Finding sustainable sources of seafood is becoming increasingly difficult.  Should you buy farmed or wild caught?  And what are the most sustainable choices?  I’ve talked about sustainable seafood before, and since shrimp is the most commonly consumed seafood in the United States, you might want to have a bit more information about that shrimp cocktail you’re about to eat.

Did you know Americans ate 1.2 Billion pounds of shrimp in 2007, an average of 4.1 pounds of shrimp per person (figures here)?  This figure is actually a decline from the previous year, in 2006, when the average American ate 4.4 pounds of shrimp.  Now if you consider that 85% of shrimp consumed in the US is imported, and since wild caught shrimp are rarer than ever as fisheries are depleted, there’s a good chance that the shrimp you just ate were farmed and imported to the US.

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Weird, I know.

You see, my dog has a lot of, er… issues. By the time I adopted her, she had lived on the streets of East St. Louis for three months, bounced through eight different foster homes, and had one failed adoption - all before her first birthday.

Dealing with her emotional baggage has become a big part of my life. Since she doesn’t find pets, praise, or ordinary dog treats very motivating, I’ve had to get more creative in my training. One food she finds really motivating are canned sardines.

Before I got this dog, I had never eaten a sardine. Once my pantry was stocked with at least a dozen tins of sardines - an option I knew was more sustainable and lower in mercury than the neighboring cans of tuna - it was inevitable that I would get curious.

I’ve since become a convert, and it looks I’m not the only one focusing on the sardine as a greener seafood option.

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Ever stare at the seafood counter and wonder where all that fish comes from? Maybe not, but I do, and a new article in Martha Stewart’s Body+Soul magazine wades through some other issues that might be on your mind - overfishing, fish farming, omega-3s and mercury.

Although the article sugar coats a few things (e.g. wild fish generally being a safe, sustainable option - not true), it contains some good advice. First and foremost, get to know the people that sell you fish. They can be your best ally in making good choices and are often a wealth of knowledge.

Second, don’t be afraid to ask questions like, ‘Where is this fish from?’, ‘Is it farmed or wild?’, etc. This will help steer you in the right direction.

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Are sardines making a sustainable and sumptuous comeback? The Washington Post attempted to address this very question yesterday in a provocative article about the self-proclaimed “Sardinistas.” According to this group of nutritionists, environmentalists and foodie revolutionaries, the answer is a resounding “yes!”  Sardine advocates and cutting-edge green chefs like Dean Gold and David Myers are bringing this smelly canned food out of the cob-webbed cabinet corner and back into the kitchen in innovative new ways. Or they are trying to, at least.

Just recently, I had the privilege of attending a private luncheon with the Sardinistas at filmmaker Mark Shelley’s Sea Studios Foundation on Monterey’s Cannery Row.  The purpose of this luncheon was to highlight their recent efforts to promote sardines as a delicious and sustainable seafood choice.   What struck me was their point that while Americans love eating tuna and other steak-like fish, we need to eat fish farther down the food chain (like sardines) to help alleviate pressure at the top.

After talking shop, we had the chance to eat delectable canned, frozen and fresh sardine dishes by renowned chef Alton Brown of The Food Network!  If you don’t take my word for how tasty these creatures can be, try out for yourself these sardine-centric recipes for Sarde Arrosto (Griddle Roasted Sardines), Stuffed Sardines and Vuido (widowed potatoes).

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Seafood is often called brain food. It’s a good source of many different nutrients, including long chain omega-3 fatty acids. Eating fish — or taking fish oil supplements — has been linked to a number of cardiovascular and neurological benefits. For this reason, most health experts and the U.S. government’s dietary guidelines encourage people to eat more seafood.

However, a new study in the journal of the Canadian Medical Association calls this recommendation into question, contending that the health benefits of omega-3’s have potentially been oversold while the ocean’s ability to provide them is failing.

The bottom line? The jury is still out on how much fish we should eat, so making eco-friendly choices is essential.

The study’s authors accurately point out that the oceans can no longer provide us with fish (and fish oil) at the current pace. Barely one-quarter of U.S. fisheries are known to be sustainably fished, and the United Nations reports that 80 percent of the world’s fisheries are now either fully fished (i.e. incapable of providing more) or overexploited.

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The next time you’re looking at the seafood options in your local supermarket, try texting FishPhone to see which selection is best for the environment and your health. Just send the word FISH, followed by a type of seafood (Salmon, for example) to 30644.

