Nutrition Archives - Saving Seafood

What Will It Take for Americans to Eat Genetically Engineered Salmon?

February 27, 2018 — One day in 1992, a technology entrepreneur sat down for a meeting with a pair of biologists who were studying the genes of fish. The scientists, Hew Choy Leong and Garth Fletcher, were working on a method of purifying “antifreeze proteins” that would help Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) survive so-called super-chill events in the North Atlantic. Normally these salmon migrate out of the subzero, ice-laden seawater of the far North Atlantic to overwinter in less-frigid waters. Increasingly, though, such fish were being farmed, penned year-round in offshore cages, in near-Arctic waters to which they were not adapted. Fish farmers were looking for a way to keep the fish alive through the winter, and the antifreeze protein seemed like a possible solution.

As the meeting drew to a close, Fletcher and Hew showed Elliot Entis, the entrepreneur, a photo of two fish of equal age. One dwarfed the other. “I sat back down,” Entis recalled recently.

Fletcher and Hew, it turned out, had not just been putting antifreeze proteins into Atlantic salmon. They had also figured out a way to add a growth hormone from Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), plus a fragment of DNA from the ocean pout (Zoarces americanus), an eellike creature that inhabits the chilly depths off the coast of New England and eastern Canada. This genetic code acts like an “on” switch to activate the growth hormone. The result was a genetically engineered super-fish that grew nearly twice as fast, on less food, than conventional salmon.

Those salmon, grown and marketed by a company called AquaBounty Technologies that was founded by Entis, could be coming to U.S. grocery stores next year. And they could offer a way out of the deadly spiral of overfishing that is decimating wild-fish stocks.

Read the full story at The Atlantic

What you should know before eating fish from the Delaware

February 21, 2018 — You can eat even more of those fish you’ve caught in the Delaware River and Delaware Bay, state officials said Tuesday.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, citing improved water quality, has eased many of the restrictions it had in place on the amount of certain fish it says are safe to consume from those waters.

“These changes reflect an ongoing trend in which contaminants from past pollution such as PCBs and pesticides continues to decline,” Acting DEP Commissioner Anne McCabe said.

McCabe said anyone catching fish from the river or bay should review the DEP’s fish advisories so they can make “sound decisions” on what type of fish they should eat and how much.

Among the key changes include removing all advisories for weakfish for both the general population and those considered to be at higher risk.

The DEP also increased the acceptable consumption limit for all finfish caught in the Delaware River south of the Delaware-Pennsylvania border to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal to three meals per year compared with the previous limit of one fish meal per year.

High-risk individuals, which include women of child-bearing age and children, continue to be advised to eat no fish from this area.

In addition, the DEP announced Tuesday it has revised its recommendations for consumption of bluefish caught in Delaware Bay from one meal per year for fish that are less than six pounds or smaller than 24 inches to a new recommendation of one meal per month for any fish less than 20 inches long for all groups.

Read the full story at NJ.com

IFFO’s Andrew Mallison responds to National Geographic article

February 9, 2018 — The following was released by the IFFO:

Following an article published this week in National Geographic, I would like to address a few points on behalf of IFFO, The Marine Ingredients Organisation. The article titled ‘Why Salmon Eating Insects Instead of Fish Is Better for Environment’, published on 5^th February 2018, discusses fishmeal and fish oil replacement in salmon feed by a Netherlands based company but quotes information that is both out-of-date and incorrect. Although we agree with the need for additional feed options in aquaculture to ensure the growth of this vital industry, the total replacement of fishmeal and fish oil, as called for in this article, is unjustified and damaging to the fish farming industry.

