Nutrition

November 26, 2013 — Mercury levels in American women of childbearing age have dropped about one-third over a decade, a new federal study shows.

It’s likely the trend can be attributed to women making more informed choices about what types of seafood are safer to eat, health officials said.

An analysis of national data found that blood mercury levels among women in this age group dropped 34 percent between 1999 and 2010, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA also found that the percentage of women of childbearing age with blood mercury levels above the “level of concern” fell 65 percent during the study period.

Even so, there was little change in the amount of fish eaten by women between 1999 and 2010. The decrease in mercury levels suggests that women may have started eating types of fish with lower mercury levels, the EPA said in an agency news release.

Read the full story at Delaware Online

November 26, 2013 — A study of sushi eaters in New Jersey shows just how much sushi people are eating (and who's eating it) — as well as which kinds of sushi may expose people to the highest levels of methylmercury.

Researchers from Rutgers University and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School examined sushi consumption among 1,289 people who lived in a New Jersey university community, as well as levels of mercury among samples of sushi taken from stores and supermarkets in New Jersey, New York City and Chicago. Of the people surveyed in the study, 92 percent said they ate fish, consuming an average of five fish or sushi meals each month. Seventy-seven percent of the respondents said they ate sushi, averaging 3.27 sushi meals a month. The amount of fish in pieces of sushi consumed by the study participants ranged from 5 to 25 grams.

Among the findings of the Journal of Risk Research study:

– Caucasians and Asians (particularly East Asians, compared with South Asians) reported eating the most sushi. Some people surveyed in the study reported eating more than 40 pieces of sushi a month, and eight of the people in the study said they ate fish or sushi at least once a day.

– The top 10 percent of sushi-eaters exceeded the Center for Disease Control Minimal Risk Level and the WHO Provisional Tolerable Weekly Intake for methylmercury consumption. (People in this group ate sushi for an average of 30 to 60 meals each month.)

– The type of sushi with the highest average levels of methylmercury was tuna sashimi (with about 0.61 parts per million of methylmercury).

– Levels of mercury varied between sushi samples, "with some levels as high as 2.0 ppm [parts per million], which makes exposure to mercury from consumption of sushi (or sashimi) less predictable."

Read the full story at the Huffington Post

November 20, 2013 — Seared scallops are one of the fastest-growing seafood entrées on menus, according to Datassential MenuTrends, which tracks over one million different menu items at more than 7,000 chain and independent restaurants.

As an entrée, seared scallops appear on 41% more menus than they did just two years ago, Nation’s Restaurant News reports.

Scallops are highly preferred by fine-dining restaurants, where nearly 70% of menus feature scallops as an appetizer or entrée, although they are found in all segments.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

November 20, 2013 — It's been a conundrum for pregnant women: Forgo fish out of fears of mercury? Or eat it up to get the benefits of all the vitamins, minerals and omega-3 fatty acids found in many types of fish and shellfish?

Increasingly, it seems women of childbearing age are opting for a smarter option: They're eating fish, but avoiding the species that are high in mercury.

The Food and Drug Administration has long advised women of childbearing age who are thinking of becoming pregnant (along with those who are already pregnant or are breast-feeding a newborn) not to eat seafood that's high in mercury, such as swordfish and tilefish.

And it seems lots of moms-to-be have been listening.

According to a new study from the Environmental Protection Agency, the blood mercury levels in women of childbearing age dropped 34 percent in the decade between 2000 and 2010.

And what's more, there's been a 65 percent drop in the percentage of women of childbearing age who have levels of mercury that are considered high enough to be of concern for health reasons.

Read the full story at NPR affiliate KDLG 

 

November 20, 2013 — Close to a hundred oyster farms have sprung up during the past decade or so, in bays, creeks and tidal ponds strung along the Atlantic seaboard from Virginia to Canada’s Prince Edward Island, Bloomberg Pursuits magazine will report in its Holiday 2013 issue.

“Everyone’s growing oysters,” Chris Quartuccio says over his shoulder as he paddles a neon-orange kayak across Long Island’s Great South Bay, where he’s raising some 300,000 Blue Island oysters on the shallow seafloor, 50 miles east of Manhattan. He might be right.

Close to a hundred oyster farms have sprung up during the past decade or so, in bays, creeks and tidal ponds strung along the Atlantic seaboard from Virginia to Canada’s Prince Edward Island, Bloomberg Pursuits magazine will report in its Holiday 2013 issue.

