Nutrition

November 1, 2012 — Four decades ago, Danish medical students Jørn Dyerberg and Hans Olaf Bang traveled west across the Greenland ice sheet on dogsleds to test a theory. For many years prior to their journey, there had been anecdotal reports that Greenland Eskimos had an extremely low incidence of heart disease, and Dyerberg and Bang speculated that this was linked to the high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in the fish the native people consumed on a daily basis. After collecting and analyzing scores of blood samples, their hypothesis was borne out, and ever since, the medical and scientific community has been on a quest to determine exactly how PUFAs impart protective effects, and what amount must be ingested in order to achieve such benefits. Nearly 40 years and thousands of published studies later, however, these questions remain largely unanswered.

Cardiovascular disease continues to have an enormous impact on the world’s health and economy, making it all the more urgent that health-care practitioners find and implement low-cost prevention strategies. Dietary intake of PUFAs, specifically the n-3 PUFAs found in fish (commonly known as omega-3s), could serve as a perfect solution, but the lack of understanding of how PUFAs work—and continuing controversy over whether they really do work—has made it nearly impossible to properly implement their use in the clinic. Thus, a coordinated effort is needed to establish a mechanism for how n-3 PUFAs function in normal metabolism in order to develop proper therapeutic paradigms and to clarify their effectiveness in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease.

The results of large-scale meta-analyses and clinical trials involving PUFAs and heart-disease risk have been mixed, raising concerns that initial evidence regarding their effectiveness was misleading. A review published in September in The Journal of the American Medical Association, for example, found that increased PUFA intake failed to reduce the risk of stroke, heart attack, or death.4 Reasons for this disparity can be attributed to a variety of factors, including studies that lack sufficient statistical power and the use of differing methodologies to determine serum and tissue levels of PUFAs. Probably the greatest limitation to properly evaluating the results of many clinical trials is that they varied so widely in the type of n-3 PUFA given, dose, formulation (e.g. capsules or oil), and duration of intake. This widespread variation reflects the paucity of understanding regarding mechanism. If we better understood exactly how these compounds act in the body, then clinical trials regarding their use could be vastly improved and designed to be more reproducible. What researchers have learned about mechanisms of n-3 PUFA therapy has led us to propose a novel hypothesis that may help reconcile the controversy, uniting well-characterized n-3 PUFA effects with as-yet unresolved questions.

 

Read the full story at The Scientist

 

 

November 13, 2012 — The Commerce Department released its annual report to Congress last month that tracked how much fish was harvested in U.S. waters, exported, imported, and consumed by Americans. What shocked most reporters was that 91 percent of the seafood we eat is imported. But they missed the real story: Americans don't eat fish. The overall numbers were small. We consumed a paltry 15 pounds of seafood per person in 2011, compared to 195 pounds of eggs, pork, beef, and chicken — according to various government sources.

The USDA suggests we should eat at least two servings of fish per week and make it a fifth of our protein consumption. But we clock in at less than one serving and about seven percent of our protein overall.

How do we increase the percentage of seafood Americans eat? Instead of marketing familiar "safe" products, perhaps we should move somewhat counter-intuitively in the direction of novelty. I hated fish as a kid because my only experience of seafood was breaded flounder for dinner every Friday. Familiarity, it does seem, breeds contempt. Variety is enticing.

Finding variety in seafood isn't as difficult as it may seem. And it doesn't mean we need to look further than our own shores.

An often-heard trope about why we don't eat more domestically harvested seafood is that we don't produce enough to feed ourselves. This claim is simply untrue. We harvested 10.1 billion pounds of wild and farmed seafood and shellfish in 2011. We ate 4.5 million pounds. In other words, we hardly ate anything our fishermen caught. The question isn't whether we can produce enough for our population but what less-familiar species we are willing to eat.

Another issue is whether we can get access to the great stuff from our own coastlines. U.S. fishing interests have cultivated supply lines to Asian markets that buy whole fish and also to processors of health supplements and cat food, rather than to wholesalers catering to the American consumer market. From a U.S. consumer's point of view, the supply chains are broken — but they can be fixed.

 

Read the full article at The Atlantic

 

 

November 5, 2012 — Why aren't scallops more popular than oysters, shrimp and clams? Why do other molluscs — not to mention crustaceans — get all the attention?

