I am a fan of Sky Full of Bacon, a fascinating online show and blog associated with the newspaper Chicago Reader. It follows our foods from "farm to table" in the Midwest and in Chicago in particular. Local and sustainable food sources are recurring ideas. The other feature of this blog/show is running an ongoing challenge where chefs challenge other chefs to come up with a dish or cocktail using a strange or uncommon ingredient.
I draw attention to one particular show, Episode 11, which discusses sustainable fish supplies as opposed to consuming threatened/overfished species. According to the World Health Organization 13.5-16.8% of animal proteins consumed by humans are derived from fish/crustacean/mollusks (with regional variation). There has been recent awareness of the depleting fish supplies largely due to human activity whether it is from overfishing, pollution, introduction of non-native species, or possibly climate change. In particular, the demand for white-fleshed fish has reduced the numbers of orange roughy, sea bass, and Atlantic cod; thus many have to turn to tilapia which has become nearly ubiquitous in restaurants.
The Shedd Aquarium and a company CleanFish promote U.S. farm raised fish and discourage imported fish and many wild caught fish. They do note there are some sustainable wild caught fish: those species that have multiple spawns in a lifetime and are not overfished or the fishing quota is well regulated. Also not all farmed fish are equal. Farms need to be sufficiently inland so as not to interfere with wild populations and the fish habitat needs to be fully sealed off from ground water supplies. This was also the first time that I've heard of vegetarian-fed fish. Why vegetarian-fed? If you use vegetable feed then you are not depleting the oceans and lakes of fish/crustaceans that could be used to feed farmed fish. The Shedd releases a "Right Bite" list of sustainable and unsustainable fishes. They recommend avoiding tasty fishes such as most tunas, red snapper, Mahi-mahi, orange roughy, Chilean sea bass, Atlantic cod. They also recommend avoiding large fish that tend to have high mercury content such as sharks, swordfish, tuna, marlin, and Atlantic grouper. There are some exceptions to the rule such as Alaskan wild caught salmon is considered better than any farmed salmon. Recommended species include tilapia, Pacific cod, striped bass, arctic char and barramundi.
