Bad news for scampi lovers: meeting the world’s demand for shrimp is doing some serious damage to the ocean (and our health). Here are five little-known reasons to take shrimp recipes out of the dinner rotation.

In his new book, “The Perfect Protein”, Andy Sharpless makes some very compelling arguments for why we should all rethink our favorite shrimp recipes. Sharpless is CEO of Oceana, the world’s largest ocean conservation group, so he knows a thing or two about what our insatiable appetite for seafood is doing to the planet.

Americans eat more shrimp than any other type of seafood by weight. According to Sharpless, being very careful about how we source shrimp can go a long way toward protecting the oceans. The sad reality is neither fishing nor farming is a truly sustainable way to produce shrimp. Read on for some more compelling reasons to wean yourself off shrimp.

5 Reasons To Kick Your Shrimp Recipes To The Curb

1. Most shrimp consumed in the United States comes from farms in Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Thailand. These operations grow shrimp in shallow pools that form the perfect haven for bacteria and viruses. Even scarier? Only two percent of all imported seafood is tested by the Food and Drug Administration.

2. To combat the pathogens that see shrimp pools as breeding grounds, shrimp farmers often dump high levels of antibiotics and pesticides into the water–some of which are banned for use in the U.S. and other countries. You demand organic produce, but how often do you search for organic seafood? Kind of defeats the purpose, right?

3. In order to make room for shrimp operations, farmers often rip out mangrove forests, which is terrible for the environment. “Scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture have found that mangrove forests absorb and trap more climate-changing carbon dioxide than any other ecosystem on the planet, including rainforests. Mangroves also serve as nursery areas for other ocean creatures, and they help keep coasts secure by reducing flooding during storms,” reports Prevention.com.

4. Tearing up precious mangrove forests is bad enough, but that’s not the worst part: When shrimp farming pools become too old or contaminated for use, farmers just move on to a new area and repeat the process. The former mangrove forest is now a polluted wasteland, leaching dangerous chemicals into the water supply.

5. I know what you’re thinking. “I only every buy wild-caught seafood, so my shrimp recipes are safe.” Think again. Wild shrimp are caught with fine-meshed trawl nets pulled through the water behind a boat. The only problem is that they nets catch a lot of other stuff besides shrimp. “Most fish are damaged from being in the net, and many are discarded—dead or dying—overboard,” Sharpless points out. “Nets routinely pull up 9,000 endangered or threatened sea turtles annually, in addition to sharks, red snappers, and other animals.”

Eco-Friendly Alternatives To Shrimp

Giving up shrimp won’t be easy, but there are some more responsible seafood choices that can help. According to Sharpless, sardines and anchovies, mussels, Alaskan salmon, domestic clams, and farmed oysters are more sustainable selections that are also safer for your health.

Related on Ecosalon:

Back Away From The Tuna, Shrimp, and Salmon

Make The Right Fish Pick With Seafood Watch App

Sorry Charlie: Loving Tuna To Death

Image: wwarby

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Is fish oil really beneficial, safe and environmentally friendly?

Depending upon whom you ask, fish oil is both wonder supplement and health menace. It protects against heart disease, but it can contain mercury. It’s linked to lower risk of breast cancer and diabetes, but it can be contaminated with PCBs. Fish oil is fraught with contradiction, and we haven’t even had dessert yet.

As the number one, most-purchased health supplement even over multivitamins, fish oil flies off shelves around the world for that greasy substance procured from the flesh of cold-water fish like sardines, anchovies and herring. Hailed as the best natural source of omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA, these vital substances are necessary supplements our bodies can’t synthesize on their own.

These long-chain essential fatty acids work wonders on our health. We’ve known for years that fish oil promotes heart health, but recent studies seem to crown it king of all health tonics – it may lower the risk of developing breast cancer or diabetes, protect against blindness and even aid in the treatment of mental disorders. Beyond that, it’s considered to be possibly effective for high blood pressure, rheumatoid arthritis, menstrual pain, kidney problems and a host of other health issues.

But for every study touting the miraculous effects of fish oil, there’s another warning of hidden dangers in the form of toxic contaminants. The presence of mercury in seafood is a well-known concern, and a lawsuit filed in 2010 against eight popular fish oil supplement manufacturers alleges unsafe levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which are carcinogenic.

Then there’s the sustainability issue: we can’t ignore the fact that fish populations are plummeting around the world due to overfishing and environmental contamination. Are we contributing to this problem when we buy fish oil?

Google all of these issues and it’s easy to see that straight answers aren’t easy to come by.  But among all the studies, recommendations, glowing reviews and dire warnings, a few things seem clear:

Worldwide medical bodies agree that benefits outweigh the risks. They key is moderation; most people don’t need more than 500 milligrams per day. Warnings about mercury content in fish are aimed at high-risk groups like pregnant women, young children and the elderly. Plus, mercury is more often found in large, predatory fish – not the small fish used to produce fish oil.

Some brands of fish oil are healthier and more sustainable than others. The Environmental Defense Fund has a handy color-coded guide to fish oil supplements indicating which brands conform to the strictest standards for safe levels of contaminants. Look for supplements made from 100% wild fish, which contain fewer contaminants than those made with farmed fish. You can check the sustainability of particular fisheries at fishsource.org and the WWF.

Eating whole fish may be more effective than taking fish oil supplements. Most dietitians recommend getting vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids from nutritious whole foods – including fish. One study comparing absorption of omega-3’s in fish oil versus whole fish over six weeks found that levels of DHA were nine times higher in those who ate the fish. The Environmental Defense Fund has a chart listing fish that are both high in omega-3 fatty acids, low in environmental contaminants and easy on the environment.