The practice of feeding fish to fish is labelled as both inefficient and unsustainable in the article, but I would argue that responsibly sourced and used strategically, fishmeal and fish oil are both an efficient and sustainable feed choice. The growing management of wild capture fisheries has ensured that in recent years stocks are in fact steady and not declining (UN FAO State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2016). While catches of some small pelagic species used to produce fishmeal and fish oil are volatile, this is due to environmental fluctuation with permitted catches being varied in line with biomass abundance to protect the stocks. These small pelagic species are often not as palatable, spoil quickly and are less popular compared to other local fish, but can be turned into highly nutritious feed. Further evidence of sustainability in the production of marine ingredients is that over 45% of the global production of fishmeal and fish oil is now independently certified as being safe and environmentally responsible, including in its sourcing of raw materials, a figure that far exceeds any other source of feed ingredient.

Regarding the efficiency of the use of fishmeal and fish oil, our latest FIFO ((Fish In:Fish Out ratios) using 2015 data show a conversion rate of 1kg of wild fish used in feed creates 1.22kg of farmed salmon, demonstrating that farmed salmon now produce globally more consumable protein than is used in feed. This ratio is significantly lower than the out-of-date figures quoted in the article and shows how fishmeal and fish oil are now being more strategically used at key points in aquaculture production cycles with a trend towards optimising their nutritional contributions. In fact, looking at the FIFO ratio misses the rationale for the inclusion of fishmeal and fish oil in feeds as their contribution to growth and health of farmed fish goes well beyond the supply of mere protein and energy.

Many fed farmed fish species have evolved to digest fish protein and much of the modern fish farming industry has been built on feeds using fish based ingredients. An increasing amount (currently 35%) of fishmeal is produced from recycled by-product and waste from fish processing. Fishmeal and fish oil are rich in many of the micronutrients that are required for health, many of which are classed as essential. Even reducing levels of fishmeal in feeds has resulted in feed companies having to supplement with specific materials that are both costly produce, and carry their own environmental impacts. Removing fishmeal as an ingredient to feed could therefore compromise the health of the fish and close an environmentally friendly way of recycling waste products. Production of marine ingredients like fishmeal and fish oil do not require the same levels of fresh water for irrigation, treatment with agricultural chemicals such as fertilisers and pesticides, or use land needed to grow crops. While insect meal may be a theoretical alternative, the production of the millions of tonnes needed to replace fishmeal is currently not viable. When it is clear that the amount of fishmeal and fish oil is not sufficient to meet the growing demand for feed manufacture and, in the best interests of the fish farming industry, the raw material sources for feed should be maximised, it makes little sense to exclude these valuable, responsibly sourced and highly effective ingredients. Although not such a punchy selling message, the reality is that there is an opportunity for alternative ingredients like insect meal without needing to displace fishmeal.

Read the release at IFFO here

‘Cod Is Dead’: New Netflix Series Details Challenges Facing U.S. Fishermen

January 5, 2018 (Saving Seafood) — The challenges facing American fishermen, ranging from declining quotas to disputed science to fleet consolidation, are highlighted in a new Netflix documentary series premiering today.

The new series, Rotten, “travels deep into the heart of the food supply chain to reveal unsavory truths and expose hidden forces that shape what we eat.” The series’ sixth and final episode, “Cod is Dead,” focuses on the domestic seafood industry, and the business and regulatory climate that has made it increasingly difficult for fishermen to make a living. Special focus is given to the ongoing fallout from the Carlos Rafael seafood fraud case and the continuing impact of the controversial catch share management system.

The episode interviews fishermen, scientists, environmentalists, and other stakeholders, with special emphasis placed on industry members in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The full list of interviewees is:

Steve Welch – Commercial Fishing Captain
Richard Canastra – Co-Owner, The Whaling City Seafood Display Auction
Peter Baker – Director, U.S. Ocean Conservation-Northeast, The Pew Charitable Trust
Ian Saunders – New Bedford Dock Worker
Dr. Jonathan Hare – Science and Research Director, Northeast Fisheries Science Center
Seth Macinko – Professor of Marine Affairs, University of Rhode Island
Aaron Williams – Commercial Fishing Captain
Scott Lang – Former Mayor of New Bedford/Lawyer
Jake Kritzer – Director of Fishery Diagnostics and Design, Environmental Defense Fund
Tor Bendikson – Vice President, Reidar’s Trawl Gear & Marine Supply
Arthur Bogason – Chairmen, Icelandic National Association of Small Boat Owners
Ragnar Arnason – Professor of Economics, University of Iceland
Charles Smith – U.S. Coast Guard
Tom Williams – Commercial Fishing Vessel Owner

