"Food comes from farmers, fish comes from the ocean."
“Growing up in a Portuguese household, I’ve been surrounded by seafood my entire life, peeling shrimp and shucking oysters since before I could even walk. Seafood has always been top of mind for me; it’s what I expect at family functions, in the dishes I gravitate towards at restaurants, and dictates my travel choices. So as discussions about global food security have become front and centre in the context of climate change, I can’t help but wonder: our planet is over 70% water; why do media headlines and policy discussions seem to focus on land-based solutions to food security?”
This was the introductory paragraph of my grad school application. I have spent the better part of my 20’s fighting like hell to make seafood a priority in discussions about our food systems.
It turns out that all it took was a global pandemic. Now suddenly, everyone is talking about seafood and the importance of fish in our food systems.
Yesterday, Forbes published an article titled “sustainable seafood could feed a billion people a day” and touched on the environmental, social, and economic benefits of seafood consumption. It even touted it as “the perfect protein”.
Fish is the perfect protein. In every single way you slice it, it checks all the boxes: it’s healthy, it’s affordable, it’s good for the planet, and it’s accessible. But, despite this, last year Americans ate only 15 pounds of seafood per person. The average annual consumption of chicken is 93 pounds per person.
For some reason, we have separated seafood from our food systems. Chef and sustainable seafood advocate, Barton Seaver, points out that our narrative as a society has been “food comes from farmers, seafood comes from the ocean”. This disconnect is deadly and ultimately leaves people like fishermen, processors, and seafood distributors behind. These hard-working men and women are the heart and soul of not only our seafood industry but our entire globalized food industry.
The first step to building a robust, sustainable seafood industry that supports coastal communities without harming the oceans is reminding people that seafood is food. And I am so glad that we’re finally seeing that shift now and that discussions about seafood are becoming more common.
Now, we’ve got to make sure it lasts. If you’ve also been seeing an overwhelming number of seafood articles coming out lately and are wondering what all the hype is about, here are some more nuanced resources that give information about why exactly seafood is so important to our planet; environmentally, socially, culturally, and economically.
Sustainable seafood resources:
🐟 The perfect protein - Andy Sharpless
🐟 Putting the seafood in sustainable food systems - Julia Olson
🐟 All the fish in the sea - Carmel Finley
For those who’ve been confused and overwhelmed by the hundreds of ecolabels and seafood watch guides on the market - forget everything you think you know about seafood. Just eat it.
Andy Sharpless sums up how to make sustainable seafood choices the best: “Eat wild seafood. Not too much of the big fish. Mostly local.”
Follow along with more seafood-related work at www.emilydesousa.com