Plant-based sources of omega-3’s are available, but may be less effective. Flax seed, walnuts, spinach and other ‘green’ sources of omega-3’s contain short-chain fatty acids, which must undergo a relatively inefficient conversion process in our bodies. Marine-based omega-3’s are more potent, but some people – especially vegetarians – may prefer the veggie source nonetheless.

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We need to save our oceans, and quickly. The most recent and widely cited report on fisheries predicts a complete global fisheries collapse by 2048 and asserts that ninety percent of large fish such as tuna and swordfish are already gone.

Other than the people using seafood wallet cards and reading eco-blogs, does anyone care?

In a 2008 report on the US Marketplace by Seafood Choices Alliance, chain restaurant operators report that only 22% of their customers are concerned about the environmental condition of the oceans. According to retailers, 25% of their customers are concerned. They better start caring because all-you-can-eat shrimp platters might not be the only casualty of the coming catastrophe. All life on earth depends on the health of the oceans. Even ours.

Not surprisingly, if consumers don’t care, few retailers and restaurants will take action because, after all, their job is to give consumers what they want or to go out of business. If retailers and restaurants won’t take action, neither will the wholesalers. Only 37% of retailers decided not to sell a certain seafood because of environmental considerations, according to a 2007 survey.

The terribly sad thing about this nearly imminent collapse is that it’s preventable. Though pollution, ocean acidification, and global warming all play a part, overfishing is by far the largest problem. And the most fixable. According to the book Bottomfeeder, we are vacuuming the bottom of our oceans clean.

We need a multi-pronged plan:

1. Consumers (and that means everyone) need to step up and push retailers and wholesalers to do the right thing. The power of the purse truly is a force to be reckoned with, but it has to be collective to work.

2. Governments need to cooperate on regulations and enforce fishery quotas.

3. New policies need to be put in place to protect fisheries.

Point 1: How do we get consumers to care? I truly believe that people would care if they only knew how bad it was. It’s not in the seafood seller’s business plan to let their customers know. That’s why I believe in-your-face tactics like some of Greenpeace’s recent campaigns can be really effective. Their ability to raise consumer awareness can push retailers to do the right thing.

Greenpeace’s recent brilliant attack on Trader Joe’s is a case in point. They used the attack, Twitter and humans dressed as giant orange roughy outside the stores to protest Trader Joe’s sales of endangered fish. The campaign was barely out of the gate before Trader Joe’s announced it would follow Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch recommendations for purchasing seafood.

Then there was the protest against the high-end Manhattan Restaurant, Nobu. It got a lot of attention, including in the New York Times.

Lamely, Nobu chose to leave the fish on the menu but to tell customers that it’s endangered and they should choose something else.

Less well-publicized, Greenpeace also puts out a seafood scorecard that allows consumers to assess how well their favorite supermarkets do in terms of sourcing sustainable seafood.

Another novel idea is that of consumer supported fisheries. Or Seafood CSAs: These seem promising from the point of view of supporting the smaller scale fisherfolk and keeping them in business. Such schemes, though great, are likely to be adopted by so few people that they won’t make a huge difference in the future of our oceans on their own.

In addition to consumer-focused efforts and campaigns, other ideas are being floated to help save our oceans. In order to do away with what is called the tragedy of the commons, some fisheries experts and governments (including ours) are proposing a privatization plan that provides individual transferable quotas that fisherfolk bid for. The logic is that everyone will have a vested interest in conservation. The plan does seem to have worked in some places. But I suspect, as usual, the devil is in the details. Critics say that such a plan will force smaller fisherfolk out of the game in favor of the large fleets that cause most of the destruction in the first place.

Up until now, governments have been lousy at cooperating to save our fisheries and oceans. The problem with global trade is that everyone has to commit to supporting bans on certain types of equipment or fishing moratoriums on certain species. That is slowly changing. The Pew Environmental Group recently formed a coalition dedicated to reforming the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy.

And even more recently, France’s President Sarkosy announced his support for a ban on the sale of bluefin tuna. The British fisheries minister joined the ban, and more are likely to follow.

It’s clear from all of this, that everyone needs to do his or her part. How can you do yours? Here are six easy recommendations:

1. Educate yourself about what is sustainable and what isn’t. Try reading a book on the subject. The wallet cards such as Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch cards are great, but a subject as complex as this deserves further study.

2. Know the big three. The three most popular types of seafood in America are also the most environmentally problematic – salmon, shrimp and tuna. Stay away from farmed salmon and eat wild salmon as a special occasion food. Find out where your shrimp was farmed or caught. If it’s really cheap, you probably shouldn’t eat it. Most species of tuna are endangered and high in mercury, too. Enjoy the small species (such as skipjack) if they are hook and line (not long line) caught, and only once in a while.

3. Give that supermarket sushi a pass. It’s full of cheap tuna, salmon, and shrimp. See above.

4. Develop a love for sardines, both canned and fresh. They are great for you (full of Omega-3s), are low on the food chain and are abundant.

5. This is the hardest one. You have to spread the word. Remember, people don’t know this information, so you have to tell them. It’s hard to talk to people about their food choices without being seen as an annoying, judgmental killjoy, but find a nice way to tell your friends and family members that they might want to lay off the canned albacore or treat it as a special occasion food.

6. Be Hopeful.

Further Learning:

End of the Line
Bottomfeeder
A Good Catch
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
Fish Forever
Seafood Lovers Almanac

Image: Jonathan Assink

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