Is Your Texas Restaurant Serving Up Shrimp Fraud?

Texas restaurant are catching heat for their seafood choices.

Shrimp Fraud

I had no idea there was such a thing as "shrimp fraud". I have to confess that I'm not that sure it's that big of deal, but I guess you should get what is being advertised. Restaurants across the Gulf Coast are being accused of claiming they're using fresh caught shrimp from the Gulf Of Mexico, but are actually using from elsewhere.

Is It Important?

I suppose there is a reason to provide this kind of oversite to protect the shrimp industry along on the coast. I imagine the shrimpers are proud of their product and they want the product to be the product represented on the consumers plate. In another scenario, what if diners got some terrible imported shrimp and "swore off" Gulf Coast shrimp because of it.

Test Results

Shrimp from across the Gulf Coast were tested and let's just say that there was an incredibly high percentage of people lying about where their shrimp came from. In Galveston, 59% of the shrimp was not locally caught, and that's one of the lower amounts of cheating going on.

Get What You Pay For

I'm actually a big fan of shrimp in both the deep fried, and more natural peel-n-eat varieties. I'm not sure I could tell the subtleties of origin, I can only tell if it's fresh-tasting or not. Still, it seems pretty important that we protect our Texas industries including Gulf Coast shrimpers.