Saving Seafood

Nutrition

Fish-oil drugs protect heart health, two studies say

November 12, 2018 — Two major studies released Saturday provide evidence that medications derived from fish oil are effective in protecting people from fatal heart attacks, strokes and other forms of cardiovascular disease.

The large, multiyear research efforts tested different formulations and quantities of drugs made with Omega-3 fatty acids on two groups of people: one that suffered from cardiovascular disease or diabetes and another that represented the general population. Both studies found that people who took the drugs every day enjoyed protection against some heart and circulatory problems compared with those given a placebo.

In a look at another commonly consumed supplement, vitamin D, researchers found no effect on heart disease but saw a link to a decline in cancer deaths over time.

The research was released Saturday at the American Heart Association’s 2018 Scientific Sessions in Chicago and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

About 43 million people in the United States take statins to lower LDL, or “bad,” cholesterol, and the drugs are credited with reducing the risk of heart attacks and strokes. But heart disease remains the leading killer of Americans. In recent years, a long, steady decrease in heart disease deaths has slowed. So researchers are seeking other ways to combat cardiovascular disease beyond known protective factors such as changes in diet, exercise and smoking habits.

One of the studies unveiled Saturday, named by the acronym REDUCE-IT, determined that people with cardiovascular disease who were already taking statins stood less chance of serious heart issues when they were also given two grams of the drug Vascepa (icosapent ethyl) twice a day.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Study: Eco-labeling encourages sales of all kinds of seafood, not just sustainable products

November 1, 2018 — Shoppers will buy larger quantities of seafood – both sustainably certified and non-certified – when given information about eco-labels, new research has found.

Using previous surveys that had evidenced that price and taste matter most to people when they buy seafood, and also that shoppers have a tendency to buy the same products as friends and family members, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) decided to test what would happen if store customers were told that lots of other shoppers bought Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) labeled seafood.

Isabel Richter’s doctorate in environmental psychology at NTNU explored how people could be motivated to eat more sustainable seafood. She was granted permission to carry out an experiment in grocery stores in Norway and Germany.

Richter started by first putting up a sign with information about the MSC label on the seafood cooler. The cooler included salmon and cod both with and without the MSC label, with similar prices and weight.

In the next trials, she put up eight different signs with an image and label information – plus some wording telling shoppers that a percentage of the customers who shopped at that particular store chose to buy seafood with the MSC label.

Four of the signs said that more than 50 percent of the customers in the store selected eco-labeled products, while the other four signs said that less than 50 percent of customers did this.

In the Norwegian stores, about 70 percent of the products were not labeled. In Germany, the MSC eco-label is more widespread so several products included it.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Nutrition researcher: The human diet needs more shellfish

October 29, 2018 — Numerous studies have shown that eating seafood is good for human health, but Professor Baukje de Roos, deputy director of the Rowett Institute at Scotland’s University of Aberdeen and an internationally recognized nutrition scientist, believes that shellfish are some of the most important contributors of essential nutrients and should be given a great place in the diet.

Professor de Roos, who is currently researching the effects of farmed seafood on heart health and micronutrient status, updated delegates at the recent Association of Scottish Shellfish Growers conference in Oban, Scotland, on the major health benefits of seafood and outlined the important involvement of shellfish.

Professor de Roos reminded her audience that omega-3 fatty acids help to protect against stroke and lower the risk of mortality from coronary heart disease, while vitamin D is essential for the growth and maintenance of healthy bones; and vitamin B12 is involved in the functioning of the nervous system, the formation of red blood cells, and in energy production.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Omega 3 fatty acids found in seafood tied to healthy aging

October 24, 2018 — People may be more likely to age without health problems when they have more omega 3 fatty acids in their blood, a recent study suggests.

The study authors focused on so-called healthy aging, or the number of years people live without developing disabilities or physical or mental health problems. They examined data on 2,622 adults who were 74 years old on average, following them from 1992 to 2015. Only 11 percent of participants experienced healthy aging throughout the entire study period.

“We found that older adults who had higher levels of omega 3 from seafood were more likely to live longer and healthier lives,” said lead study author Heidi Lai of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston.

“These findings support current national dietary guidelines to consume more seafood,” Lai said by email.

Adults should get about eight ounces a week of seafood, ideally by eating it twice a week in place of meats, poultry or eggs, according to U.S. dietary guidelines. Some options that are high in omega 3s include salmon, anchovies, herring, shad, sardines, oysters, trout and Atlantic or Pacific mackerel.

Read the full story at Reuters

 

Harris Teeter shoppers may have bought mislabeled and ‘distressed’ crabmeat for years

October 19, 2018 — Harris Teeter is contacting members of its VIC loyalty-card program this week to offer refunds involving crab meat sold between 2010 and 2015.

The crab, supplied by a Virginia company called Casey’s Seafood, is part of a massive federal fraud case over the mislabeling of seafood.

The Washington Post reported Sept. 26 that Casey’s owner James Casey, 74, pleaded guilty in September to relabeling and reselling “distressed” crab meat from other countries as fresh crab meat from the Chesapeake Bay. Distressed crab meat is crab that was recalled, returned or out of date. Casey will be sentenced in January and is facing up to five years in prison, according to the Post.

The charges involved more than 360,000 pounds of crab sold between 2012 and 2015, although prosecutors believe the crab meat switch may have dated to as early as 2010, the Post reported.

The crab meat was valued at millions of dollars, and was sold to stores and restaurants in multiple Southeastern states, including North and South Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, the District of Columbia and Tennessee, according to the Associated Press.

