October 15, 2013 — As part of New York’s ongoing Nordic Food Festival, the Norwegian Seafood Council hosted a roundtable with journalists to help tackle some of the misconceptions surrounding farmed seafood. The panel of nutritionists, chefs and farmers assembled at Aquavit agreed on one thing; what is left out of the noise surrounding the debate about wild vs farmed, is that the risks of not eating seafood outweighs it all.
Chef and restaurateur Peter Hoffman pleaded with the audience to move beyond the simple and false dichotomy of wild caught seafood equals good, and farmed seafood equals bad. “It’s more complicated than that.” In his work with the Chef’s Collaborative he has been helping chefs look deeper into the issues and start examining how wild fish is caught, and what kind of farming practices are used.
“Why does seafood get all the negative environmental focus,” asked Dr Mozaffarian of Harvard University, “too much energy is spent on comparing wild to farmed fish.” The appropriate comparison, in terms of environmental and health impacts, are how seafood stacks up compared to other protein production systems. “With this focus in mind the answer to the question of wild vs. farmed salmon is probably to stop eating beef,” he joked.
According to the Norwegian Seafood Council salmon aquaculture is among the most resource-efficient methods of food production, as salmon are more than twice as efficient as pork and chicken, and 8-10 times as efficient as cattle, as converting feed to energy, and ultimately meat for human consumption.
Dr Mozaffarian also discussed the influence of people’s romantic view of fishing, as the last bastion of food from a wild source. The industry must get better at communicating a compelling story – from fjord to fork – that emphasis both the nutritional and environmental credentials of farmed fish.
Read the full story at The Fish Site