Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing marine stewardship expert and ocean activist Casson Trenor for my column in the Faster Times. I'd come across Trenor's name while researching "sustainable sushi"—a relatively new concept at sushi restaurants here in the U.S., but one that's taking off as locavore diners turn their attention to where their fish is coming from. Then, by coincidence, Mark Bittman blogged about sustainable fish a few days later. Something is definitely in the air...or should I say, in the water.
I didn't have space for all of Trenor's sage advice in my column, so herewith is more background info on why you should avoid farmed salmon, Chilean sea bass, and orange roughy at fishmongers and restaurants alike.
(For the top three sushi fish to skip, see the full interview here.)
Farmed salmon has a myriad of negative environmental effects on our planet. It needs more protein than it provides. They either feed them wild fish or an engineered food pellet. It's important to measure how much wild fish protein goes into the farm to get one pound of fish protein. Conventional salmon tends to be between 3 pounds to 1 pounds. It's gotten better recently: a lot are down to 1.8-2.3 to 1 or even a little lower, which is a hallmark of progress. But it's still missing the point in my view. Aquaculture is about feeding the world. It doesn't make sense to pursue carnivorous aquaculture.
Chilean sea bass. A lot of stores will say, "we only sell Marine Stewardship Certified (MSC) sea bass." That is great in theory, but unfortunately not great in practice. MSC's traceability is good, but their sustainability standards are far too low. Think about it: we live on a finite planet. These fish live in the furthest reaches of the ocean under the ice shelves, in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere is the question asked, "Should we even be fishing here?" The very fact that we are sending fishing boats out to Antarctica is symptomatic of a broken system. Sustainable Chilean sea bass is oxymoronic, in my opinion.
Orange roughy, which comes from New Zealand, mostly, is still sold by quite a few retailers. Orange roughy does not reach sexual maturity until about 20 years of age It reaches market size at age six. You see the problem: we're fishing out the juveniles. Fish like that should not be commercially exploited. They're not built for it. There are plenty other kinds of fish.
