Eating with Sustainability in mind
Most of us have heard and believe that the fresher the food the less of an impact on the environment. Well, seems this is not the case for the salmon.
According to a recent study conducted by the Ecotrust which studied how sustainable it is to catch fish, keep them cold and fly them around the world, frozen salmon is better for the planet because frozen take much less energy to make it to your dinner plate. Astrid Scholz, VP of Knowledge Systems at Ecotrust teamed up with Ulf Sonesson, a research at the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology and Peter Tydemers, an associate professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia to study the impacts for fish transportation on the environment.
Salmon that are flash frozen at sea can be transported by freighter or train, both of which uses significantly less fossil fuel than do jets. Troll-caught fish burn diesel fuel as ships chase fish across the seas, which is a problem as well.
Even farmed salmon can have a heavy hidden demand on fossil fuels. In addition to forage fish, farmed salmon can also be fed corn and soy, which are intensive, industrial algriculture crops, requiring fuel for production and harvest.
Key findings of this most recent study:
1. Mode of transportation matters more than miles. The air freighting of unfrozen food has a huge negative environmental impact. Most salmon fillets consumed in the world are fresh and never frozen.
2. Simply by switching to 75% frozen salmon we bwould have a greater positive impact on the environment than if ALL of Europe ate locally farmed salmon. So we should opt for frozen more than choosing organic.
3. The negative impact on the environment in conventional salmon farming comes from the feeds and not from the operations. If farmers of salmon simply switched to vegetable-based feeds rather than animal-based feeds, it would be a significant positive impact on the environment.
What these findings infer is that regardless of our best efforts to purchase and eat foods that are sustainable, we have to understand the the world’s food system is complex. They are not as evident as one would think. So think two or three times before ordering the ‘fresh’ salmon at your local restaurant.
Ecotrust has a number of ongoing initiatives to track the state of the salmon. To find out more, click salmon.