Dissecting Fish Farming Propaganda

Cross-posted here. I thought this might be of interest to my foodie friends, too.

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This week, in my Canadian Living Magazine, I received a lengthy piece of propaganda from these people. I don't know how it wound up in the Canadian Living package, along with a whack of coupons and other inserts, but it was an interesting piece of propaganda nonetheless. And who doesn't love a good piece of propaganda, right? Right.

Though honest and informative, this 8 page flyer did nothing to ease any concerns I might have had about farmed salmon. In fact, after reading it through and highlighting some passages, I am even more firmly committed to not purchasing farmed salmon. The propaganda had the opposite effect to what was apparently desired by the British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association.

A few highlights. I love this first one, actually.

During the last months of hatchery life, we vaccinate our salmon to help build their immune systems. At the farm site, this vaccine will protect the salmon from diseases commonly found in the saltwater environment.

Not cool with me at all, actually, but thanks for letting me know.

Next, this very assuring admission:

Since salmon naturally eat fish, such as herring and anchovies, including fish meal and oil in their diet seems natural. However, these proteins and oils are now being increasingly substituted with vegetable-based proteins and oils. (Emphasis mine.)

Again, not cool. Farmed salmon are being fed fish meal - not real fish - that now contains vegetable-based proteins and oils. This is moving even farther away from the fish's natural diet, and if these vegetable-based proteins and oils are processed at all, that's a big problem, since processed vegetable oil products are very problematic for humans, too. It's not good for humans, I can't see how this would be good for salmon.

The majority of BC farmed salmon are Atlantic salmon.

This is common knowledge if you haven't been living under a rock, but the statement, though honest, doesn't help me feel any better about farmed salmon. This sentence appears under a heading called "Escapes" which gives the reader information about what happens when a farmed Atlantic salmon happens to escape the farm. Very interesting, especially the part that says "all farmed fish escapes must be reported and that information made public." Fine. But still, the inherent problem here isn't addressed: this industry has introduced a species that is not native to the environment. Additionally, the Atlantic salmon, according to the information provided, cannot breed with any Pacific species, which is a relief, but "escaped farm salmon are poorly adapted to survival having been fed, pampered, and protected from predators. While small numbers of escaped Atlantic salmon have managed to make it to rivers, even fewer survive and none have ever produced sustained populations." Though every effort is made to prevent escapes, nothing is foolproof, despite improvements to cages. Accidents happen. If an accident happens in this case, fish die one way or another, depositing their vaccinated, vegetable-protein-fed remains out in the sea where any unsuspecting halibut can come and feast on it. Again, not cool.

By 2030, the world is expected to eat nearly 70% more fish than it does now. Wild fisheries can't keep up. One answer is aquaculture. ... In 2005, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FOA) reported that 75% of the world's capture fisheries were at or near their harvest rates.

So, wild fisheries cannot keep up with demand, and fish stocks world-wide are in big trouble. I fail to see how farming fish is going to help things out. In fact, fish farming could be quite bad for the planet if you read the above points and then imagine fish farming growing increasing all over the world. Surely the most obvious solution to this problem is to stop overfishing and overconsuming fish.

Fish feed contains two beta-carotenes, astaxanthin and canthaxanthin, which are found in nature as well. These carotenes provide salmon with the necessary nutrients for healthy grown and their beautiful colour. Wild salmon achieve their coloration from these same micronutrients by eating small crustaceans, like shrimp, which naturally contain high beta-carotene levels.

Again, thanks for the info, but if given the choice, I'm going to choose wild salmon that have eaten those small crustaceans instead of fish meal, thank you very much. Just like I choose buffalo meat that is free-range and grass-fed.

Finally:

Farmed salmon are not fed steroids or hormones and rarely receive antibiotics. Similar to other farmed animals, if a fish is sick a veterinarian may recommend a treatment; this treated fish cannot be harvested until after a mandatory waiting period. In fact, fish farms use the least amount of antibiotics in the agriculture industry.

This may be true, but see the above point about vaccination. Obviously, there is a risk of sickness, otherwise there would be no need to vaccinate, and while the vaccinations might minimize the need for antibiotics later in the fish's life, we are still getting into a vicious circle that could have been eliminated easily by not introducing a foreign species into the environment in the first place.

This is just my two cents, of course. What do you think?

Becoming a Localvore: Local Eggs

One of the things I wanted to do to help green up my kitchen and my eating was to buy local eggs. The eggs at the local overpriced grocery store are not necessarily local and they are most definitely overpriced. The cheapest eggs, which are, honestly, the ones I usually buy because I'm on a budget, also come in a non-recyclable styrofoam container. The yolks are pale yellow and the eggs are pretty tasteless. They go for $2.79 - $2.99/dozen. The next cheapest ones are $4.99/dozen. I get way better eggs from Wally World in Colville, WA, for a far better price.

Luckily, there are a couple of people who sell eggs from their farms in this area, and one of them happens to be a co-worker of my SIL's. My SIL regularly gets eggs from this gal, who lives right near the border in a small farming community called Paterson, which is about a five minute drive from town. These eggs come from free-range chickens who are not pumped full of chemicals at all, and she charges $3/dozen. I got my first dozen last Monday!