Checks by The Observer of other supermarket chains, including Publix, Food Lion, Bi Lo, Earth Fare and Whole Foods, didn’t find other companies in North Carolina involved in the sales of the Casey’s crab meat.

Multiple news reports about the case say that federal agents were notified by a tip and did DNA tests on samples of the product in several states, including North Carolina.

Danna Robinson, communications manager for Harris Teeter, wouldn’t say how many customers were contacted or how much it is providing in refunds.

Read the full story at The Charlotte Observer

Omega-3s in Fish Oils Tied to Healthy Aging

October 19, 2018 — Higher blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids, the fats found in fish, are linked to a healthier old age, according to a new study.

Researchers tracked 2,622 adults, average age 74 and healthy at the start of the study, from 1992 to 2015, looking to see if they continued to live without chronic diseases and without mental or physical problems.

The investigators measured blood levels of four common types of omega-3s: EPA and DHA, found in seafood; ALA, derived from plants; and DPA, which the body produces in small amounts.

After adjusting for many medical, dietary and lifestyle factors, they found that compared with people in the lowest one-fifth for omega-3 levels, those in the highest one-fifth had an 18 percent lower risk of unhealthy aging. The study appeared in BMJ.

Considered separately, EPA and DPA were associated with lowered risk of unhealthy aging, but DHA and ALA were not.

Read the full story at The New York Times

We can help you fight fish fraud – for starters, buy local

October 1, 2018 — The path most of the seafood imported into the United States travels from its source to the consumer is long in terms of distance, complicated in terms of the number of middlemen and women and transformative because whole fish become fillets, shrimp become scampi and crab become cakes.

Seafood fraud happens when somewhere along the way, the fish, shellfish and their parts get intentionally mislabeled, swapped out or plumped up for the seller’s gain. In the massive international seafood market – some estimates value it at $130 billion – seafood fraud happens a lot.

In 2013, the seafood industry watchdog group Oceana found that one-third of the 1,200 seafood samples it tested were mislabeled.

In 2015, an INTERPOL–Europol investigation reported that fish traded internationally was the third highest risk category of foods (alcohol and red meat beat it out) with the potential for fraud. And Oceana’s most recent study in Canada last year revealed that 44 percent of 382 seafood samples tested from five Canadian cities did not meet the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s labeling requirements.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Supporters Hope That Dogfish By Another Name Sells Better, And Benefits Consumers

September 26, 2018 — The Fishermen’s Alliance is working with fishermen, and the public, to change the name of dogfish.

Longtime fisherman John Our knows some people who love calamari, but won’t eat squid. Doesn’t matter that they are same thing; calamari just sounds better.

“Dogfish” seems to provoke a similar visceral reaction; people turn their noses up at the name.

“I’ve always thought that if you changed the name you would make it more attractive,” Our said. “It would only help.”

Our’s feeling is backed by research. Fishermen, processors and others have spent years trying to turn local palates on to dogfish. Not that it’s all about the name; there are a host of other problems with making the abundant fish a popular choice, including the lack of nearby processing facilities, but inroads have been made.

Read the full story at The Cape Cod Chronicle

 

Fish Oil Drug May Reduce Heart Attack and Stroke Risks for Some

September 26, 2018 — Cardiologists may one day have a new tool to help prevent heart attacks and strokes in some high-risk patients: a prescription drug that contains large doses of EPA, an omega-3 fatty acid contained in fish oil.

A large clinical trial found that the drug, called Vascepa, sharply reduced the rate of cardiovascular events in people with a history of heart disease or Type 2 diabetes, according to early results that were announced on Monday.

The findings were particularly relevant for people with high triglycerides, a type of fat in the blood that has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease. The new trial, called Reduce-IT, focused on people whose cholesterol levels were well controlled with statins but whose triglyceride levels remained very high. Many cardiovascular experts were doubtful that adding fish oil on top of statins would produce much if any benefit because a number of smaller and less rigorous studies over the years had failed.

But the new trial showed that statin-treated adults with elevated triglycerides who were prescribed high doses of the purified EPA had a 25 percent reduction in their relative risk of heart attacks, strokes and other cardiac events compared to a control group of patients who received placebo.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Baked, then boiled: Why one Maine restaurant is sedating lobsters with marijuana smoke

September 20, 2018 — Lobsters in one Maine restaurant go out in a blaze of glory once they hit the pot. The owner of a lobster joint is sedating her crustaceans with marijuana smoke before cooking them — which she says gives them a blissfully humane death.

Charlotte Gill, owner of Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound in Southwest Harbor, told the Portland Press Herald that she had been looking for a way to reduce suffering of her signature menu item. She experimented with blowing marijuana smoke into a tank with one lobster, Roscoe (basically, she hot-boxed him). When Gill returned him to a tank with the other lobsters without his claw bands, she says, he was less aggressive. Gill has a medical marijuana license.

She plans to offer it as an option for customers who want their lobsters to be baked before they’re boiled. But that doesn’t mean the customer will get stoned from their dinner.

“THC breaks down completely by 392 degrees, therefore we will use both steam as well as a heat process that will expose the meat to 420-degree extended temperature, in order to ensure there is no possibility of carry-over effect,” Gill told the Press Herald. So while some might see it as a humane death for the lobster, others might think it’s a waste of perfectly good weed.

Chefs and scientists have long pondered the question of whether lobsters feel pain. Experiments have shown that crustaceans are responsive to stimuli that cause pain, like heat, but it is unclear whether this is a reflex or a pain response from their nervous systems. It’s also unclear whether cannabis has the same pain-relieving effect on lobsters that it has on humans.

Read the full story at The Washington Post