Chemical Engineering in Daily Life – Question 26: Where is the seafood safest? Standard answer already available
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This post was last edited by yjqin1 on 2015-9-24 at 19:14. My hometown is less than 25 kilometers away from the nearest sea, yet the seafood I ate before going to university was: 1) large shrimps that could be found occasionally among the dried shrimps, whose length from head to tail, when stretched straight, did not exceed 2.0 cm (≤20 millimeters)； 2) Snakehead fish, fresh, with a length of generally 3~6 cm ； 3) Dried salted fish, with a length of generally 8~12 cm ； 4) The only time, a relative who was an official in Beijing returned to my hometown; perhaps he wanted to eat it himself, so he bought a sea bream (in my hometown it’s called a swallowfish). It was over half a foot long, and it was cooked in the traditional home-style way. When I came home from school in elementary school, I actually got to eat real sea fish for lunch; that was in 1973. To commemorate the first time we tasted sea fish, our whole family now eats mackerel (a type of large fish) at least once a year; fortunately, my wife and children like it. 5) Prawns – I ate 2 or 3 when I was a kid; I think I have some. 6) Crab – I’ve eaten it 1 or 2 times, sharing it with my younger brother. The elders said that in the past, when eating seafood such as yellow croaker and prawns, it was bought in batches. I think that was the evil old society. Fortunately, when we were children we had access to the cheapest seafood, which provided an ample supply of protein, phospholipids, calcium, and iodine. The people there aren’t stupid or foolish; our area has always been a culturally advanced region. Among the academicians born in HB Province, those from our county account for about 27%. Our county’s population is 490,000, which represents 0.7% of the province’s total population of 72 million – a difference of 40 times ； It is also a county known for its long lifespan, with the highest proportion of people over 100 years old in the entire province. The second time I ate seafood was during National Day in my freshman year. At noon on October 1, 1981, I went to a relative’s house in TJ City, where there was yellow croaker to eat. It was the second time I had tasted real sea fish, and it was probably also the last time I ate wild yellow croaker. The old man was an intellectual cadre who joined the revolution in his teens in 1942; he’s still in good health today. Every time I visit the elderly, I bring some seafood, as a reminder of that single meal I had with wild yellow croaker. With reform and opening up, life has improved and we have everything, but it’s become more expensive to afford. From 1981 to 1990, I stayed in TJ City for nearly a decade; there, I saw crab being sold in the university canteen two or three times – each crab weighed about one or two liang, and its price was 40 cents per piece (at that time, the most expensive stir-fried dish cost 30 cents). I remember that at that time, there were already live crabs with oxygen injected into their water in the market. In the late 1980s, Qiong Yao’s novels were very popular; whenever I read about the heroine asking the male protagonist to take her out for seafood, I felt so envious! In the past, we considered the whole world our home; and up to now, we’ve eaten a lot of crabs. In order: river crabs caught by oneself in the rivers of one’s hometown, Bohai sea lobsters, ghost face crabs, Atlantic stone crabs, an unnamed small crab from Portugal, long-legged crabs from the West African coast, Canadian snow crabs, Vancouver king crabs, Maryland blue crabs, Alaska king crabs, Japanese spider crabs, iron clasp crabs (sea clams), soft-shell crabs from Wenzhou and Fujian, flower crabs from Hainan Island, and HanGu purple crabs. I eat these crabs not at fancy banquets, but locally where they are produced. To be honest, they’re not expensive – about 3 to 20 times cheaper than those in luxury hotels in China. Of course, the most delicious are the native king crabs. Back to the topic, the places listed below are famous for their seafood. Assuming no accidents occur, which of those places offers the cleanest, safest, and most fresh seafood? 1) The coast of Dalian ； 2) Yingkou ； 3) Jinzhou ； 4) The coastal area from Qinhuangdao to Caofeidian ； 5) Bohai Bay, Tianjin ； 6) The Huanghua area in Hebei ； 7) Laizhou Bay, Shandong ； 8) The Yantai and Weihai areas in Shandong ； 9) Jiaozhou Bay, Qingdao ； 10) Offshore Qingdao ； 11) The Lianyungang area ； 12) The Zhoushan Archipelago area. Please consider it from the perspectives of chemistry and fluid mechanics.
4) The coastal area from Qinhuangdao to Caofeidian；
Why not Dalian or the Zhoushan Islands?
This area is an inland sea, and the Bohai Sea is also highly polluted
1) The coast of Dalian； ==========The waters of the Yalu River are unpolluted 8) The areas around Yantai and Weihai in Shandong Province ； =========No large-scale chemical industries in the offshore waters 10) Offshore waters of Qingdao ； 11) The Lianyungang area ； 12) The Zhoushan Archipelago area. 2) Yingkou ； ===============The inner sea of the Bohai Sea, with slow water currents; 3) Jinzhou ； 7) Laizhou Bay, Shandong ； 4) The coastal area from Qinhuangdao to Caofeidian ； 5) Bohai Bay, Tianjin ； 6) The Huanghua area in Hebei ； 9) Jiaozhou Bay, Qingdao ；
I live inland and have never seen the sea; I’ve learned something new by coming here.
12) The Zhoushan Archipelago area. Far from inland cities, with less pollution. It is once again a place where warm and cold ocean currents meet, and it is a famous fishing ground in our country.
