace am scris. Multumesc!!!)//
June 23rd, 2009 at 6:01 am
Do all of you think that your EU hearth port is stupid?
Do they let these awful fish imported to your country?
They have lab and will inspect any seafood from Vietnam to test
If there is any chemical like mentioned, all will be rejected
You know, VN farmer is poor, and please do not kill them by this way.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:21 am
Bunch of idots, if this fish is so bad for you i think that it would have been stop long ago.
I think the biggest point is these people should learn to cook food. Most like the same idots that under cook food on the bar b. And blame the shop, or they are cheap wads and by stuff that is near out of date, i have a sister that buys chicken near the sale by or of the odds and sods counter when she is doing a bar b. no one touches the stuff now.
Learn to cook, spend some money, get a life and stop giving out bull that you cannot backup with proof. Sad bunch of people.
June 26th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
I ate this fish several times, and felt slightly ill only once. This site may be exaggerating, BUT i saw in several videos how the vietnamese breed this fish in the river MEKONG, which is indeed one of the most polluted on the planet. See this below:
“shipping companies said they would no longer dock at a nearby river port because the pollution was corroding the hulls of their boats ” :O
I’ll tell you what, people in the developed countries care for people’s health, unlike people in the poor countries, which only want to sell their products and make money…
I live in Bulgaria, member of the EU, and guess what… People here dont have absolutely no trust the authorities, which should check the quality food products. Recently we discovered that many of the popular products sold here are dangerous for our health, and there are many artificial foods, which are not natural.
All kinds of CRAP are selled and imported here and then these products can go everywhere in the EU, if they have the right documents. Bulgaria is one of the most corrupted countries in Europe FYI…
So i will no longer eat this fish, because i think that its POISONOUS and many people are making money, selling it on such low price.
YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR… So my advise to you is -dont risk your health and dont have so much faith in the Quality Control and hygeine authorities in your own countries.
If there’s money in it, everybody will sell you poison, if they profit from it……………..
June 28th, 2009 at 6:27 am
I don’t believe Pangasius grow only in Vietnam
June 28th, 2009 at 11:08 am
I have been eating Cobbler for several months now, smoked and unsmoked, without ill effects. I have also eaten it after buying it after its best before date.
I had just put the smoked fish in the oven for poaching in milk when I remembered to look it up, I then took it out again after reading the article, after reading responses I thought what the hell and put the fish back in. I will not buy it again until I have done more research into it. I had been meaning to look up River Cobbler because I wanted to learn of the origins of it. I am aware of fish contamination, heavy metal etc., and I know that standards are not as high as Europe in Asia etc. (No racist comment just fact, lived a dozen years in Zimbabwe),. I guessed that the waters where the fish is farmed would be polluted but to what degree? Fish can survive appalling levels of pollutants, levels that would kill other creatures quickly.
My main concerns are the farming conditions, the water purity and the fish feed. I would not be too concerned about immediate illness however I am very concerned, should it prove toxic, as to the long term health hazard to humans and pets. Some things can take years to develop so to err on the side of caution is what I would recommend and bombard Tesco, other retailers and the government. With regard to officials passing the fish I would point out that where profit is concrned there can be rampant corruption of poorly paid officials. The money men of the world never have enough…they want more and more.
Green Man
I
June 28th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Just had this fish for evening meal, bought from tesco on friday, had it baked in the oven nothing added. Tasted like shit, either it had gone off or there is definately an after taste that is not fish flavour. No wonder moste of the recipes for this fish are adding strong herb, garlic and chillies it’s to mask the godawful taste of this disgusting fish.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:09 am
The BBC have tested this and found it to have no traceable elements in it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/04/a_fish_called_river_cobbler.html
The tone and content of this whole article smacks of inaccurate exaggeration and scaremongering -DON’T GET ME WRONG, I WILL NEVER BUY THIS FISH because there are serious environmental issues, BUT unlike this article I can persuade others with the TRUTH,
every time bad journalism exaggerates for a good cause, it damages that good cause and makes it harder for the rest of us.
Appalled: right motive, dishonest (or foolishly researched) article.
June 29th, 2009 at 11:46 am
We buy it regularly……..for the dog!!!!!
I’m afraid you get what you pay for in this life.
July 1st, 2009 at 3:07 am
I had this fish grilled with lemon and olive oil and it was super tasty!
Vietnamese rivers are for sure awesome to produce this savory delight!
July 1st, 2009 at 2:46 pm
http://environment.uk.msn.com/wildlife/gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=148128186
Just read about the levels of mercury in the same river the river cobbler comes from wich is killing a rare dolphin . mercury attacks nervous systems so i wont be eating any fish from there . please read the link above .
July 4th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
I had a smoked river cobbler for my lunch today and enjoyed it.
I have just had another one while I was reading all the comments about it. I was part way through it when I started reading and thought should I carry on eating or bin it, I ate it all and enjoyed it again.
I will let you know if I become ill by it, which I doubt.
July 4th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Thank GOD I read comments! I boo this article for being extremely biased, *mis*informative and more emotional than scientific. It’s nothing personal Cate (the author), but with the number of readers that actually bothered to give you proper information about this fish, you *still* maintain your falsities.
I find it quite irresponsible to put out false news and have people starting to boycott this industry. Obviously, you’re not part of the thousands of vietnamese (paid 55euros/month) who’ll suffer from this.
July 6th, 2009 at 5:00 am
[...] Originally Posted by Irish Beast Cobbler is nice Before you eat it again I suggest you read this; http://www.dietmindspirit.org/2008/0…ish-gray-sole/ [...]
July 10th, 2009 at 10:57 am
as a full-time fishmonger for tesco’s in cornwall i didnt think vietnamese cobbler would last more than 3 weeks on our counter, as the local cornish fish we sell will always be fresher than it. however two years on and we sell out of cobbler every day, we still offer the same range of cornish fish as we ever have, and have never made much of an effort to promote cobbler above other fish. but having tasted cobbler when we first started selling it i have always been honest when customers ask about it and tell them that in my opinion it’s a wonderfully tasting fish, and that it is worth trying at least once as an alternative to cod, haddock and r local fish. other than a few people finding it bland i’ve never had anyone complaining about being ill from it, and we sell about 40kilos of it a week. i suggest those that have r using this site as an excuse for poor cooking or to take a pop at tesco. What i always say to people simply is that if u dont like it, or have ‘moral’ issues with it, stick to buying local fish or british fish that most tesco fish counters provide. but there is clearly nothing wrong with this fish
July 13th, 2009 at 6:41 am
I couldn’t help, but laugh at this article. It’s all, more or less, true, but very naive too. As many people have pointed out this fish is no better, or worse, than most of the food you can buy in a supermarket.
Pangasius hypophthalmus has long been a staple food on the Mekong. As with Salmon and Shrimps, demand has long outstripped the natural supply so it’s now farmed intensively in increasingly artificial conditions. There is nothing here that isn’t done to Salmon, Tiger Shrimps (Prawns) and a host of other species farmed for human consumption.
This fish has long been a favourite in the ornamental fish trade (aquarium trade), although God alone knows why – they grow huge, fast and eat anything they can fit in their mouths and soon outgrow anything smaller than a swimming pool. All ideal qualities in a food fish, but not in a pet one. It would be wrong to say that “all catfish are bottom feeders and eat detritus”, they are a very large and diverse group of fish and many have evolved to eat different foods. But, for the record this one is definitely an indiscriminate hoover that mops up anything it can get in it’s very big mouth. It’s pretty much the freshwater equivalent of the Cod which is probably why it tastes similar.
The reason we are now seeing this fish for sale in European supermarkets is quite simple – we’ve fished all our edible native species out of existance (Cod, Plaice, Sole, Bluefin Tuna etc…).
Another freshwater fish we’re seeing a lot more of are various Tilapia species – African Cichlids which actually do quite well grown in ponds in England (climate change helping here?). They are hardier than Trout and better suited to the kind of conditions that make good profits in fishfarming… overcrowding, cheap foods, mass production… all of which are required to grow fish in sufficient quantities to feed our greedy stomachs, but at the same time are grossly cruel and lead to poor quality (polluted) foodstuffs. Anyone who can’t understand this only needs to look at a (healthy) wild fish and a farmed fish to see how deformed and unhealthy intensively farmed fish are.
Hormone injection in fish is nothing new, nor is it considered unacceptable in other farmed animals. The reason urine from pregnant mammals is used is that it’s rich in hormones that induce fish to spawn. This has been understood for a long time. There is this old, old story that fly fishermen that use pubic hairs from a mensurating woman when making flies attract more bites! More scientifically many species of riverine fish respond to a surge of hormones in the water at certain times of year as a trigger to spawn themselves. Fish are sensitive to even the tiniest trace of “pollution” in the water and the spawning of other species (fish or mammalian) seems to be a trigger for many species. Quite possibily the Pagasisus is one of these and won’t spawn without a chemical trigger of this kind. Hormones from humans are presumably used as they are more readily available (and cheaper) than those from other animals.
Fishfarming is a disgusting business akin to battery farming of chickens, or the use of veal crates, but with less ethical controls and added pollution factors. Waste and pollution from fishfarms is destroying large areas of aquatic ecosystems worldwide. You don’t need to go to the Mekong delta to see this, it’s happening right now in your backyard. As a result of this environmental degradation, coupled with sewage dumping, toxic waste, drainage of swamps, damming of rivers etc… wild aquatic organisms are dying out at a horrific rate. As many people have said we are living through a period of mass extinction comparable to the end of the dinosaurs and it’s happening right under our noses, but most people are completely unaware.
For the record I don’t eat any “seafood” or fish, all of it is unsustainable and highly contaminated with heavy metals and other pollutants you really don’t want to be eating.
It makes me laugh that anyone who eats fish caught in the North Sea or the Mediterranean could imagine what they are eating comes from waters any less polluted than the Mekong, lol! Although definitely far more polluted by human activity than is good for it, the Mekong is naturally a very dirty (sediment filled) river, which is why this catfish has such big eyes, hence the name… hypophthalmus. The clarity of water having nothing to do with human pollution! Tragically there are many endemic species of wildlife found in the Mekong and nowhere else that are currently being driven into extinction by human activity. Most people have heard of the beautiful River Dolphins (tragically all the different species of River Dolphin around the world are now extinct/endangered), but there are some species of fish there which are barely known to science, like the Mekong Stingray and the Giant Mekong Catfish (which may be the biggest freshwater fish in the world… if it’s not extinct now).
July 13th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Why not give the fish urine from pregnant mammals, they give it to humans females every day in the form of PREMARIN – pregnant mares urine.
There is NO food now available on this earth that is SAFE anymore – we as a whole have completely polluted our earth in every way possible.
The fact that two or three people can eat the same fish – tells you that the fish is not BAD, but that each person has a different tolerance for the food eaten. If the store you people are referring to has in fact knowingly sold BAD fish then it would follow that they have decided to put themselves out
of business and have used this method to do so. Give me a break.