In just a few minutes, they’ll text you back with sustainability information and alternatives that taste similar if you’ve made a bad choice. FishPhone has been around since October 2007, and recently Bon Appetit included it on their list of 50 Easy Ways to Eat Green.

A lobster, thought to be up to 140 years old, is to be released into the Atlantic Ocean, after briefly becoming an unconventional mascot at a New York City restaurant.

PETA found out about the plight of the 20 pound crustacean when a diner at NYC’s City Crab & Seafood called to say it was being kept in the diner’s tank. PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk praised the restaurant, saying, “We applaud the folks at City Crab and Seafood for their compassionate decision to allow this noble old-timer to live out his days in freedom and peace.”

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By Lester R. Brown

After World War II, accelerating population growth and steadily rising incomes drove the demand for seafood upward at a record pace. At the same time, advances in fishing technologies, including huge refrigerated processing ships that enabled trawlers to exploit distant oceans, enabled fishers to respond to the growing world demand. In response, the oceanic fish catch climbed from 19 million tons in 1950 to its historic high of 93 million tons in 1997. This fivefold growth—more than double that of population—raised the wild seafood supply per person worldwide from 7 kilograms (15.4 pounds) in 1950 to a peak of 17 kilograms in 1988. Since then, it has fallen to 14 kilograms.

As population grows and as modern food marketing systems give more people access to these products, seafood consumption is growing. Indeed, the human appetite for seafood is outgrowing the sustainable yield of oceanic fisheries. Today 75 percent of fisheries are being fished at or beyond their sustainable capacity. As a result, many are in decline and some have collapsed.

While oceanic fisheries face numerous threats, it is overfishing that directly threatens their survival. Oceanic harvests expanded as new technologies evolved, ranging from sonar for tracking schools of fish to vast driftnets that are collectively long enough to circle the earth many times over. Indeed, a 2003 landmark study published in Nature concluded that 90 percent of the large fish in the oceans had disappeared over the last 50 years, as a result of this expansion.

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Dear Readers,

Some of you have inquired about how I’ve been spending my time since wrapping up production (and living) on the Sust Enable project at the end of July.  As I wrote in my post “Voyage to the Center of the United States,” my August was spent travelling the country, experiencing its still awe-inspiring natural beauty.

Since mid-September, I have taken work waitressing nearly full time at a restaurant.  And no, that isn’t sustainable.

Sust Enable, my three month foray of 100% sustainable living, taught me a lot of things.  The first thing I noticed after the project concluded is that I was hopelessly broke.  Trying to innovate a radical new eco-conscious way of living doesn’t pay… rather, it sapped money, as I watched my planned resources for feeding and housing myself in a “100% sustainable” way fall through.

Partly, I am okay that the Sust Enable project didn’t pay me at all–it was an educational experience to me about how money works from an outsider’s perspective.  On the other hand, I was teetering near the brink of not being able to provide for myself–literally!  As much as I loathe the fact, nearly all systems for providing for one’s basic needs exist within the money-exchange system.  The ones outside of such a system and potentially sustainable, as I learned, are either insufficient, unavailable, or sabotaged at every possible opportunity by the capitalist system–by business owners, managers, policies, laws.

So, come September, I decided I really would like a place to myself.  I really would like to be warmed in freezing weather.  I really would like to have food readily accessible to me.  Basic ideas, no?  Certainly, each of these systems in their current states are unsustainable in terms of the environment.  But at the very least, I now have a perspective on how that might be different in the future, and can hopefully work to create a society that doesn’t have to trade the health of our air or water for our immediate stability and livelihood.

Working as a server in a restaurant has been a difficult situation for me.  I know I need the money… but holding that thought aloft every day above a sea of swirling, conflicting passions has been challenging.  I watch perfectly good food go uneaten and thrown out–but paid for–because of the sentiments that day of the purchaser.  I see inordinate amounts of cruel and unsustainably-harvested meat–from steak to seafood–served with enhancing garnishes on plates to carefree consumers, who will never feel or see the horrors of a meatpacking factory.  Money accounts for all.  I see servers, some of the hardest working people I have ever met, go untipped (our main source of income) by a table of cheerful business people.  But most of all, I see a continuous flow of garbage–paper, plastic, glass, and food–into the trash bins.

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Dead zones are created, in the beginning, by nitrogen (among other things). Nitrogen is the byproduct (in this instance) of natural gas transformed in to ammonia fertilizer, which is then spread across the agricultural landscape of many western and emerging nations.

