title: california becomes second state to raise legal smoking age to
text: americas shrimp imports being injected with dangerous chemicals  just to add weight 
  sunday october   by j d heyes tags shrimp imports  chemical injections  food fraud naturalnews it seems that the more advanced human civilization becomes the less we learn about what is and isnt good for our bodies thats the only way to explain why many commercial food operations are so toxic and hazardous to our healththe uks daily mail is reporting on a commercial shrimp operation in vietnam where workers have been videotaped injecting them with disgusting gellike substances in order to make them appear bigger and fresher before they are sold and exportedthe video shows factory workers injecting tiger prawns shrimp in the head tail and midsection with a gel substance to make them heavier before they are soldvietnam is the largest source of imported shrimp for many countriesthe video footage was shot by a vietnamese television station earlier this year since surfacing it has gone viral online on social media sites like facebook with many people expressing disgust and outragethe substance is often used in food as a thickening agent in particular for icing but many people who have watched the video are labeling the vietnamese factory and its workers as shameless and dishonest in their attempt to make the shrimp appear bigger and more meaty in addition the practice makes one wonder what else is being done to shrimp or other food products not just in vietnam but throughout the region all local shrimp suppliers do this environmental protection organization greenpeace recently released a report titled dodgy prawns as an aid for importers of shrimp to find sources that are harvested without using slave labor methods that are destructive or harmful to ocean ecosystems or that utilize toxic chemicalsthe guide recommended shrimp harvested in and around australia but also ecologically certified black tiger prawns from vietnam the organization also warned against all imported vannamei which very often is sourced from vietnam because of concern about mangrove destruction pollution and the use of invasive species natural blaze  in reporting on the story  noted that workers at the vietnam shrimp preparation factory in question said they injected the shrimp there because all local shrimp suppliers do thisthe site noted further that the largest suppliers of shrimp products in vietnam import more than half of their raw materials for processing from other countries including china which has a welldeserved reputation for unclean unsanitary food productionin the us about  million pounds of shrimp  or about  percent of the amount of shrimp americans consume annually  comes from vietnam which in turn gets most of its shrimp from china where food regulation is a cruel joke added weight means additional profits natural blaze reported that after about  million worth of shrimp was imported into the us from china between january and october  the us food and drug administration issued an import alert in december of that year the alert warned importers of the presence of new animals drugs andor unsafe food additives in seafood originating in china and that included shrimpthe daily mail said that workers were injecting the shrimp with a substance known as carboxymethyl cellulose or cmc many say it is not considered harmful because it dissolves in water and becomes a smooth liquid before it is then pumped into the shrimpbut obviously cmc is not a naturallyoccurring element either which means shrimp that it is injected into are no longer organic and natural  and the substance has been linked to diarrhea abdominal cramps eye pain and irritation and lingering changes in vision natural blaze notedand yet its use in food continues thats because wholesalers and retailers see a bigger profit margin in artificially inflating the size of shrimp that is then sold by weight and even if retailers arent doing the injecting they are knowingly selling a product that has been injected at the source sources