Price has a lot to do with that. Scallops are less plentiful than those other creatures in the wild, and far less commonly farmed. Although the spendiest, most sustainable scallops are hand-plucked by SCUBA divers off the sea floor, "the majority of wild scallops are caught using a fishing gear called a New Bedford dredge, which is a fifteen-foot-wide steel frame that is used to drag a chain bag along the seafloor," explains conservationist Gib Brogan, Northeast representative of the nonprofit Oceana

Having spent nearly a decade striving to reform the Atlantic scallop fishery, whose 300-plus boats now catch over $500 million worth of scallops every year, Brogan doesn't love the New Bedford dredge:

"The frame suspends the scallops in the water, where they are caught in the bag. This gear has significant impacts on the sea floor and results in significant catch of species other than scallops including flounder, monkfish and skates. The gear has a history of catching threatened and endangered sea turtles, but will be required to be modified in the near future to reduce turtle catch."

Scallop farming — common in Asia, but still only experimental in US waters — presents a far safer, more affordable alternative. The Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch gives farmed scallops its top rating — higher even than that of most diver-caught scallops. And while shrimp farming is notoriously unsustainable, scallop farming is a totally different story, says ecologist Carl Safina, founder of the Blue Ocean Institute:

"It's pretty simple: When you farm shrimp, you have to clear out wetland areas to create the farms. Then you have shrimp crowded together at an unnatural density. This results in total destruction of those wetlands."

Shrimps have to be fed.

"But bivalves — clams, oysters, scallops — make a living by filtering their food out of the water. If anything, while being farmed they would go back to performing their natural environmental service of filtering, which lets more light into the water for sea-floor plants and can bring an area back closer to the way it's supposed to be. A shrimp farm is a very unnatural place, but a scallop farm is a remarkably natural place," Safina told me while preparing to cook — on a wood-burning stove — scallops he had hand-harvested himself and stored in his freezer, which lost power along with the rest of his Long Island house during Hurricane Sandy.

Raising the number of American scallop farms could boost the economy, provide jobs, and lower the price of this master mollusc.

 

Read the full story at the Huffington Post

 

 

November 2, 2012 — With most supermarkets giving shoppers some insight into the environmental impact of their seafood offerings, Wellesley-based Roche Bros. knew it needed to institute a sustainability program of its own.

Conveniently for Roche Bros., Foley Fish – the Massachusetts supermarket chain’s seafood provider for more than 30 years – was already developing technology that would let consumers know where and how their fish was caught.

New Bedford-based Foley Fish began developing Sea Trace during the spring, around the time Roche Bros. approached the business, said Foley co-owner Laura Foley Ramsden.
The product was released to Foley clients in September. Smithfield, R.I.-based Computer Associates programmed the system for Foley.

The system allows customers to scan a Quick Response (QR) code with their smartphones. The phone then displays information about the catch, including the boat it was caught on, where and how it was caught, and where it has been since the ship brought its haul to land.

So far, more than 200 Massachusetts fishermen have been listed in the database.

 

Read the full story in the Patriot Ledger 

 

 

October 31, 2012 — Figuring out what kids like to eat that also pleases their parents has long been a challenge for restaurant operators. Parents want healthy fare for their growing offspring, but kids want something fun and tasty. Seafood is one item that can easily fit the bill, but has yet to widely infiltrate kids menus.

“There’s a tremendous missed opportunity with most of the industry,” said Julie Casey, aka The Restaurant Mom, founder of online kids' dining resource mykidsplate.com. “Kids and parents are agreeing they want to see seafood on kids’ menus.”

According to the 2012 Kids and Parents Discovery Survey, conducted for Kidzsmart Concepts with The Restaurant Mom and Cincinnati-based Directions Research, both kids and parents want to see seafood on kids’ menus. For example, when asked what food items from the adult menu they would like to see on the kids’ menu, more than a quarter of kids surveyed said seafood. When asked what items from the adult menu their kids ordered or would order if they were on the kids’ menu, nearly a quarter of parents surveyed said seafood.