From there the runoff makes its way to streams, then rivers and finally the oceans. It is at this stage upon reaching the ocean that the real trouble begins. The increase of nitrogen in the waters fuels the increase of algae which subsequently absorbs exorbitant amounts of oxygen, making life unbearable for most creatures…

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According to SustainLane who just released their 2008 Sustainable City rankings, city traits that are already set in stone like geography and layout play a huge role. Take the greenest cities in America: Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and New York. Four out of the five them are situated on the coast and were built before suburbia existed.

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The recent The New York Times story about two high school students who did DNA testing on fish shines a light once again on one of the seafood industry’s dirty little secrets — fish fraud. They found that one fourth of 60 samples of seafood taken in New York City restaurants and seafood markets were mislabeled.

But with lax FDA regulations and virtually no enforcement, the practice is more common than one would hope. In recent years, there have been numerous reports of fraud occurring around the country. Three years ago, a Times investigation also found that fish sold as wild Alaskan salmon by high-end New York City markets was mostly cheaper farm-raised salmon, selling for as much as $29 a pound. (See my previous post Plenty of Safe, Eco-Friendly Fish in the Sea.)

The U.S. Food Drug and Drug Administration, which oversees the safety of our seafood supply, defines fraud as the substitution of a less expensive fish for a more expensive kind, for example, tilapia for red snapper, farmed salmon for wild from Alaska, or basa or tra (Vietnamese catfish) for grouper.

Checklist: How to spot fish fraud

Being informed and knowing your seafood is the best way to arm yourself against fraud. Some things that should raise red flags are:

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According to this year’s report, Americans consumed a total of 4.908 billion pounds of seafood in 2007, slightly less than the 4.944 billion pounds in 2006. The average American ate 16.3 pounds of fish and shellfish in 2007, a one percent decline from the 2006 consumption figures of 16.5 pounds. But even though U.S. seafood consumption is flat, global consumption continues to grow; a major study in the journal Science predicts the global collapse of the world’s major fisheries by the middle of this century. Already, over the past 50 years, there has been a 90 percent reduction of the ocean’s large predatory fish, including sharks, swordfish and tuna.

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When fishermen in Sinnam, South Korea started pulling up empty nets, they did the only logical thing. Finding themselves in a hard place, they erected huge penis statues.

It turns out that not long before the fishing scare, a young woman–still a virgin–had drowned near the village within sight of her lover. Locals feared that her frustrated spirit was spooking the fish away.

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As a marine scientist who has been researching seafood sustainability and health issues for a long time, I’ve known for a while that bluefin tuna not only has high mercury levels but is severely depleted, too.

These magnificent fish are highly prized for their rich, buttery flesh. The global sushi market can’t get enough bluefin, and as a result, exorbitant prices and severe overfishing are driving bluefin tuna to the brink of extinction.

I love sushi as much as the next person, but given its dire population numbers and high mercury levels, maybe its time that we all lay off for a while.

Now making big headlines is a New York Times report that found that much of the bluefin sushi served in upscale New York City restaurants actually exceeds the Food and Drug Administration’s “action level” for mercury. (The threshold is 1 part per million.)

To reiterate: It’s no surprise that bluefin tuna has high levels of mercury – it’s one of the largest and most predatory fish species in the ocean. What is surprising is just how many New York City restaurants are serving the really high-mercury tuna.

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1

Rank of shrimp in popularity among all types of seafood Americans eat

4.4

Pounds of shrimp the average American consumed in 2006

10%

Share of shrimp sold in the U.S. that comes from the Southeast U.S. (Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean), where fisheries and farms are held to stricter standards

90%

Share of shrimp sold in the U.S. that comes largely from Southeast Asia and Latin America, where environmental regulations are sometimes lax and often not enforced

33%

Share of U.S. shrimp imports that come from Thailand, our largest single supplier

$4.1 billion

Value of U.S. shrimp imports in 2006, nearly one-third of all seafood imports, compared with coffee imports of $3.1 billion and fossil fuels worth $300 billion

44%

Percentage of worldwide shrimp production that came from farms in 2005

12,000%

Increase in farmed shrimp production between 1975 and 2005. Production ballooned from just over 22,000 tons to more than 2.6 million tons.

3.7 million

Acreage of tropical coastal mangroves estimated to have been converted to shrimp farms, destroying important habitat for fish, birds and people

2

Number of pounds of wild fish it generally takes to produce one pound of farmed shrimp

More on eco-friendly farmed shrimp.