ALL companies large or small sell items that are not always at their best, that does not mean they are deliberately trying to sell bad goods, stores, packing plants etc, are worked by humans and are all subject to failings, it’s NOT just the rivers of China, Vietnam, etc – it’s the WHOLE earth and the poeple in it. It’s called personal responsibility, and no one wants be responsible for their own failings.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Just to confirm….Tesco are still selling cobbler….yuurk!
July 15th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
I cooked my Boyfriend and I this fish several times. No adverse affects at all, however I must say that my ring did sting a little more so than normal when he gave me anal later that night to repay me for the meal….go figure!!! and then he threw up on my back, but carried on….
July 16th, 2009 at 6:12 am
What a load of cobblers.
Watchdog have done a lab test of this fish having had a few complaints.
They found no detectable poisons or anything else wrong with the fish.
If you want cheap fish, this fits the bill.
If you want more expensive local fish then eat sea bass or monk fish.
Simple.
Some of the stupid silly arsed comments on here really show how dumb some people are.
To all those people that claim to have gotten ill having eaten cobbler/basa fish… either learn how to cook or improve your own personal hygiene,
ya dirty bastards!!
July 18th, 2009 at 1:26 am
I’m 28. I ate this fish with my family since i was a little child. Nothing happened …
Let see how Vietnamese could export around 1.4 million MT of that fish every year to 107 countries ? That is an evasion … so that must have the attacks from other fishes. Billions people died ? Or billions people less intelligent than the author of this thread ?
If we are smart enough, we could understand the true reason behind this thread.
Mad cow, bird flu, pig flu, and fish … poison ?
River Cobbler is just a fish like other fishes, if you could eat fish you could eat River Cobbler. If you need to import this fish, contact me thonghb@yahoo.fr
July 18th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
just had this fish tonight for the first time. Cooked both haddock and cobbler fried in egg and breadcrumbs. Both my husband and I preferred the cobbler as it was tastier
July 19th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Who started this nonsense about Pangasius and what motive did they have. ? There must be one.
Was introduced to this Battered fish in my company restaurant 3 years ago as an occasional replacement for Cod and other fish, I think it was supplied by Brake’s but it looked very attractive at the counter. The fillets were edible from one end to the other, I never left a piece unlike the Cod which had poor shape and colour.
This fish outclassed the Cod normally served up in the UK.
No Competition ! I ate this Pangasius about 100 times at work and never had any ill effect.
All you people claiming to have had ill effects seem to have cooked it at home, you have probably eaten it from your chippy for years. Come on Learn to cook and understand
food hygiene
July 20th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
I’ve eaten fish all my life, what kind of fish is not poisoned by the human environment?
just cook them longer (make sure there still in there “fresh” dates! like milk”
no problem
July 21st, 2009 at 3:05 pm
I bought this fish from asda, recommended by the
fishmonger. Cooked the same day for dinner, poached with no added herbs, I didn’t manage to finish my meal,the smell and taste was digusting. Just come back from 3 days away at a Haven holiday camp with my family. On Friday evening we bought fish and chips from the takeaway, when we opened the paper the smell was overwhelming. My family have never eaten this fish, I knew straightaway that it was river cobbler. The whole evening meal went straight in the bin. A very expensive mistake at £6.50 a go for a family of 4.
July 24th, 2009 at 10:29 am
I am a chef’s wife and am always looking for interesting food but after hearing and reading articles on this fish, it’s from halfway across the world so why is it really this cheap?????? Because it’s dangerous and full of god knows what. I’ll stick to saving my money and buying fish that I know like cod or pollack but won’t eat it like it’s going out of fashion. Always check the labels
July 24th, 2009 at 11:32 am
What a lot of sheep.
The fish has been tested by a lab on behalf of the tv programme watchdog. It had NO detectable levels of ANY toxins.
If there had been the slightest trace watchdog would have pounced on it as it’s their style.
The same cannot be said of salmon or tuna.
July 27th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Its ridiculous and false stuff. Its just blaming that fish. When I went to Vietnam, the nature gifted place so many French people working as consultants and also as technocrats. Vietnamese pangasius also over come all types of negative publicity from west. their fighting spirit is very high. My friends will beat all hurdles.
Gangadhar
India
July 27th, 2009 at 9:05 am
TheThey have these fish in the rivers of Bangkok also. Thais wont eat these fish. They say they are not good. I suppose that is due to the fact that the rivers in Thailand are heavily poluted as well. Some of my friends and myself are considering setting up fish farms here in Thailand to breed these fish, They should be ok if bred in non poluted water. To be honest I think this is the wrong course of action by shipping these fish from the east to Europe. What you have is due to overzealous fishermen in Europe decimating the fish stock there, they are now turning to other areas of the worl, and what will the result of that action? Of course, stocks decimated there. There is also the polution and global warming effects from the shipping required to transport these fish. Surely the correct policy here should be a complete ban on All fishing around Europe for at least five years to allow stock to rebuild. That should then be followed by strick control opf catch which maintains a sustainable level of stock.
July 28th, 2009 at 8:49 am
hi
just had cobbler for breakfast,very bland
got it from tesco,wont buy it again,abit concerned about all the comments made.
not been sick as yet,(hope i will be ok)
thanks for all the info, will throw out the other fillet, do chip shops use this fish?
thanks
July 29th, 2009 at 11:34 am
We have conflickting reports regarding these fish, some for and some against. Have any of you given it a thought how some can say they are delicious and some sy they are horible? When you think about it the answer is quite simple and it is nothing to do with the ignorance of weasel who states that people should learn to cook. One time in the UK i bought eggs which smelled realy putrid and were inedible, they smelled strongly of fish, obviously due to the chickens being fed scraps of fish. Another time when on holiday in spain we had bacon which smelled strong of fish, it was putrid, again the result of the pigs being fed fish scraps. The same goes for these fish, it all depends on the supplier and what diet they are fed.
July 31st, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Don’t know whether they’re harmful or not, but I had bought for cats and had to bin as the fillets smelled like polluted water – and I thought this before even reading this site. I’m from Glasgow and the smell reminded me (and my husband) of the Clyde on a warm day – yuck!!!
August 3rd, 2009 at 3:11 am
[...] are meeting the incoming catfish with anything from light skepticism to blaring sirens and biohazard-level health alerts. Catfish [...]
August 4th, 2009 at 7:02 am
It’s amazing how ‘Daily Mail’ people get about sensationalist journalism – the world is not ending tomorrow, Princess Diana died over 10 years ago, Big Brother isn’t to blame for the world’s ills, and these fish won’t kill off the Tesco consumer base.
Yes, some sources of seafood are undoubtably contaminated – the world is a be a big place and there’s a fair few ml of water around – BUT, to generalise an entire species of fish based upon one report from one river is simply a form of adverse propaganda. And getting ill from eating fish? That’s hardly a new concept; but when there’s a story like this to tag onto, it’s 2+2=5 all the way.
Of course, raise the ‘concerns’ that this documentary highlighted from this incident, but present it subjectively. And for those reading this story, don’t bolt from the paddock and scream in the ears of the local Tesco fish counter staff – do your own research first. Vietnam is not the only place that raise the ol’ cobblers!
A link that may allay some fears; http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/04/a_fish_called_river_cobbler.html . Of course, I’m no three-eyed fish expert, and can make no guarantee on cross-market safety, but I do believe people need to take a little more haste when stepping up to the bandwagon.
The old adage still applies; Question everything… especially when it’s TV journalism after a story!
August 7th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
This is all BS. I eat this fish all the time with no problems – they even sell it at the ubiquitous Costco stores worldwide. This was nothing more than a smear campaign specifically designed by fishing establishments to prevent this fish from taking their business away. There are many references to this on the web.
August 8th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
I do not mean to go against you but I believe that your info is not that 100 percent reliable. You should have cited some sources of your info why are you telling that so. It seems like some of your points are just opinions and are not based on scientific studies.
And if they are importing that to you country France… most probably they have quality control measures.. unless if the fih is smuggled…
August 9th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Panga is off the shopping list!
August 10th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Oh please, this is all so utterly ridiculous! Farmed fish are perfectly sustainable, anyone stating otherwise doesn’t understand what the concept stands for. And as for it being less than perfect meat, well let me break some news here: nothing we eat is perfect.
We are the byproduct of ‘unhealthy’ food and still we get to live much longer than people did 200 years ago well my I’d say! Guess such ‘healthy local sustainable’ food as the one those folks used to eat back then wasn’t that good after all.
Please eat your fish without any fear or guilt – it’s better for you than chicken for sure.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:38 am
I am about to have this fish for dinner tonite. If I don’t write again tomorrow to give you guys feedback, consider me dead!
August 12th, 2009 at 5:14 am
Well, I had the Pangasius for dinner as promised. It was delicious. I had the biggest portion (2 fillets). I woke up very normal and I will have it again this evening!
Enjoy Pangasius fish everybody, don’t listen to these conspiracy theorists
August 16th, 2009 at 9:28 am
I think it is very unfair to generalize that all panga fish if farmed in that same river. vietman has lots of remote rivers and ponds.
it is also farmed in thailand and Philippines. from what i can tell you, exports from the philippines are much safer coz its farmed in ponds near the seas and change the water after harvest. they dont have these big rivers like in india or vietnam. we eat it regularly.
August 20th, 2009 at 12:31 am
A lot of truth as well as a lot of ehagerated bull shit in this article. Nothing more than the usual average journalist’s work ensuring his income…
EU/US have regulations and procedures to check what arrives on the market. Meat, fish, whatever.
It is the importer/buyer that usually screws up while the exporter/seller takes advantage of it. Greedy buyers go for the cheapest (but still retail at full price) and get caught because you can’t get full quality for less than what it costs. Even if the buyer found out the quality is no match, they will still try to get it in, unless he will get sacked because the order did not arrive as the plan.
Of course, it is always easier and more the flavor of the day to accuse Asia.
August 27th, 2009 at 5:35 am
Have started doing my own research and come across this article from Australia.
http://www.rawfish.com.au/basa-story/
August 27th, 2009 at 5:45 am
Further to my previous post, I looked up who are The Seafood Importer Association of Australia – on their website. Whilst at their website I also found an information page on Basa.
http://www.seafoodimporters.com.au/news.item.php?pid=62
And if you are wondering, I do not have anything to do with the the Association or the fishing industry.
August 27th, 2009 at 6:09 am
Here’s another link to some information I found.
http://www.richardsbrothersseafoods.com.au/basa_farming.htm
Interestingly, this webpage is promoting the fish and yet it qoutes the fish “is happy eating a wide range of food and is often raised on manures or waste feedstuffs” and the fish “much prefer dank, murky, organic conditions”.
August 27th, 2009 at 9:26 am
hello, i am from africa and i have eaten this fish many times and so far there has been no problem at ALL. some european fisherman or a fish distributor or a mega seafood company who is really really REALLY getting screwed up with all their expensive fish, aginst the cheap products of vietnam.
we encourage all people who have eaten the fish, to continue, and those who have not, to try it for themselves…
thank you.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
I am eating some River Cobbler now for the first time. It’s delicious, it has a wonderful texture unlike any other white fish I usually eat.
