Glow in the Dark Shrimp May Be Safe, But What Other Bacteria is Lurking in Your Seafood?

Last week in a frighteningly strange occurrence, a women in Oregon sat down to watch a movie with a bowl of shrimp salad only to find that it glowed in the dark. Another man left his shrimp to thaw and later found it glowing in the sink. Naturally, people were concerned but according to Kaety Hildenbrand, of Oregon State University Sea Grant Extension, the glowing shrimp is not a health risk and doesn't reflect mishandling during processing. Glowing or luminescence is a trait of several marine bacteria.

But even still, it brings to light all the unknown bacteria that may be lurking in the foods that we eat. While many of these bacteria may not be harmful, many are. And that's scary stuff. So what is lurking in those foods that we have flown in from who knows where? What happens when we trust our seafood to fish handlers that we have never and will never meet?

I wrote last year that today it's estimated that up to 85 percent of the seafood we consume is imported. The staff of inspectors at the FDA is overwhelmed at the expense of food safety. More specifically, there are only enough evaluators to check 1.53 percent of food imports. Consider those glowing shrimp. Huffington Post figured out through the Freedom of Information Act that the FDA tested only 0.59 percent of the 1.3 billion pounds of shrimp that were imported in 2006. That means that even if that glowing bacteria was harmful you likely wouldn't know until you got sick. Much of the seafood comes from Asia where the aquaculture practices can be under or not regulated at all.