‘Super Green’ seafoods for health and the environment

Since the early 1970’s vegetarian diets have been hailed as sustainable. This is partly due to Frances Moore Lappe’s book, Diet for a Small Planet. In which she argues that cattle and other livestock are essentially “reverse protein factories.” With the appearance of farmed seafood the argument reemerges with respect to ocean aquaculture.  Are fish farms reverse protein factories that destroy  environments and food chains?

Recent evidence suggests they may not be. A partnership of the Harvard School of Public Health, the Environmental Defense Fund, and The Monterey Bay Aquarium have released a “Super Green” list of healthy and environmentally conscious seafood.

The argument against meat and its status as a “reverse protein factory” is thus. When someone eats protein in the form of beef, they are eating a cow that already consumed many times that amount of protein in the form of plants. Meaning that a diet of plants is more environmentally efficient than a diet of meat.

For example, in the book Food Energy and Society by David and Marcia Pimentel, they contend that for a cow to provide a person with one calorie of beef, the cow must first consume twenty to forty times that amount of calories. Which makes sense when you consider all the grass a cow consumes in its lifetime to bring you a relatively small amount of beef.

These inefficiencies apply to all animals and not surprisingly carry on into the world of aquaculture. As a 2007 Time Magazine article reported, “It takes a lot of input, in the form of other, lesser fish — also known as “reduction” or “trash” fish — to produce the kind of fish we prefer to eat directly. To create 1 kg (2.2 lbs.) of high-protein fishmeal, which is fed to farmed fish…it takes 4.5 kg (10 lbs.) of smaller pelagic, or open-ocean, fish.”

Malaysian farmers harvest Pomfrets for export. The fish are a major food source in Southeast Asia

Courtesy, jensen_chua @ flicker

As you would expect this has some negative consequences on ocean environments. Tuna farming for example requires that wild Tuna first be captured (no one has yet been able to grow Tuna from eggs) and then, “dine on live pelagic fish, such as anchovies, sardines and mackerel, but it takes about 20 kg (44 lbs.) of such feed to get 1 kg of tuna ready for a sushi bar near you.” according to Time Magazine. Which puts serous strain on ocean ecosystems.

However, omega acids and other health benefits of eating seafood may still be had while staying ‘green’.  Harvard School of Public Health, the Environmental Defense Fund and The Monterey Bay Aquarium have made two designations to seafood they found to be both healthy and sustainable. “Super Green” being the greenest and most healthy, and “Best Choices” being the next best. All seafoods that have been designated as such are listed below. More information on the criteria and selection is available at the Monetary Bay Aquarium’s website.

The Best in Healthy Sustainable Sea Cuisine “Super Green”

Albacore Tuna (troll- or pole-caught, from the U.S. or British Columbia)
Mussels (farmed)
Oysters (farmed)
Pacific Sardines (wild-caught)
Pink Shrimp (wild-caught, from Oregon)
Rainbow Trout (farmed)
Salmon (wild-caught, from Alaska)
Spot Prawns (wild-caught, from British Columbia)

Other Healthy “Best Choices”

Arctic Char (farmed)
Bay Scallops (farmed)
Crayfish (farmed, from the U.S.)
Dungeness Crab (wild-caught, from California, Oregon or Washington)
Longfin Squid (wild-caught, from the U.S. Atlantic)
Pacific Cod (longline-caught, from Alaska)