August 28th, 2009 at 3:33 am
I have been watching the link you posted, just to see if they are really saying something bad about it but there was no where any huge problem in the documentary. As any fishing production or any industrial production you always have to check where your product come from and what is it in it. The pangasuis present nothing specialy alarming compare to other products ( fish, meat, milk, bread or whatever you may eat) so I really do not see why scaring people with your talk and puting picture that were not all responding to anything bad in the documentary. If you do not understand french then just say you did not understood everything on the documentary but here they show small fishing farming and big one and they try to show how they cultivate the fish in order to sell it in western countries. And for the small farm, the men was injecting harmones ( female hormones precisely, women while pregnant or during their periods, produce hormones for fertilize some kind of urine…) anyway it is natural, and they inject the same kind of thing to the female fish inorder to have her become fertile and so got eggs to get fish.
August 29th, 2009 at 7:37 am
I live in Vietnam since 5 year ago.O eat and ii ate this fish in fillets frequently . i saw the farmers in mekong provice. 80% of exportation are to EUA.Never happen notthing with my health because of this fish and all the sanitary inspections and analyses detected poison. The afctories are working with all certificates of quality issued by EUA and EU. I don t belive and nobody must belive that if this fish have so many quatity of poison can be accept by sanitary authorities is counties of EU and EUA. I will keep going to eat frequently !
August 29th, 2009 at 9:28 am
im into fishing for sport and eating the fish after, well i seen this fish for sale in tescos and thought it looked a bit like cod, and the price was so low i bought it, because i know alot about fish i thought it was strange that id never heard of the river cobblers so i looked it up. and this is what i find out. i knew there was somthing not quiet right with them, becuse they where very nice eaten fish and yet they where so cheap. typical of tescos not telling anyone where they come from and how they are framed. i read everything on the package and couldnt find ay info on where they are from and how they are rised. im not shopping in tescos anymore.
August 31st, 2009 at 9:12 am
I have purchased this type of fish from Tesco on many occasions in the last twelve months and have always found it cheap and delicious, I have never been ill as a result of eating it. I think that there is a bit of silliness going on here.
September 1st, 2009 at 3:22 am
[...] I immediately found these two pages. Buying Fish in France – A Warning & Don’t Eat this fish: Pangas (Pangasius, Vietnamese River Cobbler, White Catfish, Gray Sole) [...]
September 1st, 2009 at 11:39 am
having been eating this fish for several months with no problems. in fact find it fantastic cooked in oven with a sprea of red onions and creme fraiche for 20 minutes. I live in holland and this is being sold by the best supermarket chain here as part of a fish “sustainability” campaign. They also work in with WWF and Marine Council and is clearly labelled that is from vietnam. I find this article scare mongering. I have travelled extensivly in Asia and although I understand the concerns of water quality this could not be imported without stringent testing.
September 1st, 2009 at 4:54 pm
I WAS JUST SURFING TO FIND OUT ABOUT THIS FISH.AFTER VIEWING THE VIDEO ON THIS SIGHT I WILL NOT BE EATING OR BUYING ANY OF THESE FISH.CHEMICALS ARE EVIDENTLY PART OF THE RIVERS IN VIETNEMESE REGION,TESCO SHOULD SOURCE PRODUCTS MORE CAREFULY. MY ADVICE WOULD BE STAY AWAY FROM THE COBBLER OR FACE THE WORST
September 3rd, 2009 at 1:05 pm
[...] "white fish" or sold incorrectly as haddock/cod etc in countries like france and the UK? Don’t Eat this fish: Pangas (Pangasius, Vietnamese River Cobbler, White Catfish, Gray Sole) | … – Scary Stuff…. probably scaremongering but better safe than sorry… Anyways, welcome to [...]
September 6th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Do you really think that this fish could slip through the EEC inspectors, bearing in mind the amount being sold throught Europe?
Just about every fish in the oceans, lakes & rivers eats other dead fish – lobsters & prawns eat the faeces of other fish (one reason why Jewih people won’t eat them).
September 7th, 2009 at 2:14 am
this article is just saying about the fish coming from vietnam. but alot of this fish is being cultured in commercial fisheries in enclosed ponds and fisheries. so you cannot generalize that all these fish are bad for you. just make sure to ask where the fish comes from.
September 7th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Hello,i’m from romania and i’ve been eating pangasius daily since a month or two ago and everything has been ok.I’ve replaced tuna from my daily diet with pangasius and i’m eating about 500-750 g per day and i had no ill effects.This article is more suspicious than the methods used in cultivating this type of fish.
September 8th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Well, lets correct a few things.
1. Not all fish are carnivores and for those that naturally would consume a plant-based diet then feeding them any type of animal protein, (fish-based or otherwise), would appear to be unnatural. The wise can draw their own conclusions from this and the atypical stance of politicians such as John Gummer and the beefburger fiasco before BSE.
2. In an ideal, organically and properly controlled reed-bed type filtration system, it is easy to raise fish that are clean and free from disease and chemicals. However it must be increasingly difficult if not impossible to produce anything in this world that is now free from some degree of chemical, be it pesticide, herbicide etc. It seems ludicrous to me that this island that once was largely self sufficient is now wasting oil, a finite resource, to ship a fish that should be feeding the hungry peoples in underdeveloped countries in a closer geographic region. We have overconsumed our own resources and are now using another country to maintain our need for cheap food. Yes we need to mass produce food to feed our global population but there are better ways to feed ourselves than this.I am not convinced by the supposed response from Tesco since money has ruled this planet for so long, inevitably someone somewhere will eventually be taking shortcuts.
3. Whilst many who have eaten this fish are free from any side-effects, I would assert that it does not mean that those who have been affected are wrong. It may be that those so affected have either;
a) a low threshold of tolerance for chemicals that may be in the fish, even if these are below what our government state are acceptable.
b) have bought fish from particular shipments that unfortunately have not been subjected to the rigorously thorough testing that Tesco would wish or perhaps require.
c) have actually eaten fish that are polluted.
c) or as stated by others, somewhere along the transportation process, there has been lax hygiene, freezing/thawing or infiltration with contaminated water which may have caused the illness problems. So this may or may not be due to chemical contamination but bacterial issues. I am no experienced cook but I am aware that ‘good’ fish can be eaten raw (eg sushi) so I doubt realistically that poor cooking is really an issue. Due to the length of the journey there is the potential for mistakes to occur.
4. Whilst the initial ‘whistle-blower’ may have not been in possession of all the facts, reading responses from several contributors, I can see that some believe that this fish is raised in this country whilst the truth is that this is not the case. So isn’t it easy for us all to get it wrong ?
5. You all have a choice. I think personally that Tesco are now to large an organisation to trust. I don’t like pigs fed on fishmeal, so I eat less bacon but ask for better quality where I want better standards of husbandry and natural feedstuffs. I keep 5 hens and they feed my family of 4 and I know what they have eaten, including the maligned Lumbricus terrestris et al, which is entirely natural. I accept the criticism that not everyone can keep chickens but we do all have choices. As Hugh, (glory-hunting) Fearnley-,Whittingstall demonstrated, with battery chickens that we can improve things but only if we can be bothered to get off our lardy arses and do something. People can do things collectively, if not individually. As so many demonstrate by their comments they just want cheap food. So bring on the ’soma’ of Aldous Huxleys Brave New World and the concomitant results for people who can’t be bothered to care.
Try reading about ‘trans-fats’ that Denmark has banned but despite being a member of the much-hallowed EU and all its rules and testing, we are all still eating them in quantities that research will show is harmful to us.
Regards,
One famous nuclear scientist argued that it was the smaller amounts of those chemicals that were potentially more dangerous.
September 8th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
[...] To be honest I would look into it a bit more – try these 2 sites for info on it; http://www.dietmindspirit.org/2008/0…ish-gray-sole/ [...]
September 12th, 2009 at 1:52 am
I have poached and eaten two smoked river cobbler fillets from tesco 2 nights ago. Woke up in the morning with lower abdomen cramps and temperature high last night now had cramps for over 36 hrs i am going down to A and E Hospital in short while. I was just looking up info on the fish I have eaten and found this site. So A warning from me to you. Frank.
September 13th, 2009 at 6:44 am
The process used to farm these river cobbler fish is absolutely appalling. What a lot of people who buy into what this blogger is saying don’t realise is that the whole meat industry is just as bad (if not worse). Boycott this fish all you want but as long as you’re still eating burgers/sausage rolls/low grade chicken etc your still supporting this industry and still getting plenty of delicious hormones and heavy metals!
September 15th, 2009 at 2:58 am
ooooo my god is that true or just a story to make the panga business in Vietnam go bankruptcy. I’m feeding my baby this fish from her age 6month till now 16 month she look great healthy and she can swim at the age of 16month. If this is true i should stop this.
Siti(Singapore)
September 16th, 2009 at 5:19 am
Føj for fanden, hvor er det ulækkert………
September 16th, 2009 at 9:33 am
yEAP… We work to some Cruize lines Owners, and they ussually serves It at the MSC ships, ath eh Cruise sessions at Brasil , an d all over the world it is eated… in my home, we take some pieces for sample and looks like the Cod fillets…nobody was sick, by many lucky… frozen for much time, I mind…
September 17th, 2009 at 8:45 am
What an absolute load of codswallop. I am eating my third piece right now and everythd,dg, _lajds nc, HEELLLLPPPPPPPPPP
September 20th, 2009 at 11:07 am
I have a seafood restaurant in the U.S. on the east coast. I have served this fish since february, 10’s of thousands of pounds, and eat it myself 3-4 times a week. I have never had or had complaint of illness after ingestion. I would like to reiterate that is fish is farm raised and not only on the Mekong river, there are clean water sources that this fish is raised in as well. 10 years ago, when this fish was “discovered” the farming techniques were questionable, however, today the food industry has come a long way in production, processing, and inspection procedures. I think it is a great fish that is a smart sustainable choice for the food industry.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Just discovered river cobbler at Tesco and cooked it tonight with lemon and butter in the oven. It’s truly delicious! Well done, Vietnam!
September 24th, 2009 at 10:10 am
I think your information is flawed.
http://ourbelovedearth.blogspot.com/2009/03/death-of-fish-sticks-pangasius.html
September 25th, 2009 at 2:47 am
Hi all,
I suspect the author conclusion about Pangasius. First of all, Pangasius (panga) is very popular in the world and hundreds of millions of people eat panga everyday. I and my family eat Panga weekly and we love its taste. How can a contaminated fish can pass through Vietnam seafood inspection, importers inspection and extremely strict requirements of EU? How can they enter the US market and make American fisheries life miserable if Panga is a poison fish? The author’s statement doesn’t make any sense.
For those who got health problem after eating Panga, please check the other dishes you ate before saying that Panga make you sick.
