Thursday 3 June 2010

Throw some porn on the barbie, eat some prawns

Throw another prawn on the barbie is the theme to restore pride in the prawn industry.

This Sunday, also Queensland Day, a State-wide campaign is underway encouraging everyone to swap sausages for locally-caught prawns. It's a collaboration between the Queensland Seafood Marketers Association and the Australian Prawn Farmers Association to promote local prawns.

A crazy video on YouTube encourages a good meal of Queensland prawns, and even manages to take a swipe at the proposed internet filter; arguing that we all have a right to search for prawn online.

According to Ben Hale who is behind the campaign, prawns are a real superfood. "Zero carbs, one quarter the fat of lean beef, one-seventh the fat of skinless chicken - yet with more protein and fewer kilojoules than beef, pork, lamb and chicken," Ben says.

You can also hook into the Facebook page.

Because it's just un-Australian not to be a Queenslander.

15 comments:

CBD Warrior said...

I get tired of "campaigns" by business who call on false national or state patriotism to prop up their nonviable business models. Local prawns are grossly overpriced. I've seen both Qld prawns and bananas for sale in Japan CHEAPER than in our local shops. Now that international business is flat we're being given panic stories from an industry badly in need of rationalisaton and modernisation. Everyone else has had to suck it up, why not the prawn fishers?

And Ben Hale has conveniently forgotten one important fact about prawns - - they're packed with cholesterol, and a danger to anyone with high blood pressure or family history of cardiac problems.

Unknown said...

Strange, CBD warrior, that you would mention about cholesterol in prawns.. Tell me oh so wise one, why is it that the Simply Healthy, the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute Cookbook has a picture of a prawn dish on its front cover? Given that Dr Chang was a leading heat surgeon and expert on the matters of which you speak, and you sir, are nothing of the sort?

Miss Chief said...

Oh come on you blokes, lighten up!
It was just plain good fun and I, for one, support our local seafood industry. Go Queensland!

Cairns Resident said...

It would be nice to see Cairns seafood wholesalers and retailers to support this campaign by reducing the inflated prices on local prawns.
It's not just prawns we are paying top price for, I have seen Queensland wild caught barramundy in Sydney shops cheaper than in Cairns.

I. King said...

Sadly, Miss Chief, my experience in this town is that a lot of our local Bogans, sorry commenters (with some exceptions such as yourself of course) are totally deficit in the wry humour department, therefore the usual whinge and moan....*yawn*

Leuco Gaster said...

My doctor's advice is that there is bad cholesterol and good cholesterol. Most of us need to eat more of the good kind and prawns are a good source.

Sadly, I can't eat crustaceans - when I try I end up "driving the porcelain bus" - you know, "speaking into the big white telephone".

Prawn trawling is highly regulated and I believe the resource is reasonably secure - meanwhile, some barramundi netters are ripping the guts out of western Cape York Peninsula rivers without effective surveillance or control.

pork fat said...

"HDL (high-density lipoprotein)
A small amount of cholesterol is transported as HDL, which is mostly protein and not much fat. The role of HDL is to transport excess cholesterol from the tissues (including the walls of arteries) to the liver for disposal. As HDL helps prevent cholesterol building up in your blood vessels, you have a decreased risk of heart disease if you have high levels of this type. HDL is considered to be the "good" type of cholesterol. Women tend to have higher HDL levels than men. HDL can be increased by physical exercise."

Curious Prawn said...

I'd like to ask my fellow posters what they are paying for local prawns, where they buy them, and what price do they feel they should be paying.

I buy mine from Woree, I pay $15, $20 and $25 a kilo for small, medium and large prawns.

KitchenSlut said...

Kitchenslut and his GP are aligned with Pork Fat and wonders if CBD can provide a recent research source .... or perhaps even a sauce?

My perceptions may be wrong but would have to say that prawns have not followed the inflation in some other seafood prices over the past decade and are in fact relatively cheap?

