Fishy

May 29, 2015 1:56 PM

The Piscivore's Dilemma On sustainable seafood (Tim Zimmerman for Outside magazine)
posted by box (18 comments total)

For more on the subject of sustainable fish farming I found Dan Barber's book The Third Plate pretty insightful.
posted by lydhre at 2:04 PM on May 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

I had Ceviche for lunch today.
posted by signal at 2:37 PM on May 29, 2015

For the TL:DR folks, this was handy at the end:

So with apologies to Michael Pollan, I’d recommend this for conscientious nonvegans: Eat a lot less meat and a lot more sustainable seafood, wild when you can verify it, and lower on the food chain, but mostly farmed, particularly mussels, clams, and oysters.

I am a pescetarian but share this author's . . . issues . . . with eating fish, for the same reasons I don't eat meat. Fish are far more intelligent and emotional than we hungry humans like to acknowledge. So I find I don't eat much seafood and fish these days, keeping my intake low and usually limited to once or twice a week. I love the useful tips in this article, including the highlighting of Best Choice options, for making sure that even that intake is responsibly caught/farmed.
posted by bearwife at 2:41 PM on May 29, 2015

I live near oyster and mussel farms. No idea, though, why indoor shellfish farming -- especially for abalone -- isn't a thing.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:04 PM on May 29, 2015

Whole Foods is about the only place we buy fish these days just because of the labeling they do. (Unfortunately, that tends to mean we don't eat a lot of fish.)

“The biggest thing holding us back is that someone like Whole Foods hasn’t said, ‘We want a million pounds of what you’ve got,’ ” Foss grumbles.

Consumer pressure should definitely increase. It's making a difference and it can do so much more.
posted by erratic meatsack at 3:26 PM on May 29, 2015

I liked this article - we need to be thinking about these issues. I still feel pretty powerless as a consumer, though. I don't shop at Whole Foods; I shop at a grocery chain that doesn't provide any information about the source of its fish beyond country and wild-caught or farmed. Sometimes that's enough to make a decision, but often it's not. The suggestion to ask doesn't accomplish much, as an individual action - the people behind the counter don't know much, and if I decline to buy the fish management will probably never hear about it. I could contact management, I suppose, but I don't really have the power to get them to change their policies by myself.

The solution shouldn't just be "shop at Whole Foods." We really need better labeling in every store.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 3:28 PM on May 29, 2015 [5 favorites]

I seriously miss the restaurant I worked at where the chef was hardcore about sustainable seafood. If the rep couldn't prove to her satisfaction that what they were selling wasn't ethical and sustainable, it didn't go on the menu period.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:33 PM on May 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

The solution shouldn't just be "shop at Whole Foods." We really need better labeling in every store.

For sure. It just has to start somewhere, and unfortunately here it's with the people who have the money and time to worry about this stuff. Belov could afford to pay premium to the fishermen supplying their company, for example. That story could have ended there and then if they couldn't.
posted by erratic meatsack at 3:42 PM on May 29, 2015

Sardiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiines. And if you don't like 'em? More for me!
posted by fiercecupcake at 4:25 PM on May 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

This article doesn't give sardines enough love. There is no concern of overfishing whatsoever. You can eat them daily without worrying about mercury and they're an excellent source of protein, omega-3s, phosphorus, and calcium. They're also inexpensive ($1.30 a tin), have a long shelf-life (multiple years), and convienent.
posted by phrontist at 4:29 PM on May 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

Sardiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiines. And if you don't like 'em? More for me!

Grilled whole with olives and lemon.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 4:44 PM on May 29, 2015 [4 favorites]

I wrote a business plan for a shrimp farming operation a few years ago which used vegetal feeds & a biofloc for sustainability. They didn't get thier financing, (not my fault!) But there are a few small scale startups here in the upper midwest who are making it work.
I love seafood and greive for the state of our oceans.
posted by Floydd at 6:46 PM on May 29, 2015

I probably would have tried harder to overcome my dislike of seafood, if I hadn't always had doubts about the sustainability. I save my efforts at learning-to-like, for vegetables.
posted by elizilla at 6:50 PM on May 29, 2015

It kind of saddens me to see people chowing down on snow crabs and lobster shipped in from thousands of miles away -- at a restaurant with a view onto a river that contains many other species of seafood that they never have tried. (I have a similar complaint about beer.)

Not to say that locality == sustainability, but many of the local fisherman around here are passionate about protecting the environment and vocal about opposing dredging and other activities that damage the fisheries. We even have divers that spear invasive lionfish to sell to restaurants.

Sadly, the demand just isn't there for local product, so they're forced to keep stuff around longer -- thus quality is often lower than flash-frozen tilapia or whatever from the grocery store, if you haven't the time or energy to navigate the options available.

I grew up in Louisiana, where seafood is a cultural identity as much as a way to stuff your face, and there was no shame in eating low on the food chain. I think the future has to be aquaculture, and fortunately for me I love catfish. But part of me will be sad when I can't go to the docks anymore and buy a few pounds of shrimp or a sack of oysters.

(I guess I'm also a nostalgic bastard just like those people I busted on in my first paragraph.)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:52 PM on May 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

Ahi tuna? “Almost all of it is caught on pelagic longlines, which are 40-plus miles of floating line dangling a baited hook every three feet. Longlines catch everything else in the habitat.” That’s called bycatch, a somewhat bloodless term for a fishing method that indiscriminately hooks as many as 150,000 sea turtles annually, along with tens of thousands of seabirds, whales, sharks, dolphins, and porpoises.

About the most depressing passage I've read all month.
posted by telstar at 11:21 PM on May 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

This article doesn't give sardines enough love. There is no concern of overfishing whatsoever.

Meanwhile, in Monterey...Feds lower boom: no sardine fishery next year
posted by ActingTheGoat at 12:49 AM on May 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

This article doesn't give sardines enough love. There is no concern of overfishing whatsoever.

Sardines hit hard by overfishing.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 9:20 AM on May 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

I did an AskMe before my trip up the CA coast a couple weeks ago. Someone pointed me to Wild Fish, a restaurant where everything was local (like within 50 miles) and sustainable. It was amazing food!
posted by persona au gratin at 2:00 PM on May 30, 2015