The author also showed that Mekong River is one of the most polluted rivers in the world, please google to find the answer, and of course, you will not see Mekong in the list of most polluted rivers in the world.
Admittedly, there are some bad factories produce low quality Panga. However, with tight competition in international market, those firms are almost closed. If you are concern about environment, please go to . You will see a project to produce bio-energy from by-products of Pangasius.
Panga also eat lots of soya beans, mainly import from USA and Canada. Please go to .
In short, Panga is delicious. They are fed in a good river, with well-chosen food. Please don’t worry about Pangasius quality any more.
Thanks for your reading,
September 26th, 2009 at 11:26 am
This article is a typical example of how the internet can be manipulated to spread any sort of disinformation and pass it off as fact. Only the feeble minded would believe this crap.
September 29th, 2009 at 8:55 am
This is totally bullshit.. we use pangasius or cream dory fillet as one of our famous recipe here in my resto. People are all like frogs shouting.. “we want the panga fillets” and I never heard problems from them. Now your gonna say that their stomachs are immune? No just because your a fucking ignorant. And oh I’m from Asia. Don’t believe in this loser article. Too bad he didn’t put adsense on it.
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:46 am
What an ignorant website
October 7th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Hi all,
Had river cobbler last night to try it not impressed, tasted fusty, wouldn’t buy it again. Didn’t know what it was so googled it and found this site. All i can say is don’t knock it til you try it,its all a matter of taste !
October 9th, 2009 at 1:15 am
I have never heard such a load of rubbish for a long time. I can imagine the massive class action lawsuit that would ensue against supermarkets if it was found that they were selling poisonous fish. This is just another attempt by local fisherman’s associations to get this much, much cheaper product off the supermarket shelves. Bah, humbug.
October 10th, 2009 at 5:05 am
Thanks for your insane website. I recommend medication! I’m sorry to hear that the fish I’ve been eating for the last 3 years causes vomiting and cancer – do I have to wait much longer until I have these symptoms? Glad to hear you have a friend who works in food testing – it’s nice to have friends, you can talk to them about your problems and maybe they can get you help.
October 12th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
My husband and I have been eating and enjoying this wonderful (best tasting fish I ever ate) for about 8 months ago when we found it in our Sam’s Club freezer section. They have not had it for about for 3 months and we are upset. We don’t know what other stores sell it and if someone would let us know where we can purchase it, it would be deeply appreciated. We have not heard of Tesco. We are from the northwest.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:59 am
i had some it was delicious ate it all up i recommend you buy some and try it you only live once
October 13th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
This is a fine fish , i cant understand how some people can be so thick. come on people.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
I have eaten loads of this fish before I read this with no short term effects, as for the long term effects I’m hoping to turn into a super hero(as a result of my high toxicity), a toxic avenger maybe or ninja mutant basa. Then I could do battle with the evil nazi tescos and neck the odd pie whilst i’m in there. We love the basa wiv spuds and baked beans. Now Im to scared to buy this fish which is a shame as they make me shout YUM in aloud voice.
October 17th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Some reports from some research centers of Spain/Italy:
In the middle of the pages you will find that there are no toxics reported from this fish.
http://www.eurofish.dk/dynamiskSub.php4?id=3735
http://www.vinaseafood.com.vn/news_details.php?cid=1&nid=356
October 20th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Haha, this is hilarious. I found this site because I googled the fish name, BECAUSE my mate and I just served the tesco fish fillets to our 4 little boys and we all agreed they were really delicious.
I’ll let you know tomorrow if we’re sick, but so far, so tasty!!
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:30 am
Went to Brewers Fayre yesterday and had the Freshly Battered Fish and chips( I thought it was Haddock ).
After trying the fish and asking my wife to taste it, I realised this was no Haddock and asked the waitress what it was, she replied a Vietnamese Fish called Pangus. Although I have not been unwell as yet althought it is still early I will certainly not be buying this tasteless, strange textured fish again.
October 23rd, 2009 at 1:39 pm
We live in Spain and eat Panga reguarly with no ill effects. It is the only fish my husband will eat as it never has any bones!, and it tasty.
October 25th, 2009 at 11:39 am
I bought this fish as they were on sale in the reduced pile of my local Asda store and although I had never tried River Cobbler before, at £1.70 for 2 nice pieces I thought I’d give it a try as I like fish.
It resulted in me having one of the most violent bouts of diarhea that I have ever had, and lasted a long time. In fact 3 weeks on and my stomach still doesn’t feel right.
I had no idea of other people having had problems with eating this fish until I looked online into this and found the item on Watchdog about the numerous complaints about people going sick from eating these fish.
OK, they may have tried to analise the fish for toxins and may have found none in their particular sample, however I do not believe that the large numbers of people who have suffered the severe effects and made complaints to the programme, enough for them to ‘investigate’ it, can be wrong !!!
October 28th, 2009 at 10:58 am
I’ve eaten this fish, bought from stores large and small here in the Czech Republic, and suffered no ill effects. This doesn’t mean it is safe – any more than problems among some consumers indicate a widespread problem. Obviously, there are many points along the chain, from the ponds to the dinner table, where things can go wrong. It’s good that the possibility of a problem has been identified: now let’s get some hard data. Health officials, not stores, should be contacted.
October 30th, 2009 at 7:47 am
Wife already bought it from Morrison’s so looked up a recipe for smoked fish. After reading comments decided to try it anyway – keeping an open mind. Cooked simply in butter for about 6 minutes each side with stir fried veg and thai sauce, looked and tasted ok. Had dinner about 8.00 pm. Next day, at about 11.30am, felt absolutely terrible with stomach cramps, diarrhoea and dizziness. Never had such a delayed reaction to eating anything before and I do not have a weak stomach. Shall not recommend this to anyone. In the end I suppose you get what you pay for. I did check the label from the fish counter – farmed in Vietnam, cheers lads!.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Kakaballs! Zenophobia at its ugliest. Remember the hooey about coconut oil having high cholesterol content? However, I enjoyed the thread: the human parade a la Canterbury Tales.
New item on the menu: Fresh crap with brown sauce.
November 4th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Seven months on from my first posting, I’m still enjoying Panga regularly and waiting for the ill effects – you never get a money-back guarantee from whinging scaremongers, do you? If it doesn’t kick in soon, I’m gonna have to put 4 tonnes of Andrex on eBay.
Sounds as if a lot of people are just as disappointed; they don’t appreciate the dangers of enjoying yourself when, with a little more caution, you could be downright miserable till you’re a hundred and eighteen!
Maybe the Precious Ones will soon have a good gloat as they scrawl ‘Told you so’ on my headstone.
November 4th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
peixe gato do mekong……nova aberraçao da globalizaçao?
November 4th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
surimi….idem?
November 5th, 2009 at 4:19 am
This article is a pile of horse shite….propaganda from a pissed of seller of other fish who can’tcompete with cheaper imports is all. This fish is delicious, I have been eating it the last 2 years in soups and tacos. It is not Chilean Sea Bass for certain but at the cost it is a great source of protien, it is VERY SUSTAINABLE, grows fast, and in Vietnam they have been farming this fish for hundreds of years.
I am here n Vietnam right nopw and toured a fish processing facility. FDA registered, highly laborious process to keep facilities clean and the finished product is very high quality. The world will be eatimng a lot more of this fish….a competitive alternative to Tilapia.
If you have a bad experience on this fish it is the RETAILER MISHANDLING THE PRODUCT – OR – THE RETAILER BUYING FROM AN UNKNOWN UNCERTIFIED SUPPLIER!!!!
November 5th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Ihave been eating this fish from tesco,for a year.once a week, then 3 months ago decided 2 a lot mre in,as I wanted to eat healthier having it,nearly 5 times a week,I was very very ill with food poisoning,never thinking,it was the fish,it happened again,2 weeks later,since reading this article I think,I have had a lucky break and I will be calling tesco to complain,to put lives at risk,when there is enough dangers around already,is beyond belief,I know it was the fish as only I had it,and I thought i was dying,even if there is a small risk it should not be sold,how can these things keep happening,
November 6th, 2009 at 5:54 am
[...] one (of course you’re not entirely free from contaminants unless you go organic, but still!). Why do you think your restaurants sell such cheap fish? And what they claim to be tuna sashimi probably isn’t, [...]
November 10th, 2009 at 6:16 am
Having looked up this fish, and stumbling over this site, to learn more about what my family and I are eating, I was amazed to see so many adverse comments presented as fact and reason for not buying this fish.
Whilst I do not doubt the validity of the illness claims, the issue is over a sustainable food source to meet consumer needs. I greatly believe in the EU and its regulations. fish like this are needed to enable us to continue to eat fish products. I would not be surprised to find it in many commercial products as well as high street chip shops.
Unless proof is presented that this fish is poisonous, I will continue to cook and eat it. And there is the point. I choose this fish as others can, and have stated, choose not to buy it.
As well as meeting our needs as consumers, this fish represents employment for a regulated industry and the country that produces it. We are buying it. We are the reason it is on sale. So, we are responsible for whatever happens as a consequence of providing the neccessary market for this product. Chicken is another example of Asia producing a lot of what we eat, most times, unknowingly. However, it is easy to complain about something that one does not like, after learning about its origins. It is a wholley different case to deal with a perceived problem and present an alternative.
A point raised earlier was that this fish has a large carbon footprint. Well, as a consumer, I know I am responsible for a lot of these emmissions by purchasing clothes clearly indicating their Asian origin. I use gadgets that can only come from the East and I drive vehicles whose components were sourced from all over the world. We are the reason for the carbon issues. I do not see third world nations devouring what we do in consumables, but we are happy that they make them for us, and we know exactly how much in wages they are paid and in what conditions they live and work.
I acknowledge my responsibility in providing a market for this cheap fish. I will continue to eat it and am happy to have found a fish that replaces the once common but now expensive alternatives. I think that this fish represents the only currently viable solution to our fish needs and can, myself, suggest no other practical way at this time. However, I do dream that one day we might have a truly International Union, supporting each other and working in harmony. But we first need world peace and with only one Miss World to fight for it, are a long way off yet.
November 18th, 2009 at 6:17 am
Panga = KK?
November 18th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
I ate this fish sometime, good for me, no bad effect.
After all, I think the only reason why you got bad time ill with this fish is… you are allergic to this fish. Not everybody gets ill after eat it, that’s the truth. My brother eats shrimp and gets ill effect sometime.
If you take the bad effect after eat this fish, it’s just not a kind of fish for you, doesn’t mean it’s toxic or something like that.
Do you want to know why it was cheap? Because Vietnamese farmers are poorer than the farmers in UK. Everything is sold cheaper in Vietnam, fish’s food can be homemade, etc…
November 19th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Yeha Paul.
The EU fishery system..
The one that makes fisherman throw dead fish back into the sea if they overcatch, rather than reduce their next catch
You’re having a laugh son!!