A few months ago, in an effort to green up my health and beauty products, I ran across National Geographic’s The Green Guide. The site included a handy wallet-sized guide called The Dirty Dozen in Personal Care Products, which allows me to pick products that don’t contain harmful chemicals.

Then last week, my issue of Whole Life Times included a tear-out seafood guide. It lets me know what to avoid eating, due to contamination or unsustainable fishing practices.

This got me thinking…what other guides are out there, which would help me make decisions on the spot, in the store, when I don’t have fast access to online information?

Since The Green Guide’s personal care wallet guide was so good, it seemed like a logical place to start. Little did I know that I was about to hit the mother lode. With guides on everything from home renovations to eggs (yes, eggs), you might need a bigger wallet to contain all of the information. But a few guides in particular caught my eye:

Plastics: As it turns out, not all plastics are created equal. So though it’s better not to use plastic at all, some are worse choices than others. For example, if you see #3 PVC on the bottom of a container, avoid it. Not only is PVC not recyclable, but it releases carcinogens and hormone disrupters when it’s made or incinerated. PVC can also leach chemicals into food – especially hot, fatty foods – so don’t reheat left-overs in it. Instead, look for the recycling codes #1 PETE, #2 HDPE, #4 LDPE and #5 PP on the bottom of containers. Even better? Glass, metal, paper, or ceramic.

Household Cleaners: This one will be obvious to anyone who’s ever gotten a snoot full of Tilex. Conventional cleaning products contain lots of fragrances and petroleum-distilled chemicals that vaporize into the air, known as volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. These can cause breathing problems and asthma, and contribute to higher levels of toxicity inside homes. The wallet guide lists specific products in many categories that are better choices.

Toys: With all of the news about lead paint in children’s toys made in China, this should be at the forefront of parents’ minds. Again, PVC makes the list of things to avoid – instead look for natural elements, like organic cotton and unfinished sustainable wood. My favorite surprise in this category? LEGO. They are PVC and phthalate-free, and you can still get a bucket of them for ten bucks. Who says going green has to cost an arm and a leg?

Fish is a source of healthy omega-3 fatty acids, but unfortunately because of the pollution in our waters, fish and other seafoods also contain toxins such as mercury and PCBs. Then there’s also the issue of overfishing, and the debate between wild-caught and farm-raised fish to consider. So how do you know what fish choose?

To help you sort out the "good" fish from the "bad" fish, Environmental Defense has created the Seafood Selector. Whether you’re in a restaurant or the seafood department of the grocery store, the Seafood Selector will guide you through your purchase.

The Seafood Selector is an easy to read chart (also available as a wallet sized print out) listing the best and worst seafood choices. For example, wild-caught salmon is better than farm raised salmon, and U.S. crawfish is good while imported shrimp isn’t. The selector is based on factors including what part of the world seafood comes from, how it is caught, the environmental regulations in different parts of the world, as well as the impact and health benefits of each individual selection. (More information on the selection process is available in the Seafood Selector FAQs). Use it as a guideline to help you make smarter seafood choices.

Want omega-3 fatty acids without the fish? GO’s Collen Patrick-Goudreau lists several plant-based sources for omega-3 fatty acids - no toxins involved.

More on fish from GO:

Choosing Healthy, Ocean-Friendly Seafood is a No-Brainer

One Fish, Two Fish, Let’s Just Not Fish: By-Catch in our Seafood Salad

Dolphins, and Turtles, and Seals - Oh My! The Effect of Fishing on the Animals We Care About

Food Toxins: Toxins in our Food Chain

The Nutrients We Need are Plant-Based

Environmental Defense: Farmed Caviar is a Less Expensive, eco-Friendly Alternative to Severely Depleted (and Banned) Beluga

Incidental catch, or "by-catch," refers to unintended or unwanted animals caught by the fishing industry. It is estimated that by-catch-related mortality is causing population declines in 13 out of the 44 species of marine mammals that are suffering high death rates from human activities. Commercial fishers use a number of techniques for ensnaring animals, from setting miles of line and baited hooks (called longlines) to catch animals such as sharks, swordfish, and tuna, to using large nets to catch schools of fish. These large nets are towed underwater by what are called trawlers. A trawler is a fishing vessel designed for the purpose of operating a trawl, a type of fishing net that is dragged along the bottom of the sea (or sometimes just above the bottom at a specified depth).

UNEARTHING THE OCEAN FLOOR
A single pass of a trawl removes up to 20% of the seafloor fauna and flora - legally. And the fisheries with the highest levels of by-catch are shrimp fisheries: 80%-90% of a catch may consist of marine species other than the shrimp being targeted. 80%-90% of the animals caught in these nets that are targeting shrimp and prawns are actually non-target animals – they’re by-catch.

