Farm raised fish are good to eat, good for the environment and good for your health. If we eliminated farm raised fish from the menus, kitchen and homes around the world, the harm that would be done is almost incalculable. There is much misinformation, pop science and web sourced rumors to the contrary, but the real facts are quite clear.
In the first place, fish is very healthy food for people. It is a nutritious, plentiful and relatively inexpensive food available across the globe. There are plenty of sources of protein, such as beef, pork and chicken. However, fish is not only high in protein, but it is also uniquely low in fat. The unique components of this natural food have been found by scientists to reduce the risk of heart disease. …show more content…
The Egyptians and Chinese did it thousands of years ago. Since then the human population has increased enormously and as a consequence so has the human demand for more food, particularly protein. In the last couple hundred years, humans have mastered the ability to sail long distances across the sea and bring back to markets large quantities of fish. The result is that wild fish populations are declining dramatically. Large areas of the oceans have been overfished and fish populations have collapsed. In California we all know how the Monterey Bay was a major fish canning area, made famous by Steinbeck’s famous book Cannery Row. But now it is a tourist site with a major aquarium, but not a major source of fish to feed people. Many other areas have seen their fish populations evaporate including the North Seas, Grand Bans, East China Seas, Peruvian Coast, cod fisheries off Newfoundland, sole fisheries in the Irish Seas and English Channel and elsewhere. Ocean fishing fleets have had to go deeper into the water to find fish, but deep water fish are often particularly vulnerable. For instance, the orange roughy can live to 149 years, but it cannot reproduce until between 30 and 40 years. Today, the average age of the orange roughy severed in American restaurants come from 50 year old fish. That is simply not sustainable. 50% of the fish eaten in the world today is farm raised. 90% of the fish eaten in the U.S. is farm raised. …show more content…
Artificial fertilizers pour through our streams into the ocean every day. Storm drains and their underground channels collect the toxic waste from our sidewalks, streets and highways and take that toxic cocktail to mix in the ocean. Even in more “developed” countries like the United States and even in areas such as southern California there are incidents where sewage treatment plants malfunction and human waste is discharged into the ocean. Manufacturing processes and the waste from lights, computers and thousands of other modern inventions, result in the contamination of our oceans. Ever increasing levels of mercury in the oceans’ waters is well known, but there are others as well. Radioactive chemicals have recently been added to the list of ingredients in the oceans toxic soup. The collapse of the nuclear power plant in Japan will continue to foul the ocean for decades. In that soup of chemicals, the wild fish populations breed, grows and is harvested. Unlike the case with farmed fish, little can be known about the specific environmental conditions under which it developed. In the case of wild fish there is no regulation of the water they inhabit. No one knows what a wild caught fish ate for dinner or whose waste it
In the first place, fish is very healthy food for people. It is a nutritious, plentiful and relatively inexpensive food available across the globe. There are plenty of sources of protein, such as beef, pork and chicken. However, fish is not only high in protein, but it is also uniquely low in fat. The unique components of this natural food have been found by scientists to reduce the risk of heart disease. …show more content…
The Egyptians and Chinese did it thousands of years ago. Since then the human population has increased enormously and as a consequence so has the human demand for more food, particularly protein. In the last couple hundred years, humans have mastered the ability to sail long distances across the sea and bring back to markets large quantities of fish. The result is that wild fish populations are declining dramatically. Large areas of the oceans have been overfished and fish populations have collapsed. In California we all know how the Monterey Bay was a major fish canning area, made famous by Steinbeck’s famous book Cannery Row. But now it is a tourist site with a major aquarium, but not a major source of fish to feed people. Many other areas have seen their fish populations evaporate including the North Seas, Grand Bans, East China Seas, Peruvian Coast, cod fisheries off Newfoundland, sole fisheries in the Irish Seas and English Channel and elsewhere. Ocean fishing fleets have had to go deeper into the water to find fish, but deep water fish are often particularly vulnerable. For instance, the orange roughy can live to 149 years, but it cannot reproduce until between 30 and 40 years. Today, the average age of the orange roughy severed in American restaurants come from 50 year old fish. That is simply not sustainable. 50% of the fish eaten in the world today is farm raised. 90% of the fish eaten in the U.S. is farm raised. …show more content…
Artificial fertilizers pour through our streams into the ocean every day. Storm drains and their underground channels collect the toxic waste from our sidewalks, streets and highways and take that toxic cocktail to mix in the ocean. Even in more “developed” countries like the United States and even in areas such as southern California there are incidents where sewage treatment plants malfunction and human waste is discharged into the ocean. Manufacturing processes and the waste from lights, computers and thousands of other modern inventions, result in the contamination of our oceans. Ever increasing levels of mercury in the oceans’ waters is well known, but there are others as well. Radioactive chemicals have recently been added to the list of ingredients in the oceans toxic soup. The collapse of the nuclear power plant in Japan will continue to foul the ocean for decades. In that soup of chemicals, the wild fish populations breed, grows and is harvested. Unlike the case with farmed fish, little can be known about the specific environmental conditions under which it developed. In the case of wild fish there is no regulation of the water they inhabit. No one knows what a wild caught fish ate for dinner or whose waste it