Rotten is available now on Netflix

For sustainable fisheries, try eating ‘underloved’ fish

January 4, 2018 — Eating a wider variety of fish, including species like hake, skate, and cusk, would help keep overall fish stocks strong, according to chef and author Barton Seaver. Diversifying in this way would help ensure that people can keep eating plenty of fish—an important source of nutrients—as well as ensure economic stability for fishermen and coastal communities.

In a December 18, 2017 interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air, Barton, director of the Sustainable Seafood and Health Initiative at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, discussed sustainable fishing and other fish-related topics, such as fish farming and tips for buying quality fish.

Seaver said that just three species—tuna, salmon, and shrimp—account for 65% of total fish consumption. But overexploitation can decimate species, he said. For example, a boom in popularity of sea bass that began in the 1990s led to overfishing and depleted stocks.

Read the full story at the Harvard School of Public Health

Why a small, oily, strong-tasting fish is showing up on restaurant menus

November 2, 2017 — You probably didn’t expect to see sardines on the list of 2017 food trends. The small, oily fish have an assertive flavor that can be a turnoff for some. Most people associate them with cans, which runs contrary to our notion that the best food is fresh. They feel like a throwback to an era when people didn’t understand exactly how good food could be.

Americans “weren’t going to embrace grandpa’s can of sardines on the supermarket shelf,” says Elizabeth Moskow, culinary director for the Sterling-Rice Group, a branding agency that put sardines on its trend forecast for the year. But high-quality canned sardines, as well as fresh ones, are making more appearances on restaurant menus. “I think the American palate may be ready for something as strong as sardines,” Moskow says.

Sardines are high in omega-3 fatty acids, which may reduce the risk of heart disease. They’re also environmentally friendly, because they’re lower on the food chain.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

Restaurant demand fuels Maine, NH fish-to-table movement

October 17, 2017 — ELIOT, Maine — The vibrantly colorful Memorial Bridge passes overhead, briefly cutting through the early morning darkness, casting alternating hues of blues, reds, greens and yellows on the slack tide waters of Portsmouth Harbor.

It is 1:36 a.m. Friday, Sept. 8 and the crew of the small fishing boat F/V Finlander, a 36-foot Northern Bay, leaves the protection of the channel and ventures into the open Atlantic Ocean.

The pilot house of the Finlander is dark, illuminated only by a sole Global Positioning System (GPS) display screen showing navigational information and an eastward course plot. The boat begins to pitch as sea swells grow larger and cross winds increase.

“Today is going to be a rough one.” says Capt. Tim Rider, a Dover, New Hampshire, native and owner of the Finlander. “The wind is coming from a different direction than the swells, it’s going to bounce us all over. It’s going to get rougher the farther out we go, but I think we can handle it.”

The Finlander and her five-member crew are headed to fishing grounds approximately 60 miles due east of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, an ocean-going commute of four hours in five-foot seas. They will be fishing for Atlantic pollock, considered a successful and sustainable species of whitefish, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service FishWatch website, and whose popularity among Seacoast chefs is increasing.

Demand for locally caught fresh fish by Seacoast restaurants has created a viable market for the crew of the Finlander.

Read the full story from Foster’s Daily Democrat at the Bangor Daily News

Fishmeal-free info deemed misleading and misguided

October 6, 2017 — A competition established to inspire the increased use of alternative ingredients to fishmeal in aquafeeds has been lambasted for “the organisers’ use of negative messaging, exaggeration and misinformation in relation to marine ingredients”.