Shrimp are bottom-dwellers, which is why trawling nets are used to – remove them from the ocean. Since even jumbo shrimp are really small, the nets used to catch the shrimp are very fine, which means these nets scoop up all the animals – all the life – found on the ocean’s floor. According to a 2003 U.S. News and World Report article on fishing and its detrimental affects on the oceans of the world, every pound of shrimp that’s caught results in the killing of ten pounds of other marine life. According to the Worldwide Fund for Nature, in the Gulf of Thailand it can be 14 pounds of by-catch per pound of shrimp.

Now, a lot of the dead by-catch is made up of tiny animals that people don’t have emotional attachments to; that is, they may not be as cute as baby seals or dolphins, but they contribute to the oceans’ biodiversity and they have a right to be there – to live.

The other thing to consider is that the dredging along the ocean floor also breaks up coral and the habitats of bottom-dwellers. And because the same areas are dredged again and again, it’s not like these habitats and inhabitants have time to recover before being destroyed again. Fish populations, communities, and ecosystems are being destroyed so humans can eat shrimp cocktail.

The animals termed as by-catch are often discarded back into the ocean already dead or dying. Many are half-alive and die slow, unnecessary deaths. Trawl nets in general, and shrimp trawls in particular where the discard may be 90% of the catch, have been identified as sources of mortality for many species of concern, including endangered animals and cetaceans, such as whales, dolphins and porpoises. Sea turtles, already endangered, have been killed by the thousands in shrimp trawl nets.

It's hard to get exact number, but another way to put this is that anywhere between 6.8 million and 27 million tons of fish could be being discarded each year. We may be looking at the one fish on our plate or the 5 shrimp in our seafood salad, but countless numbers of animals were dredged up and killed for the individuals we see on our own plates.

CETACEANS (WHALES, DOLPHINS, PORPOISES)
I've been focusing primarily about the by-catch caused by trawling nets and shrimp nets, but there are other commercial fishing methods that also result in by-catch. Nets tend to kill cetaceans (dolphins, porpoises and whales), and longline fishing kills birds, for instance. As for the first group, an estimated 300,000 cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) die as by-catch each year, because they are unable to escape when caught in nets. We may not think cod fish are particularly cute, but most people get pretty emotional about whales, dolphins, and porpoises. If we don’t consider the cod, perhaps we can consider the animals for whom we do have sympathy.

SHARKS - THE TRUE VICTIMS IN THE HUMAN-FISH RELATIONSHIP
In the case of the shark by-catch in the tuna industry, "data for Pacific longline tuna fisheries are limited, but available data indicate that shark catches are often as high as tuna catches and more than 50 species of sharks and fish are captured as by-catch in West Pacific tuna longline fisheries." (Incidentally, in defense of sharks, it has been estimated that a staggering 100 million sharks are caught every year, have their dorsal fins cut off - to serve in soup, and are thrown back into the ocean to die a slow death.

SEABIRDS - MANY ON THE BRINK OF EXTINCTION
As I mentioned earlier, seabirds are also inevitable "by-catch" victims, as they dive for the bait planted on long fishing lines, swallow the bait along with the hook, and are pulled under the water where they drown. Around 100,000 albatrosses are killed by longline fisheries every year, particularly where tuna are fished, and because of this, many species are facing extinction. This is very prevalent in the waters off Chile, where sea bass is aggressively hunted by boats towing fifty-mile longlines.

According to the Pew Oceans Commission, Patagonian toothfish long-liners killed around 265,000 seabirds between 1996 and 1999; in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, where the total breeding population of the black-footed albatross is 120,000 birds, annual fishing-related mortalities of 1,000 and 2,000 birds are significant; and longline fisheries in the U.S., including the Pacific cod fishery kills some 9,400 to 20,200 seabirds every year.

In subsequent posts, I'll address the dolphins, sea turtles, seals, and other marine mammals who are also written off as "collateral damage." Look forward to more on the un-sustainability of farm-raising fish, on the evidence of fish intelligence, and much more related to our pursuit of gustatory pleasure. Check out my previous post for the reasons to obtain Omega-3 fatty acids from plant sources rather than fish (hint: the fish obtain these fats from plant sources, too!)

Humans have no nutritional requirement for the flesh or secretions of other animals. Like the non-human animals we eat, we can go straight to the source - to the plants - for all the nutrients we need to survive and thrive.