Sea Notes

If You Knew Sushi...

Great news for sushi lovers. Three leading ocean conservation organizations -- the Seafood Watch program here at Monterey Bay Aquarium, as well as Blue Ocean Institute and Environmental Defense Fund -- will release consumer guides for choosing sustainable sushi on October 22.

While the consumer guides –- in print, online and mobile device versions -– differ in appearance, all are based on similar data, and offer one consistent message: Our sushi choices have an impact on the future of the ocean.

"The reality is quite simple," says Sheila Bowman, outreach manager for Seafood Watch. "If you care about the future of the oceans, you'll avoid red-listed sushi."

For sushi aficionados, that means both pleasant surprises, and some disappointments. The "red" list includes items like bluefin tuna (hon maguro/kuro maguro) and freshwater eel (unagi), along with farmed salmon (sake). These species are either overfished, farmed with aquaculture methods that pollute the ocean, or caught using methods that destroy ocean habitats or kill large amounts of other sea life.

Green-listed "Best Choices" include wild-caught Alaska salmon (sake), farmed scallops (hotate) and Pacific halibut (hirame), in part because they come from abundant, well-managed fisheries or -– in the case of scallops -– are raised using sustainable aquaculture methods.

Pocket guides will be available on our Seafood Watch website on October 22 -- a day when we hope you'll take part in a Sustainable Sushi Party at home or your local sushi restaurant. The good news is that every sushi restaurant offers some sustainable items.

(If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, check out Tataki, currently the only 100% sustainable sushi restaurant we've found in North America. Casson Trenor, one of the folks behind Tataki, will publish a book about sustainable sushi in January 2009.)

In addition to our new Sushi Pocket Guide, we'll have other fun items for sustainable sushi advocates. I'll have more details in the next two weeks.

An Award for Seafood Watch

Big day here at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Bon Appétit Magazine announced it's honoring us as its "Tastemaker of the Year" today, recognizing our Seafood Watch program for bringing the sustainable seafood message to a national audience.

Julie Packard, our executive director, will accept the award at the 11th Bon Appétit Awards ceremonies in New York City on September 12.

It's great to get recognition from one of the top culinary magazines in the United States. It's even better to see the way the public (and businesses) have embraced the idea that they can -- through their seafood choices -- make a difference for the health of the oceans.

It's a far cry from the way things were when we launched the program in 1999. The seafood industry was dismissive and market forces were perpetuating a decline in ocean wildlife populations across the globe.

Now, 24 million pocket guides later, we're partnering with restaurants and big food service companies that are eager to change their way of doing business.

As with sustainable and organic foods from land, folks are embracing the notion that we have a responsibility to protect the environment through our food choices.

If you haven't picked up your Seafood Watch pocket guide yet, they're easy to find online. You can also access our seafood recommendations via your mobile device.

And when you visit our website, you can sign up as a Seafood Watch Advocate -- helping spread the word in your community and circle of friends.

It's a great wave to ride.

Seawater Synergy

Now here's a brilliant idea:

Pipe seawater into the Sahara Desert, use solar energy to create freshwater via evaporation, then use the water to grow greenhouse crops that will feed a hungry world. And, as a bonus, build enough solar capacity to ship surplus energy from the Sahara to Europe.

It's still a dream, but there are demonstration projects in Tenerife, Oman and the United Arab Emirates -- and a lot of buzz today about the Sahara Forest Project, Check it out.....

As if that weren't enough, the Japanese are dreaming big, too. The Times of London reports on a vision for offshore "eco-rigs" that would generate energy from the sun and waves, and use some of the energy for aquaculture farms to raise seaweed, fish and plankton.

Sustainable Seafood Marches Forward

Great blog today by Deirdre Donovan in Zagat Buzz Los Angeles about the commitments chefs are making to source (and serve) sustainable seafood.

Looks like it was prompted by a survey Zagat conducted in which 54 percent of respondents said they “try to order sustainable seafood but can’t always keep track of what they are supposed to order.”

She cites programs like the Seafood Watch initiative here at Monterey Bay Aquarium, and similar efforts like Shedd Aquarium's Right Bite, New England Aquarium's Celebrate Seafood and the Blue Ocean Institute seafood program (among others) as ways consumers & chefs are getting good information to make better seafood choices.

