Friends Don’t Let Friends Eat Farmed Fish
Posted by Mark FreemanThe Fish Hack is back at The Fish Wrap, where life is good but it would be “very, very, very, very good” if this here rag paid by the word instead of by the hour.
Had my fill of Californication last week, particularly when a side trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium revealed that fish and advice are alike in one way: When they’re bad, they’re awful.
Nothing wrong with the aquarium. The Fish Hack has one major shark-jones, and their tanks are loaded with my fellow predators. But the aquarium’s pubbin’ of its “Seafood Watch — West Coast Seafood Guide 2007” made me gag.
The aquarium is telling people to ask questions about the seafood they eat, and make choices based on where the fish is from and how it is caught.
That’s all good. Except, their recommendations violate The Fish Hack’s credo of “Friends Don’t Let Friends Eat Farmed Fish.”
Their list of best seafood choices include farmed abalone, U.S.-farmed catfish, farmed sturgeon and farmed trout. Lingcod and Oregon salmon rank only as “Good Alternatives,” the same as dogfish and squid.
Dogfish? Farmed catfish? Farmed ANYTHING better than lingcod or Oregon troll-caught salmon?
Come on. Oregon troll-caught salmon are as good a resource as you’ll eat. Also, lingcod officially are a rebuilt marine stock, a real success story. Bagging on lingcod is soooo 2003.
I don’t care if it’s in a pen sunk off Argentina or some dirty pond in Billy Bob’s backyard. Farmed fish aren’t real fish. They don’t get fat on shrimp or bugs. They’re fed ground-up fish carcasses and drugs to make their flesh appear edible.
Remember the movie, “Soylent Green?” Charlton Heston was fed ground-up people cut into bite-sized squares. Is that healthy?
Aquariums shouldn’t be lending cred to farmed anything. What’s next? Sam Elliott on television saying, “Tofu. It’s What’s Fer Dinner.”
If you aquarium people want me to roll into a restaurant asking for farmed catfish, then you need to hit KFC and demand a bucket of factory-raised chicken whose feet never touched the ground.
That’s just bad form. And even though The Fish Hack isn’t paid by the word, I’ll give you 17 extra “reallys” to string in front of that “bad.” No charge.
March 28th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Dear Fish Hack:
I get quite a kick out of your entries. Back where I come from they would say you spin a good yarn. I do worry about your strong hankering after sharks though. You’d have to be pretty darn careful around one of them. After all that good fish you”ve been eating, they’d find you a pretty tasty morsel.
March 30th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Hold on a second! As an aquarium staffer involved with the Seafood Watch program, I take issue with the blanket condemnation of aquaculture. Sure, well-managed and wild-caught is great on the plate — absent any concerns about overfishing or other environmental impacts. At the same time, abalone (kelp grazers), and oysters, mussels and clams (filter-feeding plankton eaters) are a sustainable source of seafood. (And yes, so are tilapia, catfish, striped bass and even California caviar, from well-managed aquaculture operations.) There’s good science behind all of our seafood recommendations, avaialble online at www.seafoodwatch.org.
April 2nd, 2007 at 4:23 pm
I hear you, Aquaken. The science of sustainability certainly can pencil out for some forms of aquaculture. Tthe Fish Hack, for instance, isn’t against hatchery salmon released as smolts to grow in the ocean because 90 percent of their body mass comes while feeding naturally at sea.
And kelp-grazers and filter-feeders like mussels, clams and oysters are fine down on the farm. But not for The Fish Hack, who ate some really bad prawns in Mexico that caused a reaction that two Mescal worms couldn’t cure. So shellfish are off The Fish Wrap’s menu.
But that’s not the point.
Lemme remind you of two words when you’re talking farmed fish…Soylent Green.
The Hack isn’t interested in scarfing on some ‘roided-out trout or catfish fattened up on ground fishmeal. Too Donner Party for my taste.
Only free-range pisces gets two fins up in The Fish Wrap chow reviews.
April 3rd, 2007 at 9:59 am
Obviously the Fish Hack is more interested in emotion and humor than researching their topics properly and using the left side of the brain.
Point that Fish Hack has ignored:
- Hatchery salmon are not benign. There are many environmental and genetic issues associated with them.
- Comparing shrimp and oysters is like comparing monkeys and elephants.
- Comparing shellfish from a trip to Mexico to say Oysters raised in cool Pacific Northwest Waters is just silly.
- While the Charlton Heston Quote is entertaining and sometimes applicable, many species such as Tilapia and Catfish are fed vegetarian or other than their own protein sources.
Fish Hack- try not to spread misinformation. You may find it will hurt what you actually care about.