November 20th, 2009 at 5:52 am
here u can find about pangasius…all this are lies that fish meat isnt that bad how is writen here….
http://mattsteinglass.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/thou-blackguard-thou-slanderest-my-fish/
November 20th, 2009 at 8:41 am
WATCHDOG Investigated
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/04/a_fish_called_river_cobbler.html
ITS FINE – Tesco’s Cobbler is farmed int he uk, some said Surrey.
November 21st, 2009 at 12:23 pm
No tak to je humus!!! Já pangasia vždycky jedla a hrozně mi chutná, ale po tomhle článku, co jsem četla, je to úplně odporné!!! Vždycky jsme to jedli na Vánoce, ale teď už se opravdu vrátím ke kaprovy…
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:12 pm
You were reported by F.B.I. for the crime of broadcasting false messages; your assumed effort of unfair competition will be investigated soon, so please watch out of U.S. police.
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:14 pm
http://hoax.cz/hoax/pangasius—je-to-k-jidlu/
proboha všem komu jste poslali ten přiteplený mail pošlete rychle tenhle odkaz, mimochodem, přeposláním toho mailu se dopouštíte trestného činu rozšiřování falešné poplašné zprávy.
November 23rd, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Denna fisken har jag ätit varannan dag i flera år och jag har fått mindre värk i kroppen och mår mycket bra kollar ofta mina blodvärden och dom ligger på topp
November 24th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Ive had smoked river cobbler a quite few times now from tescos and enjoyed it.
November 27th, 2009 at 5:26 am
Watch Dog Report:-
Now they do check things out!
A fish called river cobbler
Post categories: Food and drink
Rob Unsworth – editor | 15:56 UK time, Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Watchdog has had several emails about a fish called river cobbler which is on sale at Asda and Tesco. It’s also on sale at Sainsbury’s where it’s called basa. It comes from Vietnam and its proper name is pangasius.
Some of you looked it up on the internet because you’d never heard of it before, and came across all sorts of horror stories claiming it’s fill of toxins, such as arsenic, toxic metals and harmful pesticides.
Lauren Antony from Lanarkshire emailed us to see if we could investigate this further and enlighten the nation, so we had a go.
Five tests
We sent a fish we bought in Asda to a lab, where the scientists did five tests to see if they could find some of the things the internet reports suggested they would.
The lab told us they couldn’t find detectable levels of any of those substances – which to all intent and purposes mean they weren’t there.
Now, as we only tested one fish, we can’t say the scare stories are a load of cobblers – but we found no reason why anyone should worry.
The supermarkets say they’ve done plenty of their own research too, and maintain that they wouldn’t sell any product that they weren’t confident in anyway.
November 28th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
What a load of crock…. are most of the readers mind dead or what… Cannot they see that this fable was originally designed to scare local consumers from purchasing their seafood form other foreign sources. I am an Australian Master fisherman and I specialize in seafood cuisine. I have yet to find a single case of food poisoning or a substantiated case of contamination of Bassa from any authoritive source.. in particular official food warnings and or actual cases of food poisoning. People are so paranoid these days…
If so many fish were so contaminated why are they so healthy. I often see huge fish kills in Australia from substances such as detergent spills or even once a milk spill into a pond. So ask your goodselves why… why this Bassa scare.
Now I will tell you. As a fisherman I once privy to a meeting of international seafood distributors and Vietnam was chosen at this meeting to be targeted as the source of all things bad in the fishing export import game… By doing this the heat would off the local industries and keep local fish prices inflated. It was good plan and it has worked.
So there you have it… its all about greed. money and more greed.
Find me an authority who can show and prove that the Vietnamese supplied Bassa is any more contaminated than our local Bream or tuna and I will eat my hat.. You cant because this fable is designed to remove dollars from your pocket not contamination from the seas and rivers.
Bassa is in fact a wonderful fish to eat and is so clean and palatable. FM Aussie Master Fisherman.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:28 am
I was at an hotel over the weekend and Pangasius was on the menu, I had never heard of it so I tried it. It was flavoured with Dill and I thought it was very good. When I researched the fish on Google, I thought it’s no wonder it’s sold by that name rather than River Cobbler. I do know it’s farmed in Surrey now, obviously I don’t know where mine was farmed but all the same I thought it was good. I would now have to check the price on the menu in future because I wouldn’t want to pay Cod or Haddock prices. My meal came bundled with the price of the hotel room.
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:48 am
It’s all just an advertising move. You are blinded by the boulevard.
Curiously, hamburgers, cheseburgry, chips together under pressure and pushing you one that’s going to die here and once you believe something you have not verified. It’s silly!
Greetings from Czech Republic, if you know where it really is, ;o)
Lucka Vlachová
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:54 am
Opinion of the State Veterinary Administration CR
In recent years, spreading the Net wrong Czech language journal article allegedly written by the terrible Pangas captive in Vietnam, which is full of all possible residues of malachite green and hormones from outsiders. In a careful reading, perhaps the sensible people understand that this is a classic libel.
However seménko mistrust has been sown and we have already responded to several questions, such as the school canteen operators, as is real. State Veterinary Administration CR zorganizovla two control actions in fish. One is specifically concerned Pangas originating from Vietnam, where the samples were laboratory tested for the presence of steroids, chlorinated pesticides and PCBs and chemical elements. All previous samples with negative results.
The second action aimed at deceiving customers in terms of labeling will be evaluated in the coming days. However, today may be noted that in 4 products Pangas were identified deficiencies in the description, but it was not oo health threats. It was the absence of content polyphosphates on the packaging (albeit below the limit) and found lower meat content than the manufacturer declared.
Pangas is a freshwater fish originally from Southeast Asia, from which we also frozen imports. It is characterized by fine white meat and admits quite popular. If customers have to put something out, and the price, in the sense that in the case of frozen fish for the price of meat not buy water. If fish are frozen and not otherwise identified, may contain water up to 5%. If the so-called glazing, which is to protect the fish meat from drying out cold, or water added to them with additives, the meat of fish contain more water. And the customer shall be informed. Some manufacturers therefore packs the fish state: “Without the added water”, here the customer can be sure that there is indeed water up to a maximum of 5%.
So we conclude if we released the fish at the market, ie market network must meet the conditions of health and how health supervision authorities keep being convinced this is true even of that Pangas!
Josef Duben,
printing. speakers SVS ČR
————————————————– ——————————
Observations on the report from Eurofrigo
Good day,
the matter pangasius:
- It is really a freshwater fish, farmovaná in Asia, particularly in Vietnam.
- Is fed pellets, as well as all farmované marine and freshwater fish (salmon in Norway, sea bream-dorado in Turkey, etc.)
- Water in ponds, where pangasius farmován the various arms of the Mekong and must be changed every day,
- Malachite green is a banned substance, used previously against zaplísnění gills of fish (which was previously also sladkovod. Fish in Europe, later forbidden), in the past for some supplies Pangas. in Europe, captured these substances and goods returned to Vietnam. In the last 2 years has not heard about it (see the recent test published in the MFD – the emerald green – all negative). Farm and processing factory are under the control of veterinarians from the EU and the EU have a reg number.
- Pangasius as freshwater fish (like carp, ..) does not, of course, many useful substances (iodine, -) as the fish of the sea, but not in any way harmful. Testing is done both in the ports of entry into the EU, random state vet. CR management.
- What is the amount of nutrition. substances (especially protein) is the Pangas. quite well, but beware, the main problem (and it is the same for marine fish !!!!) content is intentionally added chemicals (polyphosphate, citrate), which binds 20 to 30% of artificially added water within the fish meat in order to reduce the price. Then, of course, a customer who buys a fish eat less protein. The customer must check the composition on the packaging, if there is any chemistry (E.), they must reckon with the fact that it buys a lot more water, then, that in addition to the labeling of water in% – the amount of ice that is naglazovaný filleting, buys a further 20-30% of water inside the fish.
- Our company is just one of the importers pangasia, but unlike other import about 90% pangasia entirely without chemical additives, which have marked on the packaging.
Best regards
V. Prokop
Eurofrigo CZ
————————————————– ——————————
Observations on the report from Nowaco
As you know, pangasius is now one of the most popular fish on the Czech market. It is, in addition to its relatively affordable price, given the fact that the fish fillets are white, have no bones and are not feeling the dovetail.
Since it is a freshwater fish, it is logical that it include not the typical attributes of seafood – a high content of iodine, omega 3 fatty acids, and other health-promoting substances.
Another important factor is the fact that it is a fish, originating essentially from farmed game animals, nestravuje therefore, as is the case in wild caught species. Fish grow to the “selling” the size of roughly 1 year. They act only on the farms in Vietnam, it is obvious that they are imported into Europe only in the frozen state.
It is logical that the fish of the sea, consuming the plankton, are characterized by much better attributes and their consumption is much more appropriate and beneficial to the human body.
Do pangasia further for cheaper goods added additives (additives) that the fish muscle build more water. These are mainly polyphosphates (E 452). There is a standard set by the EU, which is 0.5% weight.
However, if the standard is exceeded, such a product can be considered harmful. Recently, by the way, had to withdraw several products from the market because it was found that polyphosphates contain more than allowed. In addition to the newly polyphosphates used other substances used to establish additional water, such as citric acid and baking soda, to ensure that the white color and pull the fish fillets taste.
There being no limits and can say that compared polyfosfátům is to man a more friendly way goods cheaper.
It is true that the consumer should be informed of all substances that have been used and should have to learn the composition of the product.
Our position is clearly favor seafood (such as cod or saithe štikozbuec), both because of their vastly greater benefits to the human body and also due to the fact that we offer fillets of marine fish with no additives and only so-called protective glaze, which prevents vymrzání filet and never exceeding 10%.
Company Nowaco of course closely examines the quality control and health of their products. Raw materials are permanently controlled by the sensory laboratory. Our packer of fresh and frozen fish is fully certified (HACCP, BRC, IFS), and is under constant veterinary supervision.
ing Predrag Bilic
guarantee the purchase of fish
NOWACO United Republic s.r.o.
December 6th, 2009 at 10:58 am
dan
just i want to thank you for your respond you are example of pure human ,,
thanks too much for this topic also ,,
i hope every one know about it ,,
December 7th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
It is a good fish to eat and I give it to my family and will continue to recommend to friends. I do not think that Tesco will take the chance of selling bad quality food to the people. The liability is too much to shoulder should anything bad happen. If you choose not to eat River Cobbler, eat something else, don’t make comments so unpalatable to those who still prefer to have it on their dinner plates.
December 12th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
hi there i had one mouthful of this fish from my boyfriends piece of panga 3 or 4 hours later i was vomitting for about 8 hour i was very ill i can only say i was allergic to the fish or my boyfriend as a iron stomach cos he was fine
December 13th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
The article made me laugh.
Did anyone else have visions of pregnant women in China strapped to some bizarre urine collection device?
Sensationalism and panic mongering should be left to the ‘real journalists’…
Heaven help us all.
