Tag Archives: environment

Nourishing Hero: Paul Greenberg

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This is the first in our Nourishing Heroes series, in which we feature the individuals and organizations who inspire us. These heroes exemplify our philosophy that food should nourish body, soul and planet. They’re dedicated to bringing all of us fare that’s healthy, safe, sustainable and delicious. Do you know a Nourishing Hero we should feature on NOURISH Evolution? Let us know who inspires you!

All book signings–especially those about food–should be at restaurants. I think so, after meeting author Paul Greenberg when he came to Ammo in Los Angeles to promote his new book Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food (The Penguin Press). It was an ideal setting for readers to meet him, have some books signed and dine on a special menu highlighting sustainably farmed seafood.

“There are a lot of people out there who are confused about fish, both wild and farmed,” Greenberg noted. “Fifty years ago, everything was wild. Now, about half of what we eat is farmed.”

He pointed to plunging numbers of Atlantic bluefin tuna and noted “Atlantic salmon are commercially extinct”–meaning the salmon still ply Atlantic waters, but not in large enough numbers to make them worth catching.

For Greenberg, an avid lifelong angler, it’s all about catching fish. But in 2000, while fishing in the waters off his native Connecticut, he discovered that the mackerel and codfish that were so plentiful in his youth had virtually vanished. He then set off on a sojourn, fishing from Maine to the Carolinas. Everywhere, the story was the same: Fish were smaller and fewer, and fishing seasons where shorter.  Greenberg also visited fish markets wherever he went, only to find that local, wild catch had given way to a nearly uniform selection of salmon, sea bass, cod and tuna–the four fish of his book’s title.

It’s no surprise that Greenberg, a frequent New York Times Magazine contributor and former W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Fellow, wanted some answers. He embarked on a global odyssey to understand the story behind these fish. Along the way, he visited a native salmon fishery in Alaska and a sea bass farm in Greece. He went cod-fishing off New England and diving in Hawaii to observe an innovative tuna aquaculture operation. His book is filled with larger-than-life characters, both those who passionately advocate preserving wild fish and those who are just as committed to aquaculture.

Ultimately, Greenberg supports sustainably managed wild fisheries and environmentally sensitive fish farming. What’s needed, he contends, are global efforts to preserve wild fish (including reducing the world’s fishing fleets and protecting the bottom of the marine food chain). At the same time, responsible aquaculture must be developed to satisfy our growing appetite for seafood. That means choosing fish that don’t require lots of feed, don’t threaten the wild population and can thrive in aquaculture environments.

Our menu that night–oysters, mussels, clams, Arctic char and barramundi–was as a tasty example of what farmed fish could be, Greenberg observed. The bivalves filter their food from the water and “don’t require any feed whatsoever.”

Finfish like Arctic char and barramundi are “great for aquaculture because it mimics their wild setting,” Greenberg explained.

In the wild, Arctic char congregate in large numbers to spend their dormant winters in tundra lakes under a thick layer of ice. In their native Australia, barramundi gather in stagnant billabongs. Both types of fish are accustomed to high-density living, which makes them disease-resistant so they can thrive in ecologically sound recirculating tanks. As a bonus, they have relatively low feed requirements.

Interestingly, they’re also relatively new to many American diners. But as fish like these start turning up on restaurant menus and at supermarket seafood counters, we can begin to re-diversify our seafood palate beyond the big four.

In the meantime, Greenberg’s motto works for me: “Wild forever, farmed when necessary.”

Meet our other Nourishing Heroes:

Understand Ecosystems

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In this age of green, the term “ecosystem” gets tossed around quite a bit–from technology to tide pools. But it’s an important concept to grasp, as in really understand, when talking about creating a sustainable food system.

Traditionally, we’ve talked of the food chain. But an ecosystem is more like thousands of threads braided together than it is a neat series of links (plankton, small fish, big fish). Whether you’re talking about agriculture or aquaculture, wide open ocean or wild prairie plains, each has a unique set of environmental and biological factors that make it home to a specific mix of plants and animals that, when in balance, all thrive together.

Why is this important? Because trying to alter an end result—be it saving a vanishing species of fish or curtailing greenhouse gas—while ignoring the native ecosystem is like trying to light a candle while it’s underwater. Julie Packard of Monterey Bay Aquarium believes we need to evaluate aquatic ecosystems as a whole in order to save the oceans (and the life within them), rather than working on species-specific solutions. And many believe we need to shift toward more traditional, closed-system farming techniques (where, for instance, manure produced by cows is used to fertilize the land that grows their food) in agriculture.

It’s a little word, a big concept, and the foundation of talks to come.

This week, lock on to the meaning of ecosystem.

Book Find: ECO LOGICAL

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ECO LOGICAL, by Joanna Yarrow (Duncan Baird Publishers, 2009)

As a writer, quite a few books and gadgets show up on my doorstep hoping for some sort of review. Some get one. Most don’t. But something recently came in that I thought would be perfect for the first review here on NOURISH Evolution.

Joanna Yarrow’s ECO LOGICAL is like a groovy guidebook for navigating eco topics. Where a DK book on Paris might give you a room by room breakdown of the Louvre, arming you with just enough information in an at-a-glance format for you to gain a working knowledge of the art within its walls, Yarrow takes us through various realms of green living. She uses similar boiled-down-to-the-essence graphics and info-bites to tease out the main arguments of a topic and help us understand what’s at stake on both sides, and then leaves us to choose how to incorporate the information into our daily practices; much as we strive to do here at NOURISH Evolution.

In the section on food (one of five other sections), Yarrow tackles the dueling views that “the planet needs to go organic” and “only conventional farming can feed the world” with simple, nifty graphics and summaries that speak volumes. She also looks at fair trade; the wide-ranging impacts of an omnivorous diet versus a vegetarian; sustainable seafood; and buying locally and seasonally.

This book is not an end-all-be-all treatise on how to save the earth, but what I love about it is that it doesn’t purport to be. Rather than trying to answer all the questions, Yarrow instead stirs the pot with ECO LOGICAL and asks us to think for ourselves. The book’s tagline says, “Join the debate—all the facts and figures, pros and cons you need to make up your mind.” While ECO LOGICAL may not offer conclusions, it does spark the questions that do eventually lead to choices that are right for each of us.

Note: My philosophy with books or any other product that shows up on my doorstep is this: if it ends up being heavily used on my own shelves and I enjoy it so much I get excited about telling people, I’ll most likely write about it at some point. If it’s something that I have no use for, I won’t put words to it.