The winners of the fishmeal-free feed (F3) challenge were announced in Dublin yesterday. However, a statement from IFFO, the marine ingredients organization, – while congratulating the winners – laments that: “Unfortunately, the F3 Challenge organisers have refused our offers to enter into dialogue or meet and provide up-to-date facts, instead choosing to seek publicity through a number of misleading or false statements.”

IFFO rubbishes claims that marine ingredients are not sustainable by pointing to the fact that “over 45% of the global production of fishmeal and fish oil is now independently certified as being safe and environmentally responsible, including in its sourcing of raw materials, a figure that far exceeds any other source of feed ingredient”.

Read the full story at The Fish Site

Pier to Plate Brings Sustainably Harvested, ‘Under-Loved’ Fish to New England Diners

September 8, 2017 — Every summer, tourists flock to Chatham Pier on Cape Cod, Massachusetts to watch commercial fishermen unload their catch. And for hundreds of years, it was cod that fishermen hauled into Chatham’s storied harbor—and cod that gave this coastal region its name.

Today, however, it’s dogfish and skate the fishermen are hauling, as warming waters, prior bad management, and a host of other factors have made cod increasingly hard to find in New England’s Gulf of Maine.

The fishermen are paid pennies for their catch—literally 20 cents per pound for dogfish—and the majority of the fish is whisked off to markets in Europe and Asia, where higher demand fetches better prices.

Tired of telling Chatham Pier’s tourists, “You have to go to Europe!” when asked what their catch was and where it could be bought, a group of fisherman launched Pier to Plate, a Cape Cod effort to shift the market away from cod and toward the lesser-known species that are more readily available in the New England waters, says Nancy Civetta, a spokesperson for the Cape Cod Commercial Fisherman’s Alliance.

“Pier to Plate is a way for the public to support local fishermen,” said Civetta. “The truth is, what used to be the bread and butter for Cape fishermen has changed. Now it’s dogfish and skate.”

Launched this year, the initiative provides the fish for free to chefs at participating restaurants, an idea that came from the fishermen themselves. “We all sat around and brainstormed, and the fishermen said, ‘Just give it away for free,’” Civetta said, at least until the effort gets off the ground. “Chefs still need to experiment with the fish, but they’re not going to do it out of pocket.”

Read the full story at Civil Eats

The New England fish dish that saved a nation

Shad bakes are a dance of heat and timing that have been going on for generations up and down the East Coast of the United States for more than 100 years.

September 6, 2017 — Joseph Shea presides over a culinary jigsaw puzzle. He and his apprentices squat around a hexagonal fire, shifting slabs of wood with fish nailed to them against the heat. Flames lick at angled oak planks, coaxing out the oils of the American shad, Connecticut’s state fish, and cooking it to a delicate crust just steps away from where it was spawned.

At a call from the bake master, a fire-tender hoists a numbered plank from the heat source and hurries it across the lawn, where a team of workers unhinge half a dozen fish from their crucifix and pass the plate to the server with assembly-line accuracy: gill to gullet in 30 minutes or less.

This dance of heat and timing has been going on up and down the East Coast of the United States for more than 100 years. Though home-planked shad can be traced back to early 18th-Century cookbooks, large-scale shad bakes similar to Shea’s began in the late 1800s, when savvy travel marketers used the events as a way to entice an emerging middle class to the suburbs for entertainment and a taste of country life.

Today, the tradition is kept alive by civic organisations, most famously in the tiny Connecticut hamlet of Essex, which has held an annual Rotary Club shad bake since 1958.

This unique way of cooking large amounts of shad is a rite of spring in my home state of Connecticut. The filleted fish, its 1,000 tiny bones expertly removed, is nailed to boards and circled around a roaring fire. Angled in such a way and blackened by decades of reuse, the planks help release the excess fish’s oils into a pan below to make the fish light, imparting a flavour that cannot easily be replicated outside of an open fire.

The resulting delicacy, sometimes compared to a lean salmon, requires little else beyond the smoky taste of the fire – and strip of salt pork fat and a smattering of paprika for added flavour, applied to the fish before it hits the flame.

Read the full story at the BBC