Friday, November 14, 2008

Still eating sushi and sashimi?

I've given up on sushi and sashimi except when I hunt the fish myself. Tuna fishing for sashimi has caused the near extinction of the blue fin, and salmon farms are killing the water. All this because Japanese style raw fish is soooo sexy.

"There is little debate that salmon aquaculture is both unsustainable and environmentally destructive. Three or more kilogrammes of wild fish is needed to produce one kilo of farmed salmon. The ocean bottoms under and around the open-ocean net pens are usually devoid of any life, buried under the excrement of up to a million salmon overhead. "

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Totally agree on the farm raised salmon problems, and tuna issues. Not to forget the contamination of Tuna flesh. Besides, what makes you think that the fish you catch is pollution-free?
I love sushi and sashimi and I haven't given up on them. They are simply delicious and elegantly presented. Japanese are great at treating food and eating as a holistic experience. After all, we do eat with all our senses.
I am also able to make choices of what kind of fish goes onto my rolls.

Leila Abu-Saba said...

I am pretty much eating vegetarian at sushi restaurants now, ever since I saw that unagi is also on the "do not eat" list of the Monterey Aquarium. Our West Coast salmon run completely collapsed this year, an unheard of disaster. Tuna has been problematic for years (but I still buy cans of it for my mounieh; guess I'd better stop, huh, and switch to sardines only)

Check out the Monterey Aquarium's seafood watch guide:

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx

They give away free cards that fit in your wallet to take with you to the market or the sushi bar. They have been agitating on this topic for over a decade.... see their seafood/sushi recommendations.