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Which Fish: With fish stocks under pressure, which are okay to eat?

whichfish.org

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Re: Which Fish: With fish stocks under pressure, which are okay to eat?

#81

Post by kahawe »

trotsky wrote: post #79
kahawe wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, even with local farmers you do not escape the mass food production industry, really. AFAIK there are hardly any farmers left who do NOT grow their vegetables and fruits with actual, natural seeds but rely on those genetically modified super-seeds from Monsanto and other companies. These do not bear usable seeds, you cannot plant them in the next year. Plus they need all sorts of chemicals and pesticides to grow…

Just to give you a picture, I get most of my vegetables from a Community Supported Agriculture farm here in the spring and summer. They give me a box of what is available. Onions, peppers, beets, potatoes, cucumbers, fennel, tomatoes, garlic and cilantro have been some of the recent arrivals. Spring had lots of lettuces and spinach, in the future there will be squash. Some are local heirlooms, they certainly aren't f…

Wow, this is pretty sweet - especially the part where they are still using real seeds! I doubt the majority of farmers are doing this here.

Re: Which Fish: With fish stocks under pressure, which are okay to eat?

#82

Post by burgerbrain »

anonymous246 wrote: post #71
fishyfish wrote: post #52

One odd thing about this list: There are 6 instances where species are listed as okay to eat if they are from the US while not okay to eat if they are from elsewhere. There are 0 instances where the opposite is true. # yes Barramundi (US/Europe/Australia) # yes Barramundi (Closed Production) # no Barramundi (Other) # yes Catfish (US Farmed) # no Catfish (Other) # yes Crayfish (US) # no Crayfish (Other) # yes Herring…

No, imho it's not bias. For wild fish, the US enforces the quantity of fish that can be taken much more effectively, than, say China/Japan. Second, the regulations/practices on the environmental impact of fish farms on the nearby sea are probably better in the US than elsewhere (many fish farms are in the backwaters of an ocean). Do you really find it hard to believe that the USA has higher standards of environmental…

A fish doesn't care what country it was caught by. The US limits are surely set with the current population in mind... a population that is directly effected by what other countries are fishing. The more Japanese fish you eat, the less America fishes. It all evens out.

Re: Which Fish: With fish stocks under pressure, which are okay to eat?

#83

Post by sliverstorm »

jeremymims wrote: post #4
reedlaw wrote: post #3

"Which are okay to eat?" implies how much mercury is present, but it seems this question is from an environmental perspective.

The environmental perspective is the most important. The truth is the oceans are dying and overfishing has created colossal dead zones. The best option that should be on this list is to not eat any fish at all.

The Hawaii-based longline fishery for swordfish was closed in 2000 over concerns of excessive sea turtle by-catch. One consequence of the closure was that 70 Hawaii-based vessels were replaced by 1,500-1,700 longline vessels from various Asian nations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longline_fishing

The problem does not simply go away because Americans stop eating fish.

Re: Which Fish: With fish stocks under pressure, which are okay to eat?

#84

Post by trotsky »

kahawe wrote: post #81
trotsky wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to give you a picture, I get most of my vegetables from a Community Supported Agriculture farm here in the spring and summer. They give me a box of what is available. Onions, peppers, beets, potatoes, cucumbers, fennel, tomatoes, garlic and cilantro have been some of the recent arrivals. Spring had lots of lettuces and spinach, in the future there will be squash. Some are local heirlooms, they certainly aren't f…

Wow, this is pretty sweet - especially the part where they are still using real seeds! I doubt the majority of farmers are doing this here.

showing that there is a demand by going out of your way to track down and buy what you want helps it happen.

Re: Which Fish: With fish stocks under pressure, which are okay to eat?

#85

Post by fleitz »

cosgroveb wrote: post #30
Zarkonnen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very interesting link, but saying that we might as well not bother because there's labeling issues is rather overstating the problem. The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Did you even read the lede? >Scientists aiming their gene sequencers at commercial seafood are discovering rampant labeling fraud in supermarket coolers and restaurant tables: cheap fish is often substituted for expensive fillets, and overfished species are passed off as fish whose numbers are plentiful. The link states that overfished species are being intentionally mis-labelled. I would say that, yes, we might as w…

I think this issue would be well covered by fraud statutes. I don't see how additional regulations are necessary.

Re: Which Fish: With fish stocks under pressure, which are okay to eat?

#86

Post by alexjgough »

Bzzzzz. Sea bass is often really Antarctic toothfish, a species which, while certified as 'sustainable' is anything but. See http://www.lastocean.co.nz for details on a campaign to protect the Ross Sea, one of the World's last almost untouched wild places.

