Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I would encourage anyone interested in doing good to mostly abstain from animal products altogether. This must not necessarily be carried to extreme veganism but if you have the choice to not use animal products it’s in almost all circumstances better to take it. Plant based products are generally better for our health, our future, and the animals.
Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world
341–350 of 394 posts
Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
$10 for a daily subscription to Ensure 2.0? You can eat eggs, slow cooker cuts of meat, seasonal fruit vegetables, rice, beans, flour, salt, yeast.. etc for $10 a day easy. As long as one is not too allergic to washing a few dishes, that is. Soylent is too expensive. It's a very attractive solution for me but the price point is higher than real food. Soylent needs to be like $1 a meal, with super duper high protein,…
Yeah, this. A couple years back I shifted my diet around to be more sustainable. I still eat meat, but stick to chicken and pork, and more occasionally rather than every meal. I use sous vide to batch cook and freeze stuff like chicken plus a curry base. Then per meal I can just thaw a portion and spend less than 10 minutes combining it with some fresh produce and final seasoning in a skillet. I costed out one of the…
Key insight for me was learning how to use my freezer. So much stuff freezes well which most people wouldn't consider freezing. For example, I run my own small baked goods business and do a ton of baking. 95% of anything you could buy in a bakery can be frozen and no one can tell the difference. In fact, bakeries already freeze most of what they are selling to people and no one can tell the difference.
I don't expect normal people to make their own puff pastry or cronuts by hand but I really do think everyone should try to bake their own bread at least once a year. Most people don't want to make their own kneaded bread because you have like 15-30 mins active labour plus about four hours waiting time (mixing, kneading, bulk fermentation, proofing, baking, cooling). But you can make three loaves at once, and freeze them. The time and labour involved in making three loaves is very close to making one. But most people would turn their nose up at freezing bread, as though it completely destroys the crumb and ruins it. But most people's instincts are wrong, once again. Bread freezes extremely well.
I was thinking that we really need to teach children how to be poor. Poor people need to cook and be smart about buying and storing their own food, but most people do not know how to do this. We spend so much time teaching children how to find a job in the most shallow way (how to write a resume, etc) but kids need help with knowing what to do when the economy is bad or they just can't find a good job, even if they are trying to. This sort of thing is political suicide because of national pride and this unshakable notion in the mainstream that people are poor because they are lazy or on drugs, their fault basically.
Anyways, I agree with you on all counts. It is shocking when I realized that eating well is actually pretty cheap. If only I learned that at a younger age.
Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world
#343Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I would encourage anyone interested in doing good to mostly abstain from animal products altogether. This must not necessarily be carried to extreme veganism but if you have the choice to not use animal products it’s in almost all circumstances better to take it. Plant based products are generally better for our health, our future, and the animals.
I like Michael Pollan's mantra: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world
#344With the way the human population is expanding and the rising income of 3rd world nations we are really going to look at a major increase in both genetically engineering food stock to be larger and more nutritious as well as ramping up lab grown meat. Conservation is clearly not going to work as so many nations ignore it anyway and quite often regulations lack teeth due to the fear of killing an industry. Its difficu…
Or just work towards sustainable population, aka dis-incentivize multiple children, greatly lower immigration, etc etc
But everything the governments do right now incentivizes overpopulation.
Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm doing a Ph.D. in salmon farming, it's an exciting field for sure. Just to address some common misconceptions: * The feed used for norwegian salmon is about 70-80% plant based, so the fish is a net producer of marine protein. The majority is soy, and the industry is trying to transition to sustainable feed ingredients such as insects (see Protix) and micro algae for EPA/DHA (See veramaris) * The farmed salmon does…
Are there any viable solutions to the problems with off-shore farming? Last time I checked the ecosystem around you typical Scandinavian salmon farm in the ocean was devestated. We take extreme care not to flush our own sewers into the sea, yet happily permit salmon farms with the equivalent fertilizing effect of a town of 25000 having all their toilets flush everything out on the shore.
To compliment Gordons reply, here's a (norwegian) overview of the environmental conditions around the farms:
https://www.fiskeridir.no/Akvakultur/Drift-og-tilsyn/Overvaa...
The last years they have hovered around 95% being very good or good. So statistically you are very wrong. But sure there are some localities that have bad conditions, and those should be closed and new localities should be opened for those farmers. Such as offshore localities when the technology is mature. Many smart people are trying to figure that out with strong scientific backing, but the report from havmerden is avaliable to read if you understand norwegian
In norway there are many environmental institutions following the state of the fjords, so I wouldn't be too concerned.
Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world
#346If you're interested in adjusting your seafood eating habits towards eating more sustainable seafood, the Monterey Bay Aquarium maintains a guide on which seafood (based on species and location/method of catch) is most sustainable, somewhat sustainable, and not sustainable. My favorite version of the guide is the printable version that you can fold up and put in your wallet: https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recom…
I think the intent is great, but what is the percentage of the population that would utilize such a thing in their daily life? Not trying to be a downer, but I think most people don't have the bandwidth to be carrying around little cards reminding them to buy this/don't buy that, "oh, and is that tuna line-caught or pole-caught?", etc. If eating a certain kind of fish is causing environmental damage, we need regulati…
The cynical take is that this type of thing is favored because industry knows most people won't do this.
It's a painless way for vested interests to defuse the issue, diverting the energies of people who care about it- away from regulation.
Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
The most depressing part is the feed fish are often healthier for you than the farmed fish. We go through this whole process and the result is half as much fish as we started with, and it's worse for you.
The fish feed of today contains far less animal protein than it used to - a lot of the protein now comes from soy. Salmon farming, for example, can be incredibly efficient - Norwegian salmon farms typically get 1 kg of fish for every 1.15-1.2kg of feed. That's an amazing conversion factor. That said, there are serious welfare concerns with fish farming. Even in Norway, which has some of the highest standards in the w…
Maybe this information is out of date, but these are the issues I was referencing:
Anchovies, sardines and other palm-sized, schooling fish are caught in the ocean and processed into fishmeal and oil to feed to other fishes and crustaceans that are raised in aquatic farms around the world.
https://www.washington.edu/news/2018/06/14/key-ocean-fish-ca...
Every year, millions of tons of wild fish, like sardines and anchovies, are caught and processed into fishmeal and fish oil, which is used to make feed for farm-raised species.
https://www.seafoodwatch.org/ocean-issues/aquaculture/wild-f...
Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fish feed of today contains far less animal protein than it used to - a lot of the protein now comes from soy. Salmon farming, for example, can be incredibly efficient - Norwegian salmon farms typically get 1 kg of fish for every 1.15-1.2kg of feed. That's an amazing conversion factor. That said, there are serious welfare concerns with fish farming. Even in Norway, which has some of the highest standards in the w…
Maybe this information is out of date, but these are the issues I was referencing: Anchovies, sardines and other palm-sized, schooling fish are caught in the ocean and processed into fishmeal and oil to feed to other fishes and crustaceans that are raised in aquatic farms around the world. https://www.washington.edu/news/2018/06/14/key-ocean-fish-ca... Every year, millions of tons of wild fish, like sardines and anch…
It's true that a lot of wild catch still goes towards fishmeal; my point was simply that things are improving a lot there, at least for salmon (I presume it's the case for other species too, but I don't know that).
Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, this. A couple years back I shifted my diet around to be more sustainable. I still eat meat, but stick to chicken and pork, and more occasionally rather than every meal. I use sous vide to batch cook and freeze stuff like chicken plus a curry base. Then per meal I can just thaw a portion and spend less than 10 minutes combining it with some fresh produce and final seasoning in a skillet. I costed out one of the…
Key insight for me was learning how to use my freezer. So much stuff freezes well which most people wouldn't consider freezing. For example, I run my own small baked goods business and do a ton of baking. 95% of anything you could buy in a bakery can be frozen and no one can tell the difference. In fact, bakeries already freeze most of what they are selling to people and no one can tell the difference. I don't expect…
Yeah, I agree about the freezer. One of the things I love about using sous vide for batch cooking is the bags go from the cook to the freezer without being opened. The liquid in the bag acts as a sort of jacket that prevents freezer burn. Based on the science I know there's a texture change, but I'd be surprised if you could spot it in a blind test.
But the other big thing for me is convenience. It takes maybe 10-15 minutes for me to prep say 5 lbs of meat this way, depending how elaborate my marinade/base is. Then you just put it in the sous and ignore it for a couple hours. I can use the sous to thaw a frozen portion very fast with no worries about food safety or overshooting and overcooking. Past that making a plate is just getting the rice cooker going and then again maybe 10 minutes of active time to bring it all together with some fresh produce.
The convenience of all this is what really clinched it for me. At this point it'd take more active time for me to go get takeout.
I've tried bread a couple times, but so far all I've learned is I'm not a great baker. I intend to make another stab at it though.
Re: Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a resident of a first world country I stopped eating all seafood about 15 years ago. It seems unethical to support over-fishing if I have plenty of other good food to eat.
Plenty of seafood is farmed. The majority of shrimp for instance comes from farms.
Most shrimp farming uses a lot of antibiotics and destroys mangroves