There are many chemical enterprises in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the Qiantang River, while fishery areas are declining
Standard answer: 1) Along the coast of Dalian； 4) The coastal area from Qinhuangdao to Caofeidian ； 12) The Zhoushan Archipelago area. In fact, the cleanest Chinese seafood should be that from the waters off Taiwan, around the Diaoyu Islands, and in the South China Sea. Background: The Kuroshio Current (Japanese Warm Current) forms in the Pacific Ocean east of the Philippines, then flows northward at great speed, mainly along the deep-sea areas east of Taiwan Island toward the Japanese archipelago, where it splits into two streams near the Ryukyu Islands. A current flows along the eastern side of the Japanese archipelago toward the waters east of Hokkaido, where it merges with the Kuril Current to form the East Hokkaido fishing ground. The other branch continues northward; its main current passes through the Tsushima Strait into the Sea of Japan, eventually dissipating off the west coast of Hokkaido and forming the Western Hokkaido fishing grounds. The Hokkaido fishing ground is the largest fishing ground in the world. The third stream of warm water continued to flow northward into the Yellow Sea due to inertia, entered the northern part of the Bohai Strait along the sea trench, formed a U-shaped bend in the Caofeidian area, then left the Bohai Sea through the shallow sea trench south of the Miaodao Islands in the Bohai Strait. It subsequently flowed southward along the Shandong Peninsula, pushing the waters of the Yangtze River toward the Zhoushan Islands, thus creating China’s largest fishing ground – the Zhoushan Fishing Ground. The Kuroshio Current has several characteristics: high salinity, high density, high temperature, and clean, unpolluted water. In winter, the seawater that enters the Bohai Sea is 10-20 degrees warmer than the surrounding seawater; as a result, Qinhuangdao Port and Huludao Port hardly ever freeze over. In contrast, Dalian Port, Yingkou Port, Yantai Port, Weihaiwei, the Bohai Bay, Laizhou Bay, Jiaozhou Bay, the waters off Qingdao, and even Lianyungang all freeze over during the harsh winters. In this context, along the coast of northern China, only the coastal waters in areas such as Luannan, Leting, Changli, Suizhong, and Huludao are relatively clean, and the seafood from these areas is also relatively clean (excluding that from tidal flats). As for the seafood from Tianjin’s Bohai Bay, Shandong’s Laizhou Bay, Liaoxi Bay, and other areas, you can give it a try, but it’s best not to overindulge. The Liao River, Luan River, Hai River, and Yellow River basins support roughly 300 million people – where does all their waste, including food waste, excrement, and industrial wastewater, go? (Note: All the water in the Luan River is now used by Tianjin, and hardly any flows towards Leting and Changli). So, every time I return to my hometown, the back seat of the car is filled with my mother’s organic (insect-infested) vegetables and less polluted seafood. As for the seafood from the Yellow Sea coast (Shandong, Liaoning, northern Jiangsu), consuming it poses less of a pollution risk. Around the Zhoushan Archipelago, there is also a fourth warm current that flows in from the Taiwan Strait; this current has a diluting effect. Moreover, the amount of seafood available in the Zhoushan Archipelago is large, so it’s quite safe to consume it. In that case, frozen seafood – whether it comes from the Zhoushan Islands, is caught by Chinese fishing vessels at sea, or is imported – is safer. Netizens who do not agree with the above arguments please refrain from criticizing; in Tianjin dialect, it is said that borrowing money to buy seafood doesn’t mean one can’t get by in life. I’m extremely hungry; I can’t resist, it doesn’t matter if I eat a few bites. Just don’t eat it every day. Of course, one must be careful with what they eat during pregnancy. Actually, the most delicious aquatic product is pufferfish. This year, I have missed more than once the pufferfish I ate in Jiangyin at the beginning of the year.
Reading what was posted above really broadened my horizons. I’m from Qingdao, and I think the seafood in Jiaozhou Bay is pretty good. Because the women who sell seafood in the market all shout “local...”, especially referring to the clams from Jiaozhou Bay, commonly known as galala. :D
When I first went there, I ate Qingdao’s “Gala” four times and had diarrhea twice. This is not meant to be negative advertising for Qingdao (I have lived in Qingdao for quite some time; it is my favorite city), but when I ate clams, I also ate those that weren’t open (shy: L). A clam that isn’t open is either undercooked or dead. The seafood from Jiaozhou Bay, Bohai Bay, Qinhuangdao, Huludao, Dalian (Zhuanghe), and the Donggou area is definitely delicious. Compared to seafood from the south, this is what’s known as cold-water seafood – it grows slowly but has a rich flavor. But pollution is a different issue; the pollution in Jiaozhou Bay is likely only second to that in Bohai Bay (Bohai Bay is one of the three bays of the Bohai Sea, although geographically speaking, the entire Bohai Sea is considered a bay of the Yellow Sea). I absolutely love eating shellfish found in tidal flats such as mussels, clams, scallops, sea asperges, sea worms, razor clams, and bamboo clams, but these days in my country I usually eat them no more than 3 times a month. After all, coastal marshes are more susceptible to industrial pollution, not to mention antibiotics, hormones, and the like.