But while seafood presents a big opportunity for restaurants, only 20 percent of kids' menus currently include seafood, down from 21 percent in 2011, according to foodservice research firm Technomic. Of kids’ menus that do include seafood, shrimp appears the most. Other seafood dishes frequently showing up on kids’ menus are fish and chips, salmon, fish sticks and fried fish.

 

Read the full story here

 

 

CORVALLIS, Ore. –- October 24, 2012 — Samples of albacore tuna caught off the West Coast of the United States show minute traces of radiation that can be traced to the Fukushima reactor disaster, according to an interdisciplinary team of scientists from Oregon State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The radiation levels in fish analyzed to date are far below anything that would pose a risk to humans who consume the fish, the research team emphasized. The findings are preliminary; additional fish remain to be tested.

But the findings could reveal new information about where Pacific albacore travel during their migratory lives – and how what happens in one part of the ocean can affect the food web thousands of miles away.

The team has collected and tested fish caught off the U.S. West Coast both before and after the devastating March 2011 Japanese tsunami and subsequent release of radioactive material into the ocean by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor.

“We're still processing new fish, but so far the radiation we're detecting is far below the level of   concern for human safety,” said Delvan Neville, a graduate researcher with OSU's Radiation Health Physics program and a co-investigator on the project.

People are constantly exposed to radiation from the natural environment, Neville pointed out. “To increase their normal annual dosage of radiation by just 1 percent, a person would have to eat more than 4,000 pounds of the highest (radiation) level albacore we've seen.”

Neville will present the team's preliminary findings on Oct. 27 at the Heceta Head Coastal Conference in Florence. Richard Brodeur, the NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center biologist who serves as lead investigator on the project, reported the same findings to the recent annual meeting of  PICES, the North Pacific Marine Science Organization, in Japan. The researchers also plan scientific journal articles.

The OSU team's findings are consistent with those of California researchers who announced in May that they had found traces of Fukushima-linked radionuclides in bluefin tuna caught off the California coast. The bluefin news came as a surprise to the scientific and regulatory community. Shortly after the March 2011 Japanese tsunami and reactor disaster, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration and NOAA jointly expressed “high confidence” in the safety of U.S. seafood products, suggesting it was unlikely that migratory fish such as tuna would be contaminated to “significantly elevated radiation levels.”

 

Read the full article from Oregon State Universtiy

October 27, 2012 — Some of the best and healthiest parts of a fish never make it into the American diet. An e-book called "The Whole Fish — How Adventurous Eating of Seafood Can Make You Healthier, Sexier, and Help Save the Ocean" shows simple ways to use fish heads, skin and bones in appealing new ways.

"Omega 3s increase serotonin levels and they really do work as aphrodisiac," said author Maria Finn. "Plus fish adds healthy vitamins and minerals, so it actually does help increase your sexual desire and sensitivity."

Finn is a former Homer fisherman who said her whole fish philosophy stemmed from years of field work with Fish and Game.

"When I was on the Yukon Delta I worked with a lot of Yup'ik people at their fish camps. They showed me how to use the whole fish — the heads, the eggs and milt, the bones, and what they didn't use was pickled or fed to the dogs," she said.

Now Finn lives near San Francisco where using the whole animal is the trend in high-end restaurants.

Finn has seen salmon bellies featured as entrees, salmon roe as garnishes, tuna heart grated over pasta, and salmon bones ground with salt to provide calcium and Omega 3s. The e-book has recipes and also draws attention to sustainability issues and food webs.

 

Read the full story in the Anchorage Daily News 

 

 

October 26, 2012 — Of the 27 fish samples purchased at Ralphs, Sprouts, Pavilions, Gelsons, Whole Foods, San Pedro Fish Market and Sushi Yuzu, five were not correctly labeled. In fact, only two stores sold NBC LA samples that were 100 percent correctly labeled: Whole Foods and San Pedro Fish Market.

It's easy to identify the bright orange flesh of raw salmon, or tuna's muted red tones. But when it comes to other types of fish, consumers are pretty much at the mercy of supermarket and restaurant labels, and fraud is rampant.

That's what NBC LA's Get Garcia hidden camera investigation found when it DNA-tested samples of fish that were purchased from local stores and sushi restaurants.

