There's probably nothing more rewarding than cooking food that you caught or grew yourself. It's a primal thing. Food just tastes better that way. In yesterday's New York Times Magazine, Pete Wells recounts his failed attempts to help his son Dexter catch a fish for the fam to eat. The fishing efforts may have come up short, but the recipe doesn't.Fish With Grilled Salsa......read more
This floating pavilion on Vancouver's False Creek is being used as a temporary restaurant featuring 4-star local cuisine. Which is neat on its own, but it's doubly cool when you find out it's floating on nearly 1,700 recycled 2L pop bottles. And gets even sweeter when you discover that the Pop Bottle Dining Barge is a fundraising project for the School of Fish Foundation, which......read more
Pier Pressure: From The World's Best Ever, British art prankster Banksy makes a sly comment on the BP oil spill with this “reconditioned dolphin ride with crude oil and a tuna net.†The Dirty Dozen: Mother Jones hips us to the 12 least sustainable seafoods from this year's Smart Seafood Guide, published by Food & Water Watch. The guide takes into account not only health......read more
Hmm... maybe banning plastic bags wasn't such a bad idea after all. The LA times reports on alarming new oceanic research from southern California, where scientists from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation and the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project found bits of plastic in the stomachs of 35% of the fish they collected off the U.S. west coast. That's a lot of fish! The......read more
This year's World Water Day brings fresh concerns about seafood safety in the wake of the earthquake, tsunami and radiation leaks in Japan. Fishermen, fish buyers, and consumers on both sides of the Pacific are dealing with the ripple effects of the crisis. Addressing U.S. consumer safety concerns, the Food and Drug Administration said it was taking steps to measure radiation contamination in......read more
It's shocking to learn to that more than 27 million tons of dead unmarketable fish are caught and thrown back into the sea each and every year. The SafetyNet is a technological advancement designed to drastically reduce unwanted "by-catch" and save the lives of juvenile and endangered fish that get tangled in traditional trawling nets. The SafetyNet concept, envisioned by Dan Watson,......read more
The FDA is on the brink of approving genetically engineered salmon for human consumption. This would be the first genetically engineered animal on supermarket shelves in the United States. The salmon is engineered to produce growth hormones year-round that cause the fish to grow at twice the normal rate. The government already requires labels to tell us if fish is wild-caught or......read more
In an announcement that's as laden with symbolism as rivers are with sediment, American Rivers has named the Potomac River, which flows through the nation's capital, the most endangered river in the United States. "America’s Most Endangered Rivers," the annual report from the clean water advocacy group, noted that the Potomac is under increasing threat from pollution caused by urban......read more
It's said that you can't put a price on protecting the environment, and on the face of it, we agree. But when we're always hearing about the economic benefits of industrial activity, it would be nice to know what conservation is actually worth, in dollar terms. Now, thanks to a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation study, we do. The analysis considered the jobs, tax revenue and other economic......read more
At only about five inches long, the Peruvian anchoveta seems an unlikely contender for the title of the world's most heavily fished species, by weight. And yet, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the diminutive silver forager is “the most heavily exploited fish in world history,” with annual catches in Chile and Peru sometimes totaling more than 9......read more