She also recognizes chefs who are leading the way, including the amazing Ted and Cindy Walter of Passionfish, right next door to us in Pacific Grove, California.

Put this together with the fact that more food service providers are buying local and organic -- including the Kaiser Permanente health center in Oakland, California with public service announcements about food miles on Bay Area radio, its own on-site farmers market and a food blog on its website -- and you can feel the momentum growing.

That's all good news for the future of the oceans.

Cooking Up a Storm

The connection between what we eat and the health of the oceans is becoming clearer every day. Scientific journal reports on the disappearance of 90 percent of the ocean's major predators, or the prospects for all commercial fisheries worldwide to collapse by 2048 if we don't change our ways give a sense of urgency to the issue.

That's why Monterey Bay Aquarium created the Seafood Watch program. And its why our Cooking for Solutions events include a day-long Sustainable Foods Institute for members of the media. We want to get the issue onto the radar of food editors as well as environment writers.

This year, we had an unprecedented turnout of top writers, from established publications like the Washington Post and Bon Appétit Magazine to writers and bloggers for newer online outlets like Sustainable Food News and Grist.org.

And they've already had a lot to say about what they learned.

- Gourmet Magazine's Barry Estabrook has posted three times, looking at the impact of climate change on agriculture, and twice about how to make good seafood choices. (And thanks to Gourmet for the photo.)

- Roz Cummins, who blogs for the environmental news site Grist.org, found a renewed sense of hope as a result of her participation, and offers up one of Rick Moonen's recipes (for Chicken-Fried Trout).

- Bonnie Powell of The Ethicurean explores in depth the issue of sustainability and what it REALLY means, tapping into the wisdom of Fred Kirschenmann, senior fellow at Iowa State's Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. She also dives into the topic of sustainable seafood, with the help of Edible San Francisco Magazine.

- Sam Fromartz, author of Organic, Inc. and writer of the Chews Wise blog, was astonished (as we were) to learn from Chef Rick Moonen that Las Vegas serves up 60,000 pounds of shrimp every day -- and probably not much sustainable shrimp in the lot. Rick was an Institute panelist, and the author of Fish Without a Doubt.

- Radha Marcum of Delicious Living offers some bullet points for individual action (learn to love sardines is No. 1 on her list).

These are just the early web posts. Many more articles are likely to follow in print media, and beyond.

Last note: You know the message is getting through when bloggers like The Slow Cook's Ed Bruske take culinary leaders to task for serving up a cornucopia of Red List seafood at a showcase event in Washington, D.C.

Community Supported Fisheries

Community supported agriculture (CSAs) is a growing tool to save the family farm. Sign up and you get a box of fresh produce each week, straight from your local -- usually organic -- farmer. Everybody wins.

Depending on where you live, you can do the same (or similar) thing now in support of family fishing boats. Add the term community supported fishing to your lexicon.

From Maine to California, it's possible to connect directly with the folks going out each day to catch fresh, seasonal seafood. You get a fresher product from someone you know. The folks on the boat get a better price for their catch. Fishing communities stay alive and healthy, rather than withering away into "colorful" remnants on a once-thriving waterfront.

I spoke with Zeke Grader, at the Institute for Fisheries Resources in San Francisco who says you can't yet buy an actual share of the catch in California, though their website will hook you up with places to buy fresh seafood everywhere along the coast.

But as bloggers like Carolina Bolado on Menu Pages, and publications from Gourmet Magazine to the Christian Science Monitor are reporting, community supported fisheries are a growing trend nationwide.

You can, for example, buy a year's catch from a Maine lobster trap for $2,995 -- with the average catch around 150 lobsters a year. Or you can buy a share of the catch for just $249, with the guarantee of "a gourmet lobster feast for 4" from the lobstermen with the Catch a Piece of Maine partnership.

Closer to home, there's a Fishfone at Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay, between Monterey and San Francisco, where you can call about buying fish straight from the boat, seven days a week.

Check out a few other options with the Menu Pages links, or visit the harbors and farmers markets near your home that offer fresh-from-the-boat seafood.

Let us know what you find in your neighborhood. We'll help spread the word!

And if all this sounds like too much trouble, you can't go wrong by using the Seafood Watch pocket guide for your region to select sustainable seafood at the market, or your favorite restaurant.