December 15th, 2009 at 1:42 am
This is a bunch of horse manure….I have been to Vietnam, visited the farms and factories. There is nothing pleasant about industrial farming but the finished product is clean, blast frozen, and of highest quality. The fish monger is facing competition, no doubt, the cruel reality of a cheaper fish is it takes away demand of alternatives that cost 3-100% more. This is a delicious fish and I maintain a stock in my own freezer for soups and sautee tacos and sandwiches.
December 15th, 2009 at 8:33 am
[...] aka pangasius. It is farmed in unsanitary conditions and fed dubious food. have a read of this http://www.dietmindspirit.org/2008/0…ish-gray-sole/ You cannot go wrong with Cod and Salmon. Both are high quality proteins and native to our [...]
December 15th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
On sale in Tesco tonight – only noticed it because of the really cheap price, They had both fillets and smoked (yellow) – it looked like cod. Never heard of River Cobbler before, even the name is a bit off putting.
Don’t think I’ll be buying any.
December 19th, 2009 at 7:43 am
I`m eating for some time and i don`t got shit.
December 22nd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I live in France and bought and eaten this fish a few times in ignorance so far not been ill as I have a very delicate constitution from too many trips to the Far East over the years. In fact just had some tonight for tea (thankfully before reading all this but now with regret!) I hadn’t heard of it as Pangas to be honest by my mother had told me about it as Vietnamese River Cobbler – so I will be warning her off I think….let me see how the night pans outs with a stomach full of Pangas! wish me luck!
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:02 pm
No worries, Pangasius is perfectly healthy fish, in terms of quality of a supermarket fish. Maybe not so light as Salmon, but still healthy and delicious. This massive hoax that spreads over the internet came out of one fun message, that went off like a fear spreading snowball.
Also have in mind that as long as you don’t grab a fishing pole and catch a fish from crystal clear river, you will still eat supermarket fish, grown in large fishtank.
December 25th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Nguyen Minh Triet….¿engulle panga?
December 29th, 2009 at 9:13 am
I eat this fish (from Tesco) regularly – once a week for the last three or four months. It is delicious and I have never had any ill effects at all. All the people who have commented that they’ve thrown their freshly-bought fish away are rather silly, I think. One must use one’s discretion in interpreting sensationalist scare-mongering…
January 6th, 2010 at 10:25 am
hey guysz yah kno wat ?! im jush disgusted by the fact that what ive been eating so far is actually some piece of contaminated shyte….urghhhh (my belly aches now) and like you kno wat im jus guna puke…..
well basically my family’s been eating this fish for like ages (we stopped a month ago) well a few months more like it and everyone loves it. nobodys ever had a bad reaction to it and we all seemed to love it and enjoy it for dinner. we even recommended it to other peeps and they sure loved it nobody had a bad side effect or anything. but when my dad and mum went to someones house a month ago they were like ‘remember we ate that yummy fish at yur house once’ and they wer like ‘our sons say its not good or sumit’ but their fam eats it. then me dad came home and googled it and found some nex stuff bout it tha its contaminated n shit. we were all disgusted and even tho we didnt have a side effect or anyfin we jus stopped it right there…….phewwww……..we were juss gunna be sikk mann……….yukkkkkkk :@
take care peopleszzzzzzzz -
and membaa
DONT EAT THAT FISH its grosssseyyyyyy eurghhhhhh
January 6th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
well i did test the fish and was not ill at all.i also thought it tasted ok.i do have to admit reading these posts put me off as i am fussy about what fish i eat and spent all day preparing to be sick.i wasnt and all in all the fish was fine and i think its a bit stupid to realy think a big store would sell a product that made all these people ill.well i rate it.its not cod but its a very good buy for the price.
January 7th, 2010 at 11:33 am
The BBC Watchdog programme, Tesco,Sainsbury and Government Labs have all checked this fish in labs and found no traces of anything harmful. I eat it on a regular basis and have bever been ill ever. I think people who are ill are simply so because of what they have read. I tend to toss mine in seasoned flour, dip it in egg and roll in natural breadcrumbs. A ferfect subsitute for thin cod fillet.
January 7th, 2010 at 11:37 am
Summary of BBC report – Watchdog has had several emails about a fish called river cobbler which is on sale at Asda and Tesco. It’s also on sale at Sainsbury’s where it’s called basa. It comes from Vietnam and its proper name is pangasius.
Some of you looked it up on the internet because you’d never heard of it before, and came across all sorts of horror stories claiming it’s fill of toxins, such as arsenic, toxic metals and harmful pesticides.
Lauren Antony from Lanarkshire emailed us to see if we could investigate this further and enlighten the nation, so we had a go.
Five tests
We sent a fish we bought in Asda to a lab, where the scientists did five tests to see if they could find some of the things the internet reports suggested they would.
The lab told us they couldn’t find detectable levels of any of those substances – which to all intent and purposes mean they weren’t there.
Now, as we only tested one fish, we can’t say the scare stories are a load of cobblers – but we found no reason why anyone should worry.
The supermarkets say they’ve done plenty of their own research too, and maintain that they wouldn’t sell any product that they weren’t confident in anyway.
January 8th, 2010 at 5:19 am
Hi,
there is something about this fish. At the first time I eat pangasius, it was two years ago. I never forget that day. I thought I was going to die. I had a pangasius, potatoes and some salat for lunch. I made it myself. half an hour even less after eating this meal it started. Vomiting, diarrhea and effects from food poisoning, exactly as written in the article above. It lasted the whole day. I thought it could be from anything I eat that day. Well 3 months later, I went for lunch to a restaurant, I had mash potato – as I eat them all life, this should be OK and a fish. They wrote on the menu just a fish (I remind that I had not eaten any food before). I eat it and half an hour after, I was laying on the office floor with pain and had the same as mention before. Two days after, I went to the restaurant to ask what fish it was. They said – Pangasius. Since than I would never eat that fish again. I do not have any alergy at and all fishes I have eat so far were OK. There must be something about this fish that gets certain people into this horrendous stage. This is my personal experience.. by the way I am from Czech republic.
January 8th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
To be honest even if it did have any contaminent in it you would have to eat a fair amount to make any difference to you.
I love the stuff and had it in excess of 30 times with no ill effect’s.
It’s amazing what people can convince them selves that they have got after reading a article.
January 8th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
If anybody is thinking of chucking there fish in the bin let me know and i will gladly pick it up for FREE.
January 10th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
This post should really be taken down and the blog operator taken to task or sued.
Its a hoax by European (and other) fish producers to manipulate gullible and naive people to buy their more expensive fish than fish imported from overseas.
The fish do not live in the river. They are raised in strictly monitored clean water ponds. Fish grown in the river are for local consumption because locals cannot afford the cost of export quality fish.
The entire content of the email is a hoax. If you read something but dont know the source of the information then you should assume it isnt true.
Im a Nigerian prince by the way and my father recently died in a plane crash. I am unable to open a bank account in my country due to an argument over my 30 million dollar inheritence. if you can open a bank account and send me your details we will split the 30 million.
I wrote it so it must be true!
January 10th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
this is a great fish, for all, young n old n i dont care wat anyone says. ok, their have been some articles about how it is full of contaminated substances or what not, but no one was ever realy sick due to consumption of the product. govmnt testing ,as well as the big chain supermarkets personal testing , have been done on this fish and nothing harmfull has been detected. my opinion, someone has spred a roumor, plain as that. the ones getting sick and blaming the pangasius prob cooked the fish 4 days after thawing it out…. its not fresh after 4 days n u run risks people!!!! the rest were sick cuz they read some bogus article about the fish but were never actualy sick due to eating it. i work in a fish market, one of my homeboyz has a restaurant were the basa is the best sellin seafood dish in the joint, n never have any of our custies complained of sickness. moral of the story is…. EAT PANGASIUS, IT’S SAFE FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION!!! DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE!!!
January 10th, 2010 at 8:42 pm
one more thing… to all of u who think that pangasius is put out for sale in local stores even after someone says that this fish is contaminated, u people dont understand the concept of a product beein ”comestible”. recals exsist for a reason, and the reason is ongoing testing of all foreign or local products going into our supermarkets and local stores, so that NO PANGASIUS (or prductin general) BE CONTAMINATED AND BE ON A SHELF FOR SALE at the same time!!!!!!!!!!!!!
January 10th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
if the product is tested n found to b contaminated, they are recalled!!! the companie that had the contaminated meats, what was it Schneider or Lafleur, well their shit was contaminated and recalled….. did u stop eatin hotdogs??
January 11th, 2010 at 5:46 am
Hey guys,
Do you think France is so naive that they do not know about this? Don’t you think France have any method to verify any imported food?
Please be logic before posting anything like this in your blog and appeal everyone not to use it. It’s silly. If you suspect Vietnamese food, just report it to French government and ask them to act accordingly.
I admit that what you said above may be true, BUT it is one side of a face. Do you know that Vietnamese farmer also industrialize their agriculture in order to export food properly to EU, US and Japanese market? It’s very easy and simple to go google and look for it.
I think you are a knowledgeable person, but this blog does not show that.
January 11th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
just bought this fish…. lovely!
I will keep it eating it and guys: don’t believe everything comes up on internet!
and remember that even all your lovely british chicken are filled with water and eat
a lot of hormons in order to grow faster!
so if you have problems with meat and fish plese switch to a vegetarian diet!
easy!!!
January 12th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
I’d like to see some references.
January 14th, 2010 at 7:42 pm
hi five to the commet above a work in a restaraunt that sells this fish and we have dumb baw bags moaning all day long that this fish is bad for you if you dont want to eat it fuck off and pay more money somewhere else. its two meals for £9 what do you exspect.
January 16th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
The cost of fish oil products has risen significantly. I am giving my son 2 capsules a day to help him with memory. Does anybody know where I an find an affordable solution? By the way, it is great. His grade went up 2 points after consuming fish oil capsules.
January 17th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Stop blame Tesco for selling “dangerous” fish. It’s not only Tesco in UK selling cobbler. I’m a chef and can tell you the fish is fine and good value for money. Many people get ill or food poisoning because don’t keep the food properly, or don’t cook the meat or fish on the correct temperature.
What about the chicken in the market then? U can’t be sure where they coming from, and what the quality is.
Or what you buying for £0.99 in McDonald’s…so the choice is yours.
January 20th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
My dad forwarded a similar email to me and @ the chinese supermarkets in Toronto ( Canada ) they sold it for like $3 (Sale price) for the Basa fillet. We informed the boss already, but apparently they just kept selling it. (Selfish people)
January 25th, 2010 at 10:36 am
I eat this fish quite often, as does my mother, with absolutely no ill effects, like pretty much anybody else who isn’t allergic to seafood and cooks the thing properly. It’s tasty and flaky and affordable. This scaremongering is a load of cobblers, don’t be afraid to try this fish.
January 26th, 2010 at 7:20 am
This poorly written, inflammatory and completely inaccurate article could not be further from the truth.
