#AusReadingMonth23 Toxic
- Author: Richard Flanagan
- Title: Toxic (141 pg) 2021
- Genre: Non-fiction
- Australian TBR List
- #AusReadingMonth23 @ This Reading Life(Brona’s Books)
- Intro: Exposé of the salmon farming industry in Tasmania.
- Their purpose is to fatten fish as fast as possible in an alien environment
- in which these fish cannot otherwise survive.
- They serve to make profits.
Notes:
- My favorite quote will help me get through this book.
- If there was one book I wanted to avoid this is the one.
- Now, as I start my 67 book Australian journey by pulling a number out of a hat
- …would you believe it? Toxic.
- So, as Mr Conrad says: Face it!
- Some good news: the book is only 141 pages so I hope to finish today or tomorrow.
- Any sections of the book that make me uncomfortable.
- …I will skim them.
Conclusion:
- This book was easier to read than I expected.
- I had to skim chapter 4.
- There is a salmon fishing MAFIA in Tasmania!
- There are claims against Tassel Salmon Corporation of
- bullying, intimidation and threats!
- People live in fear….for a fish!
- Biggest problem? Lax of regulation .
- Unlike Norway…Tasmania’s biggest problem is the lax of regulation for salmon farms.
- No matter the science, no matter the history, no matter the consequences, the governance
- the industry is run in knowing bad faith by a Tasmanian government
- in curious servitude to the greed of the salmon corporations. (pg 35)
- More than 20 salmon farmers in south west Norway were
- following the latest update to the country’s controversial traffic light system.
- The industry must take action to ensure that impact is not only
- reduced by downsizing, but also through operational improvements.
- Growth is restricted to 6% and can only take place in designted
- …environmentally sound “green” areas.
What is the future of salmon farming?
- A digital concept of the proposed “state-of-the-art”
- …land-based recirculating aquaculture system.
- Let us hope that “The ocean onshore’ is built so we can
- farm salmon on land, providing nutritious, sustainable local salmon.
- Then I’ll eat salmon again!
Personal:
- I stopped eating salmon until ‘the ocean onshore’ has been created.
- This book was an eye-opener.
- Farmed salmon is one of the most toxic foods in the world today.
- Farmed salmon nowadays falls under junk food.
13 Comments
Post a comment
NancyElin.blog 
Love the title. (Forgive me if it’s callous to say so, but it really hooks.)
‘Hooks’ are one of the most important parts of books!
wow, yes quite an eye-opener! Thanks for facing it, reading it, and sharing with us this super important topic
I cannot look at a salmon in the store without thinking about this book!
Well done for reading this. I don’t eat enough protein and I’m afraid I’ve avoided this book so I can keep eating salmon. I do realise that is dreadful, though!
Stopped eating salmon…now I live on beans, lentils and quinoa! Feel great!
I have all those and salmon probably two tins a month so I’m not destroying the world with my demand for poor salmons, at least (I hope).
I have also stopped easting Australian salmon, but I will eat smoked salmon from some of the Scandinavian countries who have better regulations in place than we currently do. That was over two years ago and I still cannot bring myself to eat Aust salmon.
P.S. Flanagan has a new novel due out soon.
You reviewed this book in July 2021. I remember the cover and how sick it made me feel. I told you about the Netflix docu “Seapiracy” about global fishing…and that just turned me off fish I think, forever. Just awful. Now, with my goal to reduce my Australian TBR…I could not avoid reading Toxic any longer. Eye-opener, depressing…but a book that needs to be read.
On another note…I’ve been planning to read my next Australian writer as the “complete read” of his/her novels. I gathered some suggestions from Sue, n Whisphering Gums. Have you any favorite writers I could put in the list? Finally finished Thea Astley and loved the challenge to read all her novels.
My list so far is : Stead, Jolley, Witting, Jessica Anderson, Flanagan (..thanks for the tip about his new book), Malouf, Patrick White
Randolph Stow, Kylie Tennant, Helen Garner, Martin Boyd, Frank Moorhouse, Katherine Sussanah Pritchard (she does some non-fiction too). Some more modern and diverse writers would be Melissa Lucashenko, Kim Scott, Christos Tsiolkas, Omar Sakr, Louis Nowra, Alexis Wright, Tony Birch just to name a few – they may not have a long backlist (yet) but they are already award winning and writing fascinating diverse & topical stories.
Good luck!
Thank you!
I love that cover! So perfect for the book. I immediately bought this book the first time I saw it on the shelf, and read it fairly soon after. I’ve basically stopped eating Tasmanian salmon too- and I ate quite a lot, it’s my favourite. I probably still eat it when out, but I haven’t bought any since I read Toxic.
The book (and Flanagan) has achieved its goal…make us all aware of the “Toxic” world of salmon fish farms. I cannot look at a filet in the grocery store without a shudder. Thanks for commenting! PS Bookcovers are so important…the invitation to “read me”.