5
votes
Does eating sustainable caught food help or hurt this?
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- World's fish consumption unsustainable, U.N. warns
- Authors
- Thin Lei Win
- Published
- Jul 9 2018
- Word count
- 407 words
I recently cut out fish from my diet because of the reasons noted in this article. My mom wanted to make tuna sandwiches for the fourth because it was a favorite of mine growing up and I was conflicted. I found some tuna at the store that claims to be sustainably caught. Does purchasing sustainable products (http://www.seafoodwatch.org) help this or should I cut it completely?
That is a great question, you are good to question and investigate. The oceans and ocean life are stressed as this article points out with fisheries collapsing in selected areas. Not emphasized are unusual spikes/drops in temperature and salinity, pollution in the forms of plastics and chemical pollutants. I'm likely missing some key issues. 'Fish farms' aquaculture are proliferating but I'm not sure if this type of treatment of fish does or does not change its health benefits (some claim these fish taste different) as what the fish are fed and the makeup of the waters they are raised in likely make a huge difference. I've eaten fresh rainbow trout I actually caught (it was a miracle!) and farmed rainbow trout. At least with this fish, I could tell the difference and it was quite pronounced and a disappointment at least for me.
I think your question is, should I trust that this company is truthful about their practices which likely is quite difficult to answer. I've read some disturbing things over time about aquaculture, while I can see the benefits there are also risks and downsides that aren't often addressed.
Personally, I treat seafood of all types be it fish or shell fish as a special treat and don't eat it regularly. I know there are health benefits to eating particular types of fish and for some cultures, fish is a primary source of protein. Because of the environmental impact due to poor practices of large producers, abuses in harvesting fish be it freshwater or saltwater, big AG abuses of workers, the land/oceans/waters and very laws of nature, we as a family have changed what we eat. In North America, we have an abundance of choices in sources of protein and quality of protein. With that in mind, we do our best to buy/eat responsibly, save those occasional special treats.