Each oyster variety has its own distinctive look and flavor and its own fanciful name, including Walrus & Carpenter, Matunuck and, Quartuccio’s best-seller, Naked Cowboy, a favorite at the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York.

A century and a half ago, oysters and oyster canneries were a major industry. Oysters fed Native Americans and sustained early European settlers; 19th-century Americans consumed oysters more often than beef. Oyster beds were the coral reefs of the Northeastern U.S., keeping water free of silt and sustaining rich fishing grounds. By the late 1800s, overharvesting had destroyed many of the most productive beds, and by the 1960s, pollution and farm runoff had killed much of the rest. The 1972 Clean Water Act offered oysters a mulligan, and in the past decade, a locavore oyster revolution has taken off.

“People love tasting variety, and oysters have it even more than wine,” says Rowan Jacobsen, author of “A Geography of Oysters,” a guide to the U.S. locavore oyster scene. “They’re a concentrated form of the water in which they grow.”

Bivalve Meroir

Algae, minerals and even the salinity and temperature of the water contribute to what connoisseurs call a bivalve’s meroir, a maritime play on the wine world’s terroir.

“Each has its own individual taste, based on three characteristics: species, the water they’re raised in and the farming method,” says Rick Moonen, a Las Vegas chef and leader of the sustainable seafood movement. What’s more, oysters are “fantastic little vacuum cleaners,” Moonen says. “The more we produce, the cleaner our environment becomes.”

Read the full story from Bloomberg Businessweek

November 20, 2013 — This year, Americans are expected to buy more than $30 billion worth of organic grains, produce, coffee, wine and meats.

Some producers of farmed fish want the chance to get a cut of those profits, and retailers, who can charge a premium price for organic farmed fish, are with them. But an organic label for aquaculture is not coming easy.

For more than 10 years, the issue has been on the agenda of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program. But a planned meeting to discuss the matter in October was canceled by the federal government shutdown. Now federal officials are saying the final determination on the issue is at least six months away.

Among the groups closely eyeing the proceedings are environmentalists, who say fish farms shouldn't quality for an organic label if they rely heavily on feed that can't be verified as organic. And they cite other problems on fish farms, including pollution and disease, that make them less sustainable than the typical organic farm.

"The problem is, organic rules are based on how you treat the soil. So how do you apply that to things like seafood?" says Patty Lovera, with Food and Water Watch.

To solve the problem of fitting fish farms into the same policy as land-based farms, federal regulators are simply rewriting the rules. The NOP — with help from the National Organic Standards Board, or NOSB, and its own Aquaculture Working Group — is now developing a set of guidelines that specifically address aquaculture. They would allow up to 25 percent conventionally grown material — specifically fishmeal — in the diets of farmed fish certified as organic. The plan would be to slowly scale this amount down over the years, though critics say they doubt this process would occur.

Read the full story at NPR affiliate WMHT

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS [Seafoodnews.com] — November 15, 2013 — The Aquaculture Steward Council, Global Aquaculture Alliance and Global G.A.P. have agreed on a minimum set of standards that defines sustainably sourced fish meal and fish oil (FMFO) made up of elements common to the existing standards across the three certifying bodies.  This is an important accomplishment that sets a minimum threshold for sustainable fish feed that should quickly get global acceptance.

The groups agreed on some common sense sustainability criteria for fishmeal and fish oil used in feed.

They include:

-Traceability to the species and, at least, to the country of origin.
-No use of material sourced from endangered species based on IUCN´s red list.
-Avoidance of fish sourced from illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU).
-Preference for feed manufacturers with publicly available evidence of responsible sourcing, such as third-party certified sourcing of FMFO derived from fisheries and aquaculture, including FMFO derived from fish by-products.

The standards stem from an April agreement struck among the Council, Alliance and GlobalGAP to devise some basic criteria that companies can follow to streamline sustainability production processes regardless of which program is chosen for certification.

"This will better promote the responsible sourcing of FMFO, for the benefit of the environment and the future sustainability of the fisheries and other FMFO-sources utilized by the aqua feed and livestock feed sectors," the group said in a joint statement.

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 23rd April 2013 by the three standard setting organizations that identified a number of topics where collaborative action would create efficiencies and promote the uptake of our respective programs.

An early priority identified was to review how the standards address the sourcing of fishmeal and fish oil (FMFO). These raw materials are important to the production of feed used for the farming of fish, crustaceans, pigs and poultry. Unfortunately, when sourced from fisheries that do not follow responsible management practices significant negative environmental impacts occur.