Cooking for Solutions

Sea Notes has been taking a break, not just for Memorial Day weekend, but to recover from an amazing set of Cooking for Solutions events at Monterey Bay Aquarium. This year's program -- from a daylong Sustainable Foods Institute for members of the media, through a culinary gala with celebrity chefs, weekend food and wine adventures, and the fantastic finish at the Sustainable Seafood Challenge (our own Iron Chef-like event) -- was far and away the best in the seven-year history of the event.

Everything about the celebration draws inspiration from our Seafood Watch program. We celebrate around food and wine not only because it's a delicious way to gather people together, but because of the fact that everything we eat (how it's grown, how it's caught, how it's transported) ultimately has an impact on the health of the oceans.

For three days, we raise important food & environment issues for journalists in a series of expert panels, we wine and dine Cooking for Solutions attendees wtih gourmet organic cuisine, and we honor chefs who are helping transform the culinary world through their restaurants, books, TV programs, cooking classes and -- overall -- their leadership in the field.

The Food Network's Alton Brown was our special guest, and an amazing advocate for Seafood Watch and the sustainable foods movement. Whether it was diving in the Kelp Forest or emceeing the Sustainable Seafood Challenge with Hawaii's Sam Choy, he was both delightful to be around, and a staunch advocate for sustainability.

"This card changed my life," he said at our celebrity chef awards ceremony, holding up a Seafood Watch pocket guide. (And if it can change his life, what can it do for yours?)

Ireland's Darina Allen was our Chef of the Year -- an inspiration through her Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork, which is set amid 100 acres of organic farmland. (Her influence even spread to the Salinas Valley, where one young man was inspired to create a series of farmers markets because of things he learned at Ballymaloe.)

Much more to share, including the abundant reactions of media participants, who've been blogging like crazy about what they learned.

Bon appétit!

Bad-News Bluefin

Atlantic bluefin tuna populations are being decimated, as we've talked about before. And the situation for bluefin elsewhere in the world isn't much better. That's why bluefin tuna is on the red list of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program -- and of nearly every other seafood advisory group, too.

Now comes another reason to skip the bluefin: It's potentially dangerous to your health. Marian Burros of the New York Times reported this week that tuna sushi sampled in New York City is laden with mercury, and eating it regularly will expose you to mercury at levels beyond what's deemed safe by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration. Ten of the 13 sushi samples the Times sent in for testing contained bluefin tuna.

'Nuff said. Take bluefin off the menu, and tell your sushi chef to stop serving bluefin and other "Avoid"-list seafood.

Photo by Tony Cenicola, New York Times

An Unlikely Ally: King of the Hill

Big thanks to Kim O'Donnel, who blogs about food and sustainable eating for WashingtonPost.com, for this one:

Fox TV's animated good ol' boys in King of the Hill have discovered organic produce and free-range beef. Since there's a direct connection between farming practices and the health of the oceans, we're always glad to welcome new allies who are promoting sustainable and organic farming practices.

It''s great to hear ANY voices getting the word out. Now you can add Hank Hill to the list.

As Kim writes, "I love it when the cartoon world distills the state of the universe into one half-hour episode, giving us mere mortals something worthy to chew on."

You can watch the entire episode, "Raising the Steaks" online (with minimal advertising interruption).  Just scroll down to find the "Raising the Steaks" link. The show first aired on Nov. 18.

And if you want to discover, as Hank Hill did, how much better sustainable and organic food tastes, mark your calendar for May 16-17, 2008. That's when we'll host our seventh "Cooking for Solutions" celebration in Monterey.

 

Sustainable Seafood Salute

It's wonderful when good guys get credit for their good work.

That's the case with Henry and Lisa Lovejoy of EcoFish, who are pioneers in bringing sustainable seafood to a wider market. Their commitment, and their company, were glowingly profiled on Monday in USA Today.

It's a great story, starting with their personal epiphany about the perilous state of the world's ocean wildlife -- an epiphany reached on the floor of Tokyo's vast seafood market. That led eight years ago to a decision to turn their lobster-exporting business into a new company committed to selling sustainable seafood.

Where once they supplied only restaurants, today they earn 80 percent of their revenue from sales to retailers --including Whole Foods Market and Target stores. They expect EcoFish sales to triple in the next 18 months as they reach out to food service companies and warehouse club stores.

Mohandas Gandhi said it best: "We must become the change we want to see in the world."

Henry and Lisa have become the change. It's a great example for all of us.