These eggs are beautiful, huge, and have bright yolks! I am in egg heaven!

Tofu Tuesdays #1

Oh yeah - another series!

I was inspired to start this tofu series after writing this post about greening up the kitchen and my eating. In that post, I mentioned an article in Bon Appetit called "50 Easy Ways to Eat Green", and idea #39 was to eat more tofu. I used to eat tofu somewhat regularly in university and every so often when I was on Weight Watchers. I kind of got over it though, and haven't had any in quite some time. I haven't really missed it. My main knock against it is that it's very processed, as are many tofu products, and my focus has been to eat more unprocessed, whole foods instead of stuff that bears no resemblance to it's natural form. But, as the article states, tofu is quite green, and takes less resources to produce than your average pound of beef (which I eat rarely anyway). Replacing 1lb of beef with 1lb of tofu per month apparently saves 20,000 gallons of water annually.

Fine. I can add some tofu to my diet.

Enter Canadian Living Magazine, February 2009 issue, and a section on a Chinese New Year menu, which included this recipe for Bok Choy, Mushroom, and Tofu Soup. It looked simple and delicious, and has about 59 calories per serving. Now, this soup is supposed to be part of a larger meal, so it's not too hearty on its own. In order to make it more filling and a little more...ah...fun, shall we say, I added some fresh chow mein noodles to it - because, let's face it, noodles make everything better, right? I also made my own stock once more, as seen here, only leaving out the lemon and adding ginger and some celery tops instead.

The soup turned out really well and I used medium tofu instead of firm. Big difference! Not rubbery or chewy and its softness took in the flavour of the soup much more than firm tofu would have. I'll have to remember this little tofu tip for the future.

Bon appetit!

Magazine Monday #24: Fish in Tomato Sauce

In flipping through my recipe binder looking for something completely unrelated to dinner or fish or anything like that, I came upon this recipe from the April 2007 issue of Canadian Living, accompanying an article about sustainable fishing. Apparently, tilapia is sustainably raised and harvested, and is one of six recommended eco-friendly seafood choices. The recipe was simple and involved things I more or less had on hand. It's a shame my local overpriced grocery store didn't have any tilapia in stock when I went to get some yesterday afternoon. I had to use basa instead.

I have a difficult relationship with basa, since it was something we served with way too much regularity at the retreat centre worked at a few years back. When I quit that job, I thought that I could happily live without any more basa in my life. Alas, it was the only decent substitution I could afford when it came to making this dish. In the end, it worked out very well and I was happy with how it turned out.

Tilapia and Tomato Sauce.

This was a simple, quick, and very tasty recipe that I'll definitely be keeping in my binder!

Going Green: Food Edition

Over at my regular blog, I did a post at the end of December about some ways I strove to be greener during the year. The Feb. 2009 issue of Bon Appetit has a pretty good article in it entitled "50 Ways to Eat Green." The title is pretty self-explanatory: here are 50 ways to eat greenly.

Upon reading the article, I was pleased to see that I already do several of these things. For example:

#1: Eat more chocolate - fair trade & organic that is. I have been endeavouring to purchase more high-quality, fair trade, and organic chocolate for a while. I don't always succeed, but I do buy Green & Black's more than any other brand nowadays.
#3: Fill up your freezer. Check!
#5: Make a bison burger. I have started buying more bison when I feel like having red meat.
#9: Cook more often - to avoid packaging and preservatives. Yep, do this all the time! It's also way cheaper!
#10: Roast a whole chicken. As I mentioned in the other post, I have loved doing this and plan on continuing.

There were a lot of great ideas in this article that would be really easy for me to incorporate:

#4: Don't Read The Omnivore's Dilemma, but rather In Defense of Food instead. The latter apparently encapsulates Michael Pollan's philosophy nicely. The article recommends checking it out of the library. I can do that.
#21: Make your own cereal. Apart from oatmeal, which I regularly have for breakfast, I plan on making that wicked granola a lot more because it's so delicious and easy!
#25: Veg out. I.e. eat more vegetarian/plant-based foods, because they require less energy and resources to produce. I plan on eating more vegetarian dishes this year.
#39: Eat More Tofu. Well, I can tolerate tofu, but my main issue with it is that it's actually very processed. But, according to the article, it's actually way greener than meat, and uses way less water to produce. Apparently, if you replace one pound of beef with one pound of tofu each month, you save 20, 000 gallons of water each year. Tofu Tuesdays anyone?

One thing I do that isn't in the article is that I use a non-aerosol vegetable oil sprayer thingy, very similar to this one (mine isn't stainless steel, it's plastic, but it does the same thing). I hate Pam and it's clones. It's what makes your cookware/bakeware cruddy looking with brown spots that never come off. They also use propellants like butane and other crap I don't want to put into my body. With the pump/sprayer, I can use whatever oil I want to, and with a little muscle power, I get the exact same results as I would with Pam. The device cost me about $8 and I have saved a lot of money by not buying as much oil, too.

What about you guys? What do you do that is green, or is it even a consideration for you? Any ideas you want to share? Let me know!