Something you should know about toxic food additives

I love scallops, so when I came across a recent issue of Costco Connection, the monthly publication of the public wholesaler, I immediately started reading the article on scallops.

There was stuff in there I never knew, and some things I wish I didn’t know.

I thought I knew that some people try to pass off whale meat as scallops. Supposedly, you are supposed to recognize the imitation whale scallops by the uniformity of the meat. Real scallops come in all sorts of assorted sizes. Whether all that is true or not, I can’t say.

Something I didn’t know was that scallops are given a U number, like U-10, or U-8. That means that the scallops come 10 or 8 to a pound.

But then, right there, in the middle of the article was the advisory that Costco Scallops are never exposed to STP…not the engine additive, but some concoction called “sodium tripolyphosphate”. Pat Vochok, the consumer reporter who wrote the article says that STP is used to artificially plump up the scallop so that U-12 scallops could possibly pass as U-10’s by adding moisture.

Further, STP helps wash away smells, and bleaches gray scallops so they look nice and white. To be fair, STP is also a preservative and helps control bacterial growth.

The point of the article was that Costco does not allow STP on the scallops, tuna and shrimp that they sell. Oh, and they publish a nice recipe for scallops.

But the article states that the use of STP is standard in the industry, and that makes me wonder if my grocery store uses it, and if it does, shouldn’t they let me know? And it also makes me wonder what other stuff is used on other stuff I eat>

I know the government (FDA) requires labeling of many of the chemicals used in our foods these days, but in my store, unless the scallops are frozen, there is no labeling. Besides, with the grades I got in chemistry, how would I know what any of those multi-syllabic- hard-to-pronounce-let-alone-read, words means?