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Tuna species popular in sashimi and poke bowls in sharp decline

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21–30 of 215 posts

Re: Tuna species popular in sashimi and poke bowls in sharp decline

#21
post #8

I have family working as a UN advisor on sustainable food chains and she says the entire ecosystem in the oceans could potentially collapse in 10 to 20 years if we don't stop large scale fishing entirely, especially trawl and unreported fishing destroying the seafloor and acidity going haywire. I have no idea if this is correct but i'm pretty sure around 1 billion rely on this food and can't imagine what would happen…

I read a lot about these sort of bleak predictions from people very in the weeds on the topics, but rarely see it being surfaced in a way that's easily citeable. I've seen second hand reports that the Amazon rain forest will experience it's tipping point within the next 3-5 years no matter what happens and even that it's already tipped, but we haven't figured it out yet. Frustrating that such dire claims aren't widely reported and made more aware. I fear that everything climate/earth system related is stuck in with the view that we should only say how bad things are when it's already over and measurable beyond any sort of doubt. That obviously leaves the public with no time to act

Re: Tuna species popular in sashimi and poke bowls in sharp decline

#22
post #4

As someone who eats almost exclusively vegan I think it would be great as the whole world faces these issues, we see lots of switches to eating tofu or plant based foods. Way cheaper. Can’t get so fat and unhealthy. And far healthier since most vegans and vegetarians live long and healthy lives compared to other groups. Poke tastes great with tofu btw. We shouldn’t destroy the oceans. Anyway I’m bracing for the inevi…

> Can’t get so fat and unhealthy.

Why can't someone get as fat and unhealthy with a vegan diet? I'm friends with vegans who eat a LOT of processed foods - Gardein crispy tenders, Carl's Jr. for Beyond Burgers, etc.

> And far healthier since most vegans and vegetarians live long and healthy lives compared to other groups.

How much of this is attributable to a specific diet vs highlighting that those who care about what they eat generally perform better?

Re: Tuna species popular in sashimi and poke bowls in sharp decline

#23
I'd be in favour of removing meat subsidies. If the 'true' price of steak or a burger was ten times higher people would eat it for special occasions and not every day with every meal. It's telling and hypocritical how many meat eating 'libertarians' are in favour of government handouts to preserve their food eating habits rather than letting the market do it's work. I'm a meat eater but I'll concede that those subsidies would have to be slowly removed -- otherwise it would result in the collapse of certain industries.

Commercial fishing is just unsustainable. So unless you're a guy with a fishing rod we'll eventually have to just stop the boats heading out to sea.

Re: Tuna species popular in sashimi and poke bowls in sharp decline

#24
post #8

I have family working as a UN advisor on sustainable food chains and she says the entire ecosystem in the oceans could potentially collapse in 10 to 20 years if we don't stop large scale fishing entirely, especially trawl and unreported fishing destroying the seafloor and acidity going haywire. I have no idea if this is correct but i'm pretty sure around 1 billion rely on this food and can't imagine what would happen…

farmed fish is probably not as vulnerable and there's many that can be created in inland ponds

so it simply could be a shift in consumption

Re: Tuna species popular in sashimi and poke bowls in sharp decline

#25
post #10
post #4

As someone who eats almost exclusively vegan I think it would be great as the whole world faces these issues, we see lots of switches to eating tofu or plant based foods. Way cheaper. Can’t get so fat and unhealthy. And far healthier since most vegans and vegetarians live long and healthy lives compared to other groups. Poke tastes great with tofu btw. We shouldn’t destroy the oceans. Anyway I’m bracing for the inevi…

> Way cheaper. Can’t get so fat and unhealthy. But not nearly as tasty :-( [UPDATE] Why all the hate? I thought I was making a serious point: food is not just about health, it's also about enjoyment. You can survive on beans and rice, but there are people, myself included, who would happily give up a few years of life expectancy for a more diverse diet.

I thought I was on hn but it turns out I'm still on reddit :/

Re: Tuna species popular in sashimi and poke bowls in sharp decline

#26
post #12

I watched a documentary years ago about jellyfish invading Japan. Basically, the jellyfish population was exploding because the fish didn't exist to eat the baby jellyfish and keep them under control. The Japanese fishermen were furious that they kept catching jellyfish, rather than the fish that they wanted. They were the cause of their own suffering. Sounds like things haven't changed... I hesitate to think that Ja…

They could start eating jellyfish to pick up the slack.

Re: Tuna species popular in sashimi and poke bowls in sharp decline

#27

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon Passenger pigeons were hunted by Native Americans, but hunting intensified after the arrival of Europeans, particularly in the 19th century. Pigeon meat was commercialized as cheap food, resulting in hunting on a massive scale for many decades. There were several other factors contributing to the decline and subsequent extinction of the species, including shrinking of th…

Maybe. Cod suddenly collapsed by like 98% but never went extinct.

Re: Tuna species popular in sashimi and poke bowls in sharp decline

#28

I suspect that in 50 years, few people will be eating any seafood that isn't cultivated (aquaculture). Not out of choice, and not because of changing cultural values (it is tasty, after all). But because there's just none left. Saw a headline on reddit the other day, $800,000 for a single bluefin tuna. Granted, it was large (over 500 lbs), but you don't hold auctions with winning bids approaching a million dollars on…

> $800,000 for a single bluefin tuna. Granted, it was large (over 500 lbs), but you don't hold auctions with winning bids approaching a million dollars on a single fish when they're still in easy supply.

That had nothing to do with supply. It was the first tuna of the season and people bid on it as a status symbol.

Re: Tuna species popular in sashimi and poke bowls in sharp decline

#29
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We shouldn’t destroy the oceans. That's why this isn't great. Because this is not "we went vegan to save the oceans". It is "the oceans look like they are already destroyed". Besides that, I haven't seen any studies that show a vegan or vegetarian diet makes someone healthier.

There are over a billion people that don't eat meat by choice on the planet and another billion plus that have low access to animal protein. We can attempt to fix it before ecosystems collapse, if we do it afterwards, the only meat you will be eating will be worms.

>There are over a billion people that don't eat meat by choice on the planet and another billion plus that have low access to animal protein.

That's not evidence that they're healthier for it.

Re: Tuna species popular in sashimi and poke bowls in sharp decline

#30
post #12

I watched a documentary years ago about jellyfish invading Japan. Basically, the jellyfish population was exploding because the fish didn't exist to eat the baby jellyfish and keep them under control. The Japanese fishermen were furious that they kept catching jellyfish, rather than the fish that they wanted. They were the cause of their own suffering. Sounds like things haven't changed... I hesitate to think that Ja…

Fish management doesn't really require global cooperation. It does require some sacrifice. Where I live 100 years ago herring spawn covered nearly every shoreline. I live in an archipelago so there is a lot of coastline. Now there are sporadic patches of herring spawn. The herring fishery is a multi million dollar industry. Herring is also the base of the larger fin-fish population. We can't harvest all the food for larger species and harvest larger species and expect everything to just be fine. If there is an abundance of food for a species they will spawn in greater numbers (well known predator-prey dynamic). Sacrificing the herring fishery would allow larger species a path to build populations.

That is something that can be done at a local level without global cooperation. Don't harvest all the food for the larger fish we like to eat.

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