The following chart summarizes the current FMFO sourcing requirements of the three parties. It identifies the crosscutting elements that are covered in all 3 programs and from which feed manufacturers can choose to expand in order to meet one or more of these programs.

This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

November 14, 2013 — Researchers in North Carolina have found unnatural levels of formaldehyde in imported fish. The toxic chemical might have been used to prevent spoilage in the fish.

Is this another reason why inspection of imported fish should be handed over to USDA?

The opposition to the USDA catfish inspection program has turned up the heat, producing at least a half dozen videos condemning it and filling e-mail boxes with tales of waste and the potential for trade retaliation if it is implemented.

Their latest justification for eliminating USDA inspection is that people have been eating imported fish for years, and no one has gotten sick. The real issues are twofold – does a large percentage of imported fish contain harmful substances or chemicals at levels that would prevent their entry into this country, and does the United States have the capability to adequately detect these tainted fish?

It appears the answer is yes, and no, respectively.

According to a September Food Safety News article, researchers in North Carolina found that a large number of fish imported from Asian countries contained “unnatural levels” of formaldehyde, a toxic chemical commonly used as a disinfectant or embalming agent. When researchers tested U.S. fish of the same species, they found no harmful chemicals.

Read the full article at Delta Farm Press

November 10, 2013 — It’s hard to imagine just how many edible fish there are until you see them arrayed in their multicolored, multi-finned glory. Lobster Place, a bustling seafood shop in the center of New York’s Chelsea Market, is a good place to start. The store’s open display cases hold live sea urchins that respond to the touch; fat, juicy chunks of Hawaiian Wahoo; gigantic, whole tilefish that stare, glassy-eyed at the curious consumer; and other offerings that, were they not labeled, you’d need a degree in marine biology to recognize.

Some, like baby squid and octopi, razor clams, and fillets of specialty catch that retail for upward of $25 per pound, might intimidate the standard home chef in search of something to serve for dinner. This is intentional. Chelsea market draws tourists, upper-class gourmands and Food Network fans in search of weird fish that’s hard to find anywhere else.

Other offerings, though, are just … different. There’s no reason to believe most of the fillets priced by the pound are less tasty or harder to cook than typical supermarket fare. Yet Davis Herron, Lobster Place’s director, says standard fillets of salmon, tuna, cod and halibut are still the specialty market’s biggest sellers.

It’s no coincidence that the most endangered fish are also staples of the American diet. When we talk about overfishing, we’re referring to individual species that consumers — and the market – latch on to, often to the exclusion of other options. As much as we extoll the virtue of seafood, our enthusiasm for those select few suggests, we’re really not all that comfortable with it.

“There’s a fear of seafood,” said Rick Moonen, a renowned seafood chef who was one of the first to advocate sustainable fishing. “For some reason, people get nervous.” Fish are complicated, expensive and easy to overcook. They’re laced with small, sharp bones ready to choke the incautious diner. They smell. The limited number of species we stick to aren’t exceptions, but at least they’re familiar. Yet by refusing to broaden our options, we’re threatening to eat them out of existence.

Read the full story at Salon 

 

October 30, 2013 — Farm-raised fish is one of the few types of food not currently available at the grocery store with a U.S. Department of Agriculture organic label on it, but the agency shouldn’t be in too much of a rush to rectify that, a handful of organic and consumer advocacy groups warn.

The National Organic Standards Board has received more than 900 letters in relation to its request for comments regarding the use of certain synthetics by aquaculture operations hoping to secure future organic accreditation. In particular, the NOSB is looking for reaction to petitions submitted in relation to allowing the use of trace minerals and vitamins, chlorine to be used as a disinfectant and tocopherols to delay rancidity in fats.

The comment period closed Oct. 1, though many of the comments were made publicly available only after the reopening of the government on Oct. 17.

The board was supposed to discuss the petitions at an Oct. 22-24 meeting, in Louisville, Ky., but the meeting was canceled because of the government shutdown and has yet to be rescheduled.

However, the Center for Food Safety says it’s too early to provide meaningful comments on the materials anyway.

“Evaluating substances within the context that they are used is key to the NOSB materials review process,” the advocacy group says in its letter. “Without final regulations to govern organic aquaculture, it is impossible to meaningfully assess the necessity or essentiality of” synthetic materials for use in the program. “If you don’t know which species of fish are being grown, where, or whether the system is open or closed, how can you possibly begin to determine their feed requirements?”

Read the full story at Politico