Each silly myth is debunked below:
1. Pangas are teeming with high levels of [poisons and bacteria (industrial effluents, arsenic and toxic & hazardous by-products of the growing industrial sector, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), DDT and its metabolites (DDTs), metal contaminants, chlordane-related compounds (CHLs), hexachlorocyclohexane isomers (HCHs) and hexachlorobenzene (HCB). The reasons are that the Mekong River is one of the most polluted rivers on the planet and this is where pangas are farmed and industries along the river dump chemicals and industrial waste directly into it.
Reality:
The Mekong River is not heavily polluted as suggested. The water quality is monitored by the Vietnamese authorities and the results are published. The river cobbler is grown in ponds alongside the river and the water is pumped intro settling ponds first to remove any silt.
Fish from every pond are tested before harvest for both microbiological and chemical contaminants and the Vietnamese authorities carry out random sampling all checks are readily available from the sites at any time. Tesco, and their suppliers have audited the farms and we are confident that Panga is of excellent quality and totally safe to eat.
2. They freeze Pangas in contaminated river water:
Reality:
The river cobbler aka Panga is filleted and frozen in modern factories that are of an extremely high standard and they use clean drinking quality water to wash the fish during the process. The factories have to meet the same high standards that we require of our UK factories and they have all been independently audited and approved.
3. Pangas are not environmentally sustainable, a most unsustainable food you could possibly eat – “Buy local” means creating the least amount of environmental harm as possible. This is the very opposite of the spectrum of sustainable consumerism. Pangas are fed food that comes from Peru, their hormones come from China and finally, they are transported from Vietnam. That’s not just a giant carbon foot print, that’s a carbon continent of a foot print.
Reality:
Panga is farmed in the areas where they are also caught in the wild. The farming operation provides employment to many thousands of people who would otherwise not have the same quality of work and life. The farms are much more efficient and use much less energy than fishing. The fish are then prepared in local factories providing more local employment and value to the local economy. The local Vietnamese people are highly skilled in hand preparing the fillets and do the work much more efficiently than it would be done in Europe by machine. The working conditions are very good and the rates of pay are higher than the alternative employment in the area. A very small proportion of the feed is made from the sustainably managed South American fisheries that ensures the river cobbler have both a sustainable diet and that the feed contains the best quality nutrients including this important Omega 3 rich fish.
Shipping the feed materials and the finished product by sea in large container ships has a relatively low carbon foot print per tonne of finished product. The arguments about where our food is produced and the relative impacts and costs are complex and a responsible retailer has to balance the benefits of farming/processing efficiency, impact from transport and the benefits for the local economy.
4. There’s nothing natural about Pangas – They’re fed dead fish remnants and bones, dried and ground into flour, from South America, manioc (cassava) and residue from soy and grains. This kind of nourishment doesn’t even remotely resemble what they eat in nature. But what it does resemble is the method of feeding mad cows (cows were fed cows, remember?) What they feed pangas is completely unregulated so there are most likely other dangerous substances and hormones thrown into the mix. The pangas grow at a light speed (practically!); 4 times faster than in nature…..so it makes you wonder what exactly is in their food?
Reality:
The feed is of very high quality and its production (by large reputable specialist international companies) is heavily regulated and monitored. The diet is made from sustainably harvested fish and vegetables. The process of making cooked and dried fish meal is safe and produces a highly nutritious part of the feed. They never use river cobbler to make river cobbler feed, it is all from sustainably managed fisheries in South America so the analogy with cows is completely incorrect. The feed does not contain any growth promoting hormones or any ‘dangerous substances’, these are unfounded comments.
River cobbler grows better in farms simply because it is fed consistently nutritious diets at the optimum feeding rate for growth without waste.
5. Pangas are injected with Hormones Derived from Urine – I don’t know how someone came up with this one but they’ve discovered that if they inject female pangas with hormones made from the dehydrated urine of pregnant women, the female Pangas grow much quicker and produce eggs faster (one Panga can lay approximately 500,00 eggs at one time). Essentially they’re injecting fish with hormones (they come all of the way from a pharmaceutical company in China) to speed up the process of growth and reproduction.
Reality:
Panga in the farms are not injected with any hormones so you need not be concerned.
The river cobbler grown in hatcheries, to produce the eggs needed to stock the farms are sometimes injected with hormones to stimulate spawning, not growth. This practice is regulated and safe and no hormones are carried over into the eggs. This practice is common with all species of fish farming including Salmon.
6. Pangas will make you sick
Reality:
Panga is safe to eat and free from the bacteria associated with food poisoning. The fish are tested prior to harvest to prove they are free from contamination then the fillets re tested after processing. Tesco suppliers take random samples and they have proved the fish to be of very good microbiological quality.
January 27th, 2010 at 11:13 am
ive just started a type of diet which requires me to eat a lot of fish, i chose pangasius as it is cheap n and full of protein, since monday ive ate 14 fillets (about 2.5kg) of it and am about to have my 15th and i feel healthier than ever, need i say more???
January 28th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
LOAD OF RUBBISH! WHERE YOU GOT THIS INFO IS BEYOND ME! THE PEOPLE WHO ALLOW THIS ON SALE DO ALOT MORE RESEARCH THAN YOU PEOPLE! FOR GODS SAKE SAUSAGES WERE APPARENTLY BAD TOO AT ONE POINT! JUST EAT THE DAMN FISH AND SHUT UP!!!!
January 30th, 2010 at 7:16 am
I discovered this panga’s fillets recently and I’m buying it, especially for my children during the working days. Can somebody tells me which is country of origin for panga imported in Montenegro ?
February 1st, 2010 at 11:54 am
@Critical Thinker: It is not a hoax. I have had this fish twice and was violently sick both times. I couldn’t figure out what caused the vomitting the first time because I have not been sick for over twenty years, so when I was very sick again the following week after eating the same fish I put two and two together, and I can tell you that it was DEFINITELY THE COBBLER FISH THAT CAUSED IT…
February 2nd, 2010 at 3:15 pm
My partner’s family and I have eaten the river cobbler three times recently as part of fish pie and i can safely say neither of us were ill or experienced illness of any kind. I will be continuing to eat this as part of my diet as the fish was succulent, meaty and held its shape whilst being poached in milk. I highly reccommend this fish. I am sure that tesco and other supermarkets have done rigorous testing before even purchasing stocks of this fish!!!
February 2nd, 2010 at 4:09 pm
We eat pangasius fish all the time and have never suffered any side effects – you just need to know how to cook fish properly and buy from a reputable supplier – perhaps not a major supermarket chain.
February 2nd, 2010 at 8:52 pm
If this is true then where is the epidemic of food poisoning in all the countries this fish is exported to?
It is BS. Dont be so gullible to believe this tripe.
There are no sources for this information other than what the blogger heard from “someone in the know”.
What a load of rubbish.
February 4th, 2010 at 9:57 am
This blog? What a propaganda started most likely by a jealous envious Anglo-centric UmmmmMmmmmmumer. Do not be gullible don’t believe a word of it. Just think: who could be behind the blog? an venomous narrow-interest party! It is most likely. I advise those of you whose guts grudged and rambled after eating this wonderful fish to try it again after properly cooking it, say by dusting with plain flour and frying it crisp (the Brits are of course UNIVERSALLY renowned for their cooking skills (sorry- joking!))and serve it with home grown pink-fir-apple tatties and wild rocket salad. YUMMMMY.and thank me. Make sure you have not been anywhere near a Kentucky fry chicken or consumed copiously in your local pub before hand. I call it: pan-gas- I- us.
February 4th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
As a family we have eaten cobbler every Friday since we first discovered it at Tesco about a year ago. Always the same recipe, dusted in seasoned flour and shallow fried in oil, served with chips and mushy peas, delicious,the lack of any lingering fishy smells in the fridge and house is also a welcome bonus. My grandkids love it and I have no intention of stopping serving this meal
It’s the most affordable tastey fresh fish on the market and I should take no notice of scaremongering
February 5th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Oh, thanks for this blog and this post. Whatever you believe in, there is certainly food for thought here.
Scaremongering or not, it so so swell we have the internet to find and eventually discuss topics like these. If we should sit on our hands, waiting for the companies (or the governmental institutions for that matter) to inform us, we would never get hear anything!
@Peter, Jo, Mal, …
Food safety is and will always be an ongoing and neverending subject of discussion, but of course noone should overreact. You neither.
February 5th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
BTW
Im danish and if you happen to read danish, here is some interesting sources concerning Pangasius:
http://www.ivs.life.ku.dk/Nyheder/2009/Pangasius.aspx
http://www.ivs.life.ku.dk/Nyheder/2009/~/media/Ivp/docs/pdf/Pop%20pangasius%20thuy%20260%20pdf%20%20%20Adobe%20Acrobat%20Professional.ashx
thank you…
February 6th, 2010 at 6:27 am
I have been violently ill three times in the past 6 months. Only on reading this website did I make the connection-after eating panga fish in a pub in UK, after eating (unknown prob panga) white fish on Qatar Airlines, after eating panagasius at my sister’s house in Germany. On each occasion it was only me that was ill, but my reaction was extreme.
February 7th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
hello all you pangas freaks!!
i am infact pangas thats daddy pangas to you….
i thought it would be ok to let my son (baby pangas) to go swimming on the web but it seems not!
he is so upset by all this bullying against him and his cousin young cobbler he is scared to go to supermarket tomorrow! what my son is going through right now is alot worse than a mere stomach ache please leave us alone and just for the record my wife likes to be injected with piss !
sleep well
xxx
February 9th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Tonight I am grilling my panga brushed with butter salt and a few drops of lime juice till golden and serving it with home made cauliflower mushroom sauce(Sparassis crispa) and toast, washed down with quality white wine.
May I suggest to Susan Thackeray February 6th, 2010 at 6:27 am most probably the cooking/catering was underdone or poor, it it was the fish indeed. BUT then I would never eat out when it comes to a delicate thing like panga, except from Raymond Blanche’s, a great fish fan
February 9th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Hi,
first of all , sorry about my bad english.
I try to protect the fish against as follows:
1. Pangas are teeming with high levels of poisons and bacteria. (industrial effluents, arsenic, and toxic and hazardous by-products of the growing industrial sector, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), DDT and its metabolites (DDTs), metal contaminants, chlordane-related compounds ……..
Main quantity of pangasius are fermed in small farms around the Mekong- delta ,under strong control of water-quality . During the whole processing , the fish is controlled by veterinary inspection (NAFI).
All LOTs are controlled before leave Vietnam , and it is guaranted ( certified ), that no chemicals , parasites, bacteria found . By the arrival to any European port the European veterinary inspection controls the fish and their documentations . By any case of problems , the containers are rejected.
Lot of kinds of fish and seafoods are coming from the same waters ( for example shrimps ) since more than 20 years – not only panga.
About 90% of european shrimp consuption are coming from more or less same waters .
3. “”"Pangas are not environmentally sustainable, a most unsustainable food you could possibly eat – “Buy local” means creating the least amount of environmental harm as possible. This is the very opposite end of the spectrum of sustainable consumerism. Pangas are raised in Vietnam. Pangas are fed food that comes from Peru (more on that below), their hormones (which are injected into the female Pangas) come from China. (More about that below) and finally, they are transported from Vietnam to France. “”"
He says: buy local foods . OK . I buy chicken growt up in 26 daysin 1/8 sqm in France,feeded with imported chinese or polish feed, (even with genetic manipulated soya or wheel )injected with antibiothic for faster grow up, specially manipulated for big breast.
