Nutrition

So when you’re standing there, in front of a fish monger, or your local grocery store and you say, ‘Hey, where’s that from?’ Once you get the answer, what are you supposed to do?

“Part of the trouble with sustainable seafood is that often times the information is simply not there,” said chef Barton Seaver. Seaver will be at the Cambridge Science Festival this weekend. Seaver’s delicate, delectable fish dishes featured at many popular Washington, D.C.. restaurants have won him national acclaim. He’s also a fellow with the National Geographic Society. But most of all, Seaver is a passionate advocate for preserving the bounty of the sea.

“For Cod and Country: Simple, Delicious, Sustainable Cooking” is his call to arms, and the title of his new book. When I spoke with Barton Seaver a little earlier this week, we talked about his personal connection to the ocean, and how eating sustainable seafood could be a form of patriotism.

Read the article at WBUR – Boston's NPR News Station

 

 

 

 

 

Fish. We’re encouraged to eat more of it. We’re encouraged to eat local. Heck, we’ve even been warned that if any imported food is going to make us sick, it’s likely to be seafood. Still, over 75% of the fish Americans consume comes from abroad.

Now, a high-profile grocery chain — Whole Foods –has announced it will no longer carry seafood from New England waters unless it’s caught in what Whole Foods considers a sustainable manner. This means no more gray sole, no more skate, and Atlantic cod only if brought in by gillnets or hook and line.

The new policy reported in Sunday’s New York Times is controversial, not the least with some of our region’s fishermen struggling to turn a profit in a difficult industry. US Senator Scott Brown has also weighed in.

So, where does it all leave us, the consumer? Whose opinions should we trust? Where does it leave our region’s fishermen and the health of our local fishing industry? And what about the health, in numbers, of New England’s prized fish stocks?

Read the complete story at Public Radio Kitchen from WBUR

 

 

 

 

 

April 23, 2012 – Presented at the World Congress of Cardiology in Dubai Friday, scientists showed that short-term treatment with omega-3 fatty acids was able to improve arterial stiffness and moderate acute impairment of vascular elastic properties in smokers — both markers of cardiovascular risk.

For four weeks, subjects were treated orally with 2g of omega-3 fatty acids every day.

Scientists believe the cardioprotective effects come from the nutrient’s anti-inflammatory and anti-atherosclerotic effects.

Meanwhile, a slew of studies vaunt the health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, which have been shown to help with everything from nerve damage to mental fitness and fertility.

For example, a British study published last year found that omega-3 fatty acids could play a significant role in preventing and protecting nerves from injury. After simulating damage in mice by stretching the cells or starving them of oxygen, researchers then enriched the cells with omega-3 fatty acids. The result was decreased cell death and significant protection.

Read the full story at the New York Daily News.

 

 

April 22, 2012 – For those on the go or on a budget, sushi is sold at food courts and supermarkets. Sales of sushi trays were up 11 percent in the United States in 2011, according to Nielsen Perishables Group FreshFacts data. AFC Franchise Corp., one of the largest suppliers of supermarket sushi, now operates more than 3,300 sushi bars in the United States and Canada. Soon enough, sushi will be available at drugstores, too. Walgreens recently announced plans for a 24,000-square-foot megastore in Downtown Crossing that will feature a sushi bar.

But just because sushi is everywhere in Boston doesn’t mean it’s good.

“ ‘Where should I go for the best sushi?’ I’m asked this question a lot,’’ says Merry White, a professor of anthropology at Boston University who specializes in food and Japan. “I have a snarky answer. Go to Logan and get on a plane. But that’s not helpful.’’

The highest-quality sushi relies on expensive, high-quality ingredients, and few of them. Key is rice, without which raw fish is sashimi, not sushi.

“Sushi in its basic form means vinegared rice,’’ says chef Tim Cushman, who runs acclaimed Japanese restaurant O Ya with his wife, sake sommelier Nancy Cushman. They serve creative sushi and sashimi, along with cooked dishes, but one can also request traditional preparations. “For great sushi, you need great sushi rice, and to make it you need premium rice… . Then you have to cook it properly, hold it properly, and serve it properly. You should never refrigerate it. The texture gets hard and grainy.’’ Cushman spent several years developing the rice served at O Ya.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe.

 

 

April 20, 2012 – WASHINGTON—Photos of fish with sores may raise concern about long-term environmental effects of the massive BP oil spill — but federal health officials say the Gulf seafood that's on the market is safe to eat.

After all, diseased fish aren't allowed to be sold, said Dr. Robert W. Dickey, who heads the Food and Drug Administration's Gulf Coast Seafood Laboratory.