Of the 27 fish samples purchased at Ralphs, Sprouts, Pavilions, Gelsons, Whole Foods, San Pedro Fish Market and Sushi Yuzu, five were not correctly labeled. In fact, only two stores sold NBC LA samples that were 100 percent correctly labeled: Whole Foods and San Pedro Fish Market.

The substitutions, like the Ocean Perch fish that had been labeled "Red Snapper" at Gelsons, Ralphs and Pavilions end up ripping off consumers. Ocean Perch costs $6.99 per pound, but Red Snapper retails for $14.99 a pound, NBC LA points out.

In addition to the ripoff, mislabeling could also cause problems for people trying to avoid certain kinds of fish for health reasons.

 

Read the full story on the Huffington Post

 

 

October 25, 2012 — Advocacy group Oceana is leading a campaign to end seafood fraud in the United States. The group was joined today by more than 500 chefs, restaurant owners and culinary leaders in a letter calling on the U.S. government to require that “seafood is traceable in order to prevent seafood fraud and keep illegal fish out of the U.S. market.”

The letter was led by sustainable chef Barton Seaver. It has signatories from nearly all 50 states, including top chefs Mario Batali, Rick Bayless, Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller, Jacques Pepin, Eric Ripert and Michael Symon — who are all “committed to serving seafood that protects our oceans, our wallets and our health.”

“Seafood mislabeling is one of the most important issues currently facing the culinary industry,” said Seaver, National Geographic Fellow and author of “For Cod and Country.” “It’s an honor to join this list of distinguished names in a plea for a nationwide traceability system that will not only help preserve ocean ecosystems for future generations, but will also increase profits and keep illegal fish out of our restaurants.”

Despite growing concern about where our food comes from, Oceana says consumers are often served mislabelled fish. And it is usually a completely different species than the one they paid for.

Recent studies have found that seafood may be mislabelled as often as 25 to 70 percent of the time for commonly-swapped species like red snapper, wild salmon and Atlantic cod, disguising species that are less desirable, cheaper or more readily available. In fact, Oceana and others have recently found shocking levels of mislabelling in the Boston (48 percent), Los Angeles (55 percent) and Miami (31 percent) areas.

“These chefs and restaurant owners are taking a stand and saying, ‘Enough is enough. We need better information about our seafood in the U.S. We need traceability,’” said Beth Lowell, campaign director at Oceana. “Tracing our seafood from boat to plate is the only way to ensure that it’s safe, legal and honestly labeled.”

In July, Representatives Edward Markey (D-MA) and Barney Frank (D-MA) introduced the Safety and Fraud Enforcement for Seafood (SAFE Seafood) Act (H.R. 6200). This would help stop seafood fraud by requiring full traceability for all seafood sold in the U.S.

 

Read the full story on Greener Ideal 

 

 

TOKYO — October 25, 2012 — Radioactive cesium levels in most kinds of fish caught off the coast of Fukushima haven’t declined in the year following Japan’s nuclear disaster, a signal that the seafloor or leakage from the damaged reactors must be continuing to contaminate the waters — possibly threatening fisheries for decades, a researcher says.

Though the vast majority of fish tested off Japan’s northeast coast remain below recently tightened limits of cesium-134 and cesium-137 in food consumption, Japanese government data shows that 40 percent of bottom-dwelling fish such as cod, flounder and halibut are above the limit, Ken Buesseler, a marine chemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, wrote in an article published Thursday in the journal Science.

In analyzing extensive data collected by Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, he found that the levels of contamination in almost all kinds of fish are not declining a year after the March 11, 2011 disaster. An earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant’s vital cooling system, causing three reactor cores to melt and spew radiation onto the surrounding countryside and ocean.

‘‘The (radioactivity) numbers aren’t going down. Oceans usually cause the concentrations to decrease if the spigot is turned off,’’ Buesseler told The Associated Press in an interview. ‘‘There has to be somewhere they’re picking up the cesium.’’

‘‘Option one is the seafloor is the source of the continued contamination. The other source could be the reactors themselves,’’ he said.

The safety of fish and other foods from around Fukushima remains a concern among ordinary Japanese, among the world’s highest per capita consumers of seafood.

 

Read the full story from the AP at the Boston Globe