Hormones injected to female fish : it is an worldwide used method, to adjust the reproductive time. Normally it is used in France too , in all fish farms , or offshore farms. It helps for male and female fish to harmonize the spawing time only.
Hormones used in France are from China too. It is the cheapest I think.
4.”"” There’s nothing natural about Pangas – They’re fed dead fish remnants and bones, dried and ground into a flour, from South America, manioc (cassava) and residue from soy and grains. This kind of nourishment doesn’t even remotely resemble what they eat in nature. But what it does resemble is the method of feeding mad cows (cows were fed cows, remember?) What they feed pangas is completely unregulated so there are most likely other dangerous substances and hormones thrown into the mix. The pangas grow at a speed light (practically!): 4 times faster than in nature…so it makes you wonder what exactly is in their food? Your guess is as good as mine.”"”"
All fish farms around the world use fish flour to feed the fish. The cow eat cow : It is not a good example, because the ( predator )fish eat really fish!
All kind of fish ( and poultry, and pig , and beef, ……) grow up much more faster when farmed, than in the nature , because of more than enough feed, high protein and fat content of feed …
So, I think ” Dont eat fish ” is just an attack against someting, wich the author doesnt know.
February 9th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
hi guys
my son is still in trauma due to the verbal garbage on this site. me and my many family members dont mind being killed and eaten but please cook me gently and thoroughly maybe you could cook us with garlic butter yummy!!! and hey lets all chill and have a laff ?? pangas or cobbler (never)
speak soon
xxx
February 9th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
susan thackeray
maybe we as a family of beautiful pangas and cobbler members just dont like being in your stomach ??? but we like your sisters!
enjoy xxx
February 10th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
The next part of this story will be – American Pangas fish is safe and organic. The fact is all these negative publicity is killing the fishing industry in poor countries like Vietnam. The high import taxes was not enough. These poor countries are trying to get some level playing field through WTO and NAMA. This negative onslaught is part of the bigger campaign to grow and protect the US market for products and commodities that provide a lifeline for the poor countries.
People who don’t like Pangas fish or any other food from these developing countries can always go for the Big Mac.
For those of you brave enough – watch Food Inc.
February 10th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
people,
two towers in america were destroyed by the goverment, to move to iraq.
all wars were created by gun sellers to make them continue.
all food is genetically modified in all poisonous ways. almost everything in stores are fucked up. it is obvious. it is the future of magnates’ businesses.
fish? of course where is no doubt that it will be modified as everything else.
no modification-no business.
wake a fuck up! resist!
February 14th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Hey Guys !!! … I’m a pescatarian … for the uninformed that’s a ‘veggie’ that’s eats fish as well !!! … I ate Panga in France for 6 years with absolutely no side effects !!! … It’s a really Great tasting fish …
and if you want to talk up a storm about anything, then try chicken, pork and beef … and see what bad influence they have on your body !!! …
February 17th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
[...] http://www.dietmindspirit.org/2008/01/30/why-you-shouldnt-eat-this-fish-pangas-pangasius-vietnamese-... [...]
February 17th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Believe what you want about this fish !! but what i know is that after 3.5 hrs of eating my 12yr old son and my wife are spewing their insides out. I’m next in line so i’ll keep it short……….if only i’d read this before cooking the dame stuff. never again.
February 19th, 2010 at 4:23 am
I spent the better half of an evening researching your comments as I was very surprised. I looked it up under FDA (Federal Food & Drug Administration) EU food restrictions and cautions AND NOTHING. You may not like farmed fish but let me give you some facts. Panga is farmed from Bangladesh to the Philippines. Fish eat fish that fish that fish. Using dehydrated fish parts to feed fish is not uncommon. What do you think they feed Salmon and Bass that are farmed. If you looked at the video (obviously you do not understand French) it would have explained the complete process of the farming of fish in Vietnam. They take great pains to bring the fish live to the plants to fillet. And the plants are spotless. The pictures you depicted in your article is very misleading. If there were serious problems with PANGA there would have been a scandal in the EU and the USA regarding the sale of it on the open market.
Stop being alarmists and have the respect of the general public to research the article before publishing it. Some people do not spend an evening checking out what you say but take it at face value. NOT EVERYTHING YOU READ ON THE NET IS TRUE
February 21st, 2010 at 12:36 am
I have purchased this fish on many occasions, it works well in many recipes. I don’t know about mercury/hormone content level. In the States, I guess that we sort of hope that there is some government regulation on the importation of fish. There are plenty of bad things to be said about the mercury levels found in the fish that are farmed in this country. Unless you know the fisherman, can you ever really know how healthy your seafood is? In order to keep fish in our diet at an affordable price, I will continue buying this fish.
February 21st, 2010 at 11:12 pm
These informations which you read as above are completely not true. As science proved that Pangasius is good for health with DHA and Omega3. The bilion of people use Panga but not any problem for their health. Pangasius is really good and taste.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:14 am
Please see BBC Link, this fish was investigated in April 2009 on BBC Watchdog and nothing harmful was found.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/04/a_fish_called_river_cobbler.html
February 23rd, 2010 at 6:17 am
I bought frozen Pangassius from Farmfoods 2 weeks ago.
Within 5 hours of eating it I developed diarrhea which lasted for 4 hours (my body felt very weak – similar to flu symtoms). I recovered the following day. My wife had no symptoms so I didn’t think the fish was to blame. However I ate some more the following weekend and the same happened again except this time i was also vomitting and had stomach pains. Again I recovered the next day. My wife had not eaten any this time.
It would appear to me that some pieces are contaminated and some are not – I will not knowingly risk Pangassius again.
February 23rd, 2010 at 10:50 am
Any food product can be bad when raised in horrific conditions by unscrupulous people out to make a fast buck at the expense of everyone else.
Pangasius catfish are, in fact, very palatable fishes which have long been recognized as a food source in some Southeast Asian countries. In the Philippines, it is raised healthily in lakes and sold in supermarkets as “cream dory” probably because the delectable fillets are similar in taste and texture to the discoid marine fish called dory or john dory.
Maybe what one should avoid is food products from countries like Vietnam.
February 24th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Have a look at the WWF link:
http://aquanic.org/species/catfish/documents/wwfpangasias.pdf
But fishfarming probably has limited growth anyway… be sure to watch the excellent documentary “The End of the Line” for a global overview.
Also, most fishfarming uses growth hormones and antibiotics. Best to become vegetarian.
February 25th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
I have just read some of the articles left by people.
I have been eating river cobbler mainly in the beginning because of the cost, it was so cheap. I absolutely love it. After reading some of your articles I too looked into it, there were tests done, ok it was done on very limited numbers, but, they could not find any of the toxins etc etc that were in “The Scare”, I have never suffered any of the sickness and vomitting that some people have experienced. I do suffer from various blood problems, pernicious anemia, low platelet amongst a few, but since eating this fish on a regular basis, once or twice a week, (along with exercise regular fruit intake etc,) I dont have to have injections for b12, and I have to say feel better in myself, whether psycological I dont know, but if you listen to all of the bumf we are fed you wouldnt eat anything. So Tuck in peeps I love it.
February 25th, 2010 at 7:23 pm
PS Perhaps some of the problems caused were due to food storage?????
February 25th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
I LIVE IN THE UK. I HAVE BEEN EATING THIS FISH ONCE A DAY EVERY DAY SINCE NOVEMBER, 2008. I BUY IT FROM A LOCAL TAKEAWAY. I HAVE NEVER EXPERIENCED ANY SUCH ADVERSE AFFECTS SO FAR.
February 26th, 2010 at 8:55 am
I am an Msc student studying the environmental effects of war and have come across information relation the the contamination of vietnamese rivers by the dioxins as a result of Agent Orange use by americans during the war. I immediately thought of this fish as I know places that sell it so it is worth further investigation and I may even consider using it as a research topic.
February 26th, 2010 at 8:59 am
Dear All,
I am terified from all this news. I am from Romania and here to every party you go like weddings they serve a main of pangasius fish. Until 2 years ago I never heard about this fish but now it is every where.
I hope you are wrong. Any way i will not eat anymore this kind of fish.
Regards,
Adrian
March 1st, 2010 at 5:03 pm
i have ‘vietnamese river cobbler’ from Tesco every week and have done so for months, i have yet to suffer any ill-effects from eating the fish (both the unsmoked and smoked). Haveany of you seen the bbc1 (repeated on bbc 3)documentarieson food, its not just fish that isnt 100% pure..its just about everything; From bread and milk to lamb shank and fruit juice!
March 1st, 2010 at 5:36 pm
Actually I quite like it! I’ve never had a bad experience with this fish.
Victoria
March 2nd, 2010 at 2:52 am
It is heartening to see the increasing positive and objective comments about this wonderful fish. The tide is tuning on the chauvinistic scaremongers. Only the naive and simple can be lead like sheep by them, what is better both are in minority. Enjoy your pangasius!
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:48 am
@jo, So you think its ok to eat a fish that was reared 1000’s of miles away and then flown over here? For gods sake, we are and Island surrounded by water and fresh fish is no further than a couple of hundred miles from anyone but you would prefer to eat this?
”Only the naive and simple can be lead like sheep” your words you naive and simple person
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:23 pm
I have been eating Basa/Pangasius for over 5 years, since it first started to be imported to Europe and have NEVER been sick.
I work in a job where I have regular check ups including toxicology, blood tests etc. and I am in just as good health as before I started eating this fish.
All these claims from this scaremongering campaign are without any references, any scientific statement not backed up by references or supporting research is not science at all.
Keep eating this fish, it is thos in the European and western fishing industry that want to scare you into not eating cheap imported fish but to instead buy their more expensive product.
Dont be taken for a sucker!
March 3rd, 2010 at 1:53 pm
It is still on sale at H.E.B Plus stores in Texas U.S.A. Ad reads : $ 2.99 per lb. StripedPangasius Fillets .Previously frozen,farm raised.sold in 2 lb bags only March 3rd.2010
March 5th, 2010 at 2:47 am
To Fishman
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:48 am
Native or not, there is no harm in saying the truth!
After all we import all sorts of goods and foods… why not fish?
March 5th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
I just did a search on river cobbler and found this site – reaon I did a search is we ate some smoke river cobbler – tasted fine – but were ill afterwards.
had never been to this site before or read any adverse publicity about river cobbler so it was a bit of ahock to read all this.
I will certainly be getting back to Tesco now to complain about their selling a fish that has such a bad reputation
March 10th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
For those who have gotten ill after eating pangasius…it may be that you have an intolerance to that variety of fish. My wife has eaten fish her whole life and recently tried tilapia. She found that she became very ill within hours of eating
it each time. So far panga has had no such effect.