go easy on fish AND chicken says Mark-Chronicle

[Guest guest]

in case you missed the chicken part...

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/21/DDC2TFV70.DTL & hw=mar\

k+morford & sn=010 & sc=117

 

Something's fishy about cheap sushi

Mark Morford

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

It's times like this I wish I was a heartless Republican.

It's times like this I almost wish I didn't really give a damn, that I lived in

happy, savage denial of humankind's true impact on the health of the planet,

that I didn't have much of a conscience and therefore felt the world and all its

natural resources and all its cute little squiggly creatures were merely here

for my enjoyment and my wanton exploitation, and, hey, waitress, bring me

another order. Oh, what the hell, make it a double because, hey, I'm an

American, I'm entitled.

Alas, that isn't me. It probably isn't you. It's not really even most

Republicans. Just those in Congress. And maybe Utah. And Montana. But never mind

that now.

This time, it was all about the sushi. It was all about a fine lunch I was

enjoying with a friend over at a raw fish joint in the Mission when it struck me

that it was the third time in a week I'd enjoyed a fabulous sushi meal - not at

all an unusual rate, I realize, for sushi-drenched San Francisco, and also

increasingly common in America overall as mall sushi explodes in popularity -

but still, not exactly a cheap way to live, especially on a (non) humble

columnist's salary. But you only live once, yes? Sort of?

This is the problem: Sushi has become one of those things. Like Cate Blanchett,

like a Led Zeppelin reunion, there is simply nothing else like it, no other

comparable cultural experience. Prepared well (as most San Francisco sushi is),

sushi remains an unparalleled delight, so much so that it's impossible to adore

it and to not at some point say, out loud to anyone who will listen, " Man, this

stuff is so effing good, if I could afford it, I'd eat sushi every single day.

Wouldn't that be wonderful? "

Except, of course, for the fish. Except for the nagging issue of the inevitable,

unnerving collapse. For how report after report and new scientific revelation

after dire international prognostication now says, with increasing alarm, that

we are actually raping our oceans far more severely than we ever imagined, that

researchers actually haven't been measuring all that accurately in the past and,

when we now seriously study the historic record, well, it appears that the

overall volume of edible marine life is plunging faster than Dick Cheney's soul

into the fiery pits of hell. Which, as you well know, is pretty goddamn fast.

In fact, a recent New Yorker piece (a profile of radical environmentalist and

whaling ship-rammer Paul Watson) cited the United Nations Food and Agriculture

Organization as stating that nearly 70 percent of the world's major fisheries

are already " fully exploited " or " overexploited. " One ominous report, appearing

in Nature a few years ago, estimated that we've lost a staggering 90 percent of

our once-overflowing bounty of large predatory fish such as tuna, marlin and

swordfish, and we're still hacking away.

It might very well not be that calamitous. Hell, it might only be, you know, 50

percent. Or the fish could all be lying. But no matter how you slice it, at the

rate we're eating our way through the oceans right now, many scientists say that

the seas could be nearly barren of most edible stock, from tuna down to calamari

and sea slugs, by the time your toddler turns 40 and the ice caps finally melt

and the sun turns black and God goes, " See? "

It used to be easy. Just a handful of years ago, you could simply look up the

list, see which few wild-caught fish were severely impacted and which were in

most danger and adjust your diet accordingly, simply avoid them at the

supermarket and refuse to order that nice wild sea bass or swordfish from the

restaurant menu, cast your vote and let your feelings be known through sheer

market forces and feel like you'd done your part.

Not anymore. Fact is, there exists almost no wild-caught species that isn't

impacted, brutally overfished or threatened with collapse - or soon will be. And

that includes many shellfish. And farmed seafood is little better, in terms of

both health and negative environmental impact. Not to mention mercury, PCBs,

hormones and other toxins.

So then, the ever-present question: How do you respond? What to do with this

dire and ugly information?

Slate ran a fascinating piece recently, a discussion between authors Sasha

Issenberg and Trevor Corson, each with a new sushi-related book written from a

different perspective (the former historic/economic, the latter culinary) but

each complementing the other's research and both more or less dovetailing on the

point that, while sushi makes for fascinating study as both a culinary

phenomenon and example of global commerce in action, we are, at the current rate

of engorgement, very much on the verge of collapse. With sushi in particular, it

seems like it's a case of too much, too fast, too easy, too cheap.

Ah, ain't that America?

One notable takeaway from their discussion: America's (and the world's) sushi

craze might very well be short-lived, a quick, gluttonous blip on the radar

screen of hot culinary trends as increasing demand far outstrips global supply

and meager international measures to protect the oceans do little to stop

overfishing, and soon there's nothing left of sushi but some seaweed and the

sticky rice (which, by the way, is what " sushi " actually refers to: the rice.

Sushi does not actually mean raw fish. But again, this is America. Such facts

matter almost not at all).

The fact is, sushi should not nearly be so cheap nor so ubiquitous. Like beef,

we should actually be eating far less of it, honor it when we do, treat it like

the precious delicacy it is (a point reiterated by the authors, who say they eat

raw fish sushi only rarely, and very selectively, and really savor the fish when

they do). But again, therein lies the problem: The free market doesn't do

moderation. We don't do respect and restraint and honor. We just eat.

So then, where do you draw your lines? How far can you let yourself and your

cravings go? Is it not easier to deny it all, to just pretend you're one of

those heartless conservatives and simply shrug it all off and claim that the

free market economy will figure it all out and eat up all the fish and burn up

through the planet's resources and pillage whatever else we like until it's all

gone and then figure something else out? Hey, it worked for oil. Oh wait.

I do not know the answer. Or rather, I sort of do, but sometimes the answer

seems so much larger and more hopeless than just limiting my raw fish intake

(which I hereby vow to do) and staying informed and supporting the right

anti-ocean-raping causes and eating more burritos.

Except not the kind with that horrible industrial chicken, because that's vile

in an entirely different way. So maybe more soy-based foods, except unfermented

soy is extremely bad for you and GMO soy might be poisoning the American diet so

maybe more ... what, organic cabbage? Goat cheese? Toast? Ice cubes? Lots of

deep, meaningful gulps of (polluted, toxic) air and praying?

-- Mark Morford columns with inset links to related material can be found at

sfgate.com/columnists/morford.

Mark Morford's column appears Wednesdays and Fridays in Datebook and on

SFGate.com. E-mail him at mmorford.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/21/DDC2TFV70.DTL

This article appeared on page E - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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We do what we can to save the birds from the disastrous oil spill. However a few

days later, we don't think twice about cutting a piece of Turkey with a knife.

Joe Roberts 11/26/07