Attention Sushi Lovers
Posted by Bon Appétit Team on November 4, 2008in seafood - 3 Comments
A reporter I worked with once complained
that, whenever he did a story about food, there was always something “new” he
wasn’t supposed to eat. With the launch of sustainable sushi pocket guides this month, sushi is now coming under serious scrutiny. Suddenly, there
are “new” items on the conscientious eater’s list to avoid.
The problem with sushi is that most,
by volume, is limited to shrimp, tuna, salmon and eel. You might think twice
about eating salmon sushi if you know there’s no such thing as sustainably-raised
farmed salmon (most salmon, sake, and
its roe, ikura, is farmed salmon). And
rare is a sushi meal without tuna of some kind. Half of the sushi vendors we
surveyed recently were using a sustainable form of tuna; the other fifty
percent were not. If you use the sushi guides, they can help decipher which
items to avoid.
I attended a sustainable sushi event
recently. Glazed black cod was substituted for freshwater eel,
responsibly-farmed Arctic char stood in for salmon, and black mussels were in
abundance. It was a delicious showcase of what’s possible. To the
restaurateur’s credit, there was an abundant selection of vegetable options as
well.
I couldn’t
help but think, however, that something was missing. Even with sustainable
standards, sushi is the ultimate global meal. About 70% of U.S. seafood
supplies are imported because we eat only a narrow list of species that are
grown or cultivated far from our sushi restaurants. I visited a farm in North
Carolina recently that responsibly produces extremely flavorful prawns. Without
a high end market nearby, however, the farm’s product is air-freighted daily to
New York.
The guides are a good start, but
they miss a key criterion of sustainability. Why not re-regionalize our seafood
habits so we’re not flying fish around the world, and eat more species that are
lower on the food chain? Supporting ecosystem biodiversity through our food
choices simply hasn’t taken hold as a priority for seafood as it has with
produce. Isn't it time to change that? What are your thoughts?
-Helene York, Director of the Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation
3 Comments
Thanks for your comments, Mark. I think that sustainable fishing methods and freighting mode (and distance) are equally part of an emerging framework to evaluate sustainable food choices. A chart (or pocket guide) outlining food from certain fisheries or aquaculture practices isn’t enough anymore to allow consumers to know whether a food choice is sustainable. It’s ironic that the sustainable seafood community – which got going years before the local food movement bloomed – hasn’t actively questioned the global nature of the seafood marketplace.
For our part, Bon Appétit Management Company is trying to do both things: focus on fishery- or production-level sustainability AND eliminate air-freighting. While this might seem to reduce the number of species we can serve in our cafes, in fact it is allowing us to work with suppliers who are on the cutting edge and doing both things right. The next stage, I believe, will be to work even more closely with regional producers and buy from those committed to improving the sustainability of their fishing or farming methods.
- Helene
There’s also the safety issue we often forget about, but have only too frighteningly been reminded of lately in a couple of notable events in the news. When you get fish flown in from all over the world, it’s often impossible to figure out where it originally was caught/raised and what the oversight was in processing it. The NY Times had a fascinating article a few weeks ago in its Sunday magazine. It talked about how farm-raised catfish in the South is a sustainable industry that is very well run. Yet, the farms are going under because they can’t compete with imported farmed catfish from Vietnam and China that sell for a pittance. What’s scary, though, is that these foreign catfish have been tested and found at times to contain cancer-causing chemicals, and even anthrax antibiotics.
It’s hard in this economy to want to pay more for food. But we as a nation have to stop buying what’s cheapest, and start buying what’s good for us, and what’s good for this country. Paying a little more for domestic farm-raised catfish will only pay off in the long-run in keeping a viable farming industry alive here, and thus help stimulate economic growth in the future. We need to remember that, especially in these challenging times.
Good points, Helene. But how do we combine multiple issues like sustainable fishing methods and shipping distance?
Here in Seattle, we have endangered salmon so wild local salmon can be lower in sustainability rankings than Alaska wild salmon. But shipping by air freight from Alaska may outweigh other issues. So how does one choose between high carbon footprint and sustainable fishing methods?
I’m working with Town & Country Markets to promote frozen-at-sea wild Alaska salmon shipped by barge, with a carbon footprint more than 10 times lower than Alaska salmon shipped by air, and probably competitive with local salmon for carbon footprint.
In your view, does this balance the multiple issues involved, sustainable fishing methods and carbon footprint?