Re: Which Fish: With fish stocks under pressure, which are okay to eat?

#87

Post by Evgeny »

davidhollander wrote: post #16
jeremymims wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The environmental perspective is the most important. The truth is the oceans are dying and overfishing has created colossal dead zones. The best option that should be on this list is to not eat any fish at all.

> The best option that should be on this list is to not eat any fish at all. Your logic fails for the following reasons: - not all fish are from the ocean - not all species of fish are in fact overfished. There is no Sardine crisis. - Fish consumption is linked to increased IQ including in babies and children - Piscetarians have lower rates of heart disease than both vegans and occasional meat eaters - Promoting abst…

- Piscetarians have lower rates of heart disease than both vegans and occasional meat eaters

Would you have a link for that? I'd add it to my collection for future diet discussions ...

Re: Which Fish: With fish stocks under pressure, which are okay to eat?

#88

Post by Aloisius »

DrStalker wrote: post #80

Any list that opens with no: All Bottom Trawled Fish no: All Fish caught by Longline loses me right there. I don't know how different types of fish are caught, and I'm not going to reearch it before making each purchase.

I don't where you buy your fish, but my fish counter has a fishmonger behind it who is eager to answer questions. Any good fishmonger will know when the fish came in, how the fish was caught and a good number of them will know if they are sustainable.

Re: Which Fish: With fish stocks under pressure, which are okay to eat?

#89

Post by grannyg00se »

kahawe wrote: post #25

Can't eat beef because of mad cow and the heavy medication used in breeding; same goes for pigs and chicken and all other mass-produced meat. On top of that you have the question of animal cruelty and the questionable necessity of killing animals to eat them attached to it. Plus it is generally not that healthy to eat it all the time and you shouldn't eat meat more than once or twice a week or so. Can't eat fish for…

"burn it or do FSM-knows what with it"

Upvoted for mentioning FSM, in acronym form, and not providing any type of explanation. This implies an expectation that FSM is common enough knowledge at this point. I wonder how many people just skipped over it. Surprisingly, a google search of "fsm" actually brings up the relevant page in the first search result, beating out the wikipedia page for Finite State Machine.

Re: Which Fish: With fish stocks under pressure, which are okay to eat?

#90

Post by davidhollander »

r0s wrote: post #66
davidhollander wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> increased IQ in children because of the presence of Omega-3 Fatty Acids. Did you know though that both Flaxseed and Walnuts are both better The fatty acid in both Flaxseed and Walnuts you are referring to is alpha Linolic acid (ALA), whereas fish contains Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Out of these, only DHA is found in the brain. If DHA is not present in the diet, ALA can be converted…

ALA is adequately converted to DHA, you didn't read the article you linked. Studies on rats are far from conclusive... but then why claim it's a human-health fact? "While there is discrepancy in ALA conversion rates in rats, these studies imply that dietary ALA could sufficiently supply the brain with DHA in the absence of exogenous DHA intake." This is consistent with all other research I've read, debunking this myt…

>you didn't read the article you linked

Is this a joke? The article specifically states:

>It is not enough to assume that ALA exerts effects through conversion to EPA and DHA, as the process is highly inefficient in humans.

>with higher levels of ALA, no net rise in the level of circulating DHA occurred [2,3]. For example, feeding 10.7 g/d of ALA from flaxseed oil for 4 weeks failed to increase low DHA levels in breast milk of lactating women [4]. Some estimate that only 5–10% and 2–5% of ALA in healthy adults is converted to EPA and DHA, respectively [5], while others suggest that humans convert less than 5% of ALA to EPA or DHA [6]. The International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids (ISSFAL) recently released an official statement on the conversion efficiency of ALA to DHA. They concluded that the conversion of ALA to DHA is on the order of 1% in infants"

Now let's examine the actual context of your quote:

>"While there is discrepancy in ALA conversion rates in rats, these studies imply that dietary ALA could sufficiently supply the brain with DHA in the absence of exogenous DHA intake. It is important to note that the hepatic DHA synthesis rates observed for rats do not extend to humans [44]. The higher rates reflect a more efficient ALA elongation process in mice and rats"

It specifically states that ALA->DHA is only a phenomena that occurs in rats and not humans.

>Studies on rats are far from conclusive... but then why claim it's a human-health fact?

Exactly my point. The human studies clearly state it is not reliably converted, and you are claiming it IS based on a rat study. The whole article I linked is based on the assumption it is NOT, and from the perspective that we should be examining the health benefits of ALA independently from the health benefits of fish oil.

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