Chinese Offer to Eat Denmark’s Oyster Problem

Although it sounds like the "eat the oysters" solution here is a joke, the idea of using cuisine to tackle the problem of invasive species is not new. The Lionfish is native to Indo-Pacific waters but is now established as an invasive species in the Caribbean; the NOAA and partner agencies enlisted the help of chefs to publish recipes for cooking these fish, and even convinced the Catholic church to suggest that their Colombian parishioners eat lionfish on Fridays.

&gt; The post instantly electrified Chinese netizens, who always love to flaunt their centuries-long passion for diversifying food resources. &gt; The proposed solution was as follows: “Denmark can invent an &#x27;eater&#x27;s visa&#x27; for Chinese visitors, offering unlimited entries within 10 years for stays of up to a month each visit. The oysters will be extinct within five years.&quot; &gt; “Ha! Five years? Five months is enough,&quot; one user commented.<p>It&#x27;s heartening, in a way, to see how fluidly certain interpersonal relations can move across language&#x2F;culture barriers in this day and age. We really are all alike in many ways after all; maybe it&#x27;s not yet time to give up on a post-internet era as one that can reach greater heights of intercultural empathy.<p>Assuming legislation doesn&#x27;t gut the net.

Am I the only person not keen to eat Danish shellfish? The Baltic is heavily polluted by all sorts of heavy metals and persistent organic contaminants, and filter feeders are known to accumulate these substances.<p>In fact, most of the Baltic fish catch already ended up getting exported to Asia as fish meal because it is illegal to use them as feed or fertiliser in EU if the final product is intended for human consumption.

Seems related to Chinese people looking for imported sea food due to water pollution:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bordbia.ie&#x2F;industry&#x2F;manufacturers&#x2F;insight&#x2F;alerts&#x2F;Pages&#x2F;ImportedoystersgrowinginpopularityinChina.aspx?year=2015&amp;wk=13" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bordbia.ie&#x2F;industry&#x2F;manufacturers&#x2F;insight&#x2F;alerts&#x2F;...</a>

I don&#x27;t quite understand... Do the locals or larger Nordic&#x2F;European populace not eat as many oysters? Why the Chinese versus any other nationality?

Fun fact, in Chinese recipe, most of the Oyster species can be cooked in similar ways. So it&#x27;s easy to let Chinese accept this one. One the other hand, Oyster seems pretty healthy since it contains protein but has few fat and sugar, which amuse young people nowadays.<p>However, since Chinese people already have several oyster-like species locally, importing this one could probably hurt local fish-men&#x27;s interests.

I&#x27;m not sure the environmental impact of fishing an invasive species to extinction is positive compared to the problems the species itself causes. Especially if you want that venture to be profitable.

Having dealt with Chinese tourists in Western US national parks, I&#x27;d recommend you just live with the oysters.

&gt; &quot;...but for many Chinese, they would not want to eat the oysters without grilling them with mashed garlic and chili sauce.”<p>At first that sounded gross (I, I guess like the danish, prefer them raw with a little lemon), but now I kind of want to try it. I think I&#x27;m going to try to find a place in NYC that serves oysters this way.

If someone would do the same for India&#x27;s stray dog problem, our life would be so much better.

If oysters are so abundant, why are they so expensive where I live, near the Chesapeake Bay?

The Chinese created famine in their country by eliminating sparrows as part of their so-called &quot;Great Leap Forward&quot;. It turned out that the sparrows were eating pest insects. Now the Chinese offer to gobble these oysters. Can they be trusted?