"It's important to emphasize that we're talking about a low percentage of fish," Dickey stressed. "It doesn't represent a seafood safety hazard."

Two years after the oil spill, scientists cite lesions and other deformities in some Gulf fish as a sign of lingering environmental damage. They can't say for sure what's causing the fish ailments or if there really are more sick fish today than in the past.

Read the complete story by The AP from The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 17, 2012 – Some fishes are not what companies are labeling them as. According to a study released today by the Washington DC-based nonprofit organization Oceana, grocery stores, restaurants and sushi venues consistently called various whitefish, “anything from farmed tilapia to pollock,” red snappers, when they were not red snappers.

“Red snapper is more well known than other snappers and most other fish. It’s also severely overfished so is less readily available than in the past,” explains Margot Stiles, a senior scientist and campaign manager at Oceana in Washington DC. “From a retail perspective, people want red snapper and retailers try to give it to them, even if it gets swapped for another fish.”

Oceana collected 119 samples from locations in Orange County and Los Angeles between May and December 2011. Eighteen types of fishes were tested against California and federal laws using DNA analysis, of which only six were labeled correctly. Red snapper was mislabeled in each of the 34 cases, while wild salmon, Dover soles, yellowtail and white tuna also had high rates of misrepresentation.

Read the complete story from Forbes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 17, 2012 – It's called species substitution and it's becoming increasingly apparent in L.A. sushi bars, where more than half of the seafood sold is not labeled correctly, according to a nonprofit watchdog organization.

Red snapper, Dover sole, white tuna and other fish were often a different species, the group Oceana found in DNA tests of seafood from 74 retail outlets in Los Angeles. In all, 55% of 119 fish samples from across L.A. were misidentified, Oceana said.

Oceana focused on the frequency of mislabeling rather than its origins. But Beth Lowell, director of the Stop Seafood Fraud campaign at Oceana's Washington, D.C., headquarters, said fraud can occur at any point in the supply chain, beginning when the fish is landed and through to processing, distribution and final point of sale.

Read the complete story from The Los Angeles Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 13, 2012 – SmartMoney's Anna Prior writes a list of ten things seafood restaurants won't tell you.

1. "It's your fault our prices are rising."

Americans are crazy about their fish — maybe a little too crazy. U.S. seafood consumption has been rising steadily since 1960, and a recent study published in Conservation Biology reports that up to 33 percent of global fish stocks have been overharvested. With some wild populations being fished to the point of diminishing returns, governments worldwide have instituted catch limits for species ranging from Atlantic cod in New England to blue king crab in the North Pacific. And because tighter limits mean higher prices, say insiders, the $8.3 billion seafood restaurant industry is having a tough time hitting a price point that sells but still makes a profit. Stephen LaHaie, senior vice president of Lettuce Entertain You's Shaw's Crab House, says the wholesale price of wild red king Alaskan crab is up 60 percent this year. And at the end of the day, says LaHaie, "how much can you charge for king crab?"

Read the full article at SmartMoney.

 

 

April 6, 2012 – It sounds like the plot of a Dan Brown thriller: A powerful medieval pope makes a secret pact to prop up the fishing industry that ultimately alters global economics. The result: Millions of Catholics around the world end up eating fish on Fridays as part of a religious observance.

This "realpolitik" explanation of why Catholics eat fish on Friday has circulated for so long, many people grew up believing it as fact. Some, myself included, even learned it in Catholic school. It's a humdinger of a tale — the kind conspiracy theorists can really sink their teeth into. But is it true?

"Many people have searched the Vatican archives on this, but they have found nothing," says Brian Fagan, a professor emeritus of archaeology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, whose book, Fish On Friday, explores the impact of this practice on Western culture.

The real economic story behind fish on Fridays turns out to be much better.

Read the full story from NPR.

 

April 2, 2012 – We’re supposed to eat more of fish because it has healthful omega-3 fats. But we’re supposed to eat less of it because it’s full of environmental contaminants. Balancing the risks and benefits is hard, even for the doctors and scientists in the field. Absent sound advice, it’s all but impossible for those of us trying simply to decide what’s for dinner.

Consider salmon. According to the joint advisory issued by the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, salmon is low in mercury and safe even for pregnant women. Yet the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group, suggests that all adults — not just pregnant women — limit wild salmon (except for Alaskan) to one serving per month and farmed salmon to no more than two, because of PCB contamination.

This kind of disparity raises two questions: What do we know about fish, and what do we know about the advice we’re getting about fish?

Read the complete story from The Washington Post.