Fish supplies are dying out. It doesn’t seem so long ago that the Grand Banks southeast of Newfoundland were considered an inexhaustible source of cod as well as other species of fish—numbers beyond imagining.
Yet by 1995, all major cod fisheries on the Grand Banks were closed. Fished out. Canada imposed a 200-mile no-fishing limit along its Maritimes coast to allow fish stocks to recuperate. And then oil was found beneath the underwater plateaus that make up the Grand Banks. Oil development is now proceeding. So much for the Grand Banks as a resource for fish. And around the world, stocks of certain ocean fish are similarly threatened.
It’s imperative, then, that organic-minded folks choose their seafood wisely, with an eye on sustainability—that is, fishing at levels that don’t deplete stocks but sustain or even increase current fish stocks.
A second concern having to do with seafood is the presence of mercury in fish. Mercury levels in certain fish are dangerously high, caused by industrial pollution. It’s especially important for young women of childbearing age, pregnant women, and young children to avoid fish species with high levels of mercury because of that element’s role in developmental abnormalities. Among the most contaminated fish are king mackerel, shark, swordfish, and tilefish from the Gulf of Mexico. While light tuna is acceptable, white tuna (albacore) has levels of mercury elevated enough to warrant limiting intake. You can find a complete listing of commercial fish and shellfish mercury levels at: http://www.vm.sfsan.fda.gov/~frf/sea-mehq.html or at http://www.epa.gov/ost.fish.
As of this writing, thirty-five projects to produce genetically engineered (GE) fish are underway, and the Food and Drug Administration has also received an application to allow the marketing of a salmon engineered to grow 30 times faster than a wild salmon, according to the Center for Food Safety. Slow Food Researchers at Purdue University have found that GE fish, due to their larger size, have a mating advantage over native fish, meaning that GE fish will be more successful fertilizing the eggs of native females. But the offspring of GE fish have a one-third greater mortality rate than native fish, due to the impact of the added genetic material. Some scientists predict that the introduction of GE fish could cause the extinction of native species, such as Atlantic salmon (already endangered) within only a few generations. Remember that the government so far refuses to permit labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs, meaning the same thing as GE)—plant or animal foodstuffs—and therefore is actively blocking consumers’ ability to identify GE foods. If these Frankenfish find their way into supermarkets, the average consumer won’t know about it.
....read more |
|
Share This Article