I can't claim to know relative prawn prices between Cairns and Tokyo although when i was there 2 years ago it was noted that a decent restaurant meal in Asakura was cheaper than the Cairns equivalent. Big Macs are also cheaper in Tokyo now, so perhaps we will soon see the 'Worrier' down on the Esplanade (alongside Johnno?) protesting Big Mac prices? Or perhaps following greenpeace and boarding prawn trawlers in the gulf?

Have been here recently on prices with a complaint that there is too much waste in prawns per kg however the waste of prawn heads and shells is almost tragic! These make great stock and sauce with a risotto or pasta and a damned cheap meal!

Weighing up fat, health, protein etc and fully utilising the product I reckon prawns are now cheap?

Miss Chief said...

We buy our seafood from Palace Seafood in Portsmith and yesterday we bought 3kgs of prawns for $30...good size green Endevour. Local prawns from a local supplier. I'd rather pay extra, if I had to, than buy imported seafood.

Syd Walker said...

Q: What do you say to a man with a prawn-flavoured condom?

A: "Don't come the raw prawn with me" :-)

Vestal Virgin Prawn Collector said...

Syd mate that is soooo lame.

Ben Hale said...

Ben Hale here,
Glad to hear the responses, both positive and negative. Thought I might weigh in with some of the reasoning that actually went behind the campaign.
First, the idea of promoting a Queensland caught/farmed product to Queenslanders came about because the imported Vannemai prawns from Thailand and Vietnam are landed on our shores so cheaply that people, not knowing the real difference between them stopped buying local product. It's perfectly understandable - they LOOK the same in most cases, but the imported product was $5-$15 or more per kilo cheaper. (it's farmed not wild caught) In order to compete, the local trawl industry had to lower their prices. Unfortunately labour, fuel, and compliance costs didn't get less and the industry was dragged to the very edge of viability. Many trawlers just stopped fishing.
There is a huge quality difference if you know what to look for, but most of us don't. There's a sustainability story that is too lengthy to go into here, but you'll probably grasp the lunacy of eating imported product with more food miles on it than you can poke a stick at. Some of the methods of farming internationally leave a lot to be desired.
I'm not here to bag imports, they fill a legitimate gap between demand and supply, but what needs to be said is that if you really are interested in where your food comes from, then dig a little deeper. Anyone who eats beef, lamb, pork or chicken should think twice before bagging prawns. Australian Aquaculture may just be the only drought proof way of giving us the animal protein we so dearly love to have.
Aside from all of that - this is meant to be humourous. If you can't laugh at yourselves as a Queenslanders, then maybe consider a move to Victoria. And if THAT offends you, you might really like Adelaide.
I hope you get my drift.
For less than it costs to replace a single engine on a single trawler, we are trying to educate, entertain and encourage everyone from Coolangatta to Bamaga to just CONSIDER eating the produce of their very own state.
Now, I'm off to peel some tigers, hope you are too.

Ed in Edge HIll said...

In typical Ben Hale spinmeister style, he's posted a laundry list of lies and half-truths about imported prawns all while saying he's not bagging them.

He claims there are "huge quality differences" in the products, but then calls us too stupid to be educated to this alleged difference. And his argument about the "lunacy of eating imported product" - I'm sure this argument is working a treat with all the fish EXPORTERS in Cairns, who are busy stripping our local waters of all the reef fish and sending them by air to all the wealthy people in Hong Kong, Singapore, and China. Maybe they should be educated as to the "lunacy of eating fish with miles on it".

The reality is that our local industries, saddled with huge cost increases by government "labor reform", massive taxes on fuel, and other costs along with just plain Aussie greed are stripping us of any chance to compete. Bring on the imports.

Sociopath said...

Well I thought it was good Mr Hale and so did everyone else I know who enjoyed the humour in it. Sad there are so many moaning, miserable Nigel Nofriends inhabiting the keyboards of computers in Cairns who can't find anything entertaining in life anymore.