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?