At first glance, the operations of We Are The New Farmers and iwi could not look more different. One occupies a 1,200-square-foot space in a warehouse on the waterfront in Brooklyn, New York, where a microscopic organism called Arthrospira platensis grows in stainless steel tanks illuminated by grow lights. The other sits on 300 acres of scrubland in West Texas, where a similar single-celled species thrives in brackish ponds surrounded by mesquite and javelinas.

Despite the vastly different settings and scale, these companies are tackling the same challenge: producing food for a world in which fresh water and arable land are increasingly scarce.

With as many as 10 billion people crowding the planet by 2050, the world’s farmland, strained by extreme weather events, will be hard-pressed to churn out enough calories to feed everyone. It doesn’t help that the Western US is seeing the worst drought in 1,200 years, and American farmers are experiencing lower yields and livestock forage as a result. Or that the US has lost 11 million acres of farmland to development in the last 20 years.

Enter microalgae, a life-form that, like a plant, gets its energy through photosynthesis. It can grow in fresh, brackish, or salt water, and it doesn’t need soil.

While most often used in animal feed and nutritional supplements, algae like the kind We Are The New Farmers and iwi grow is gaining attention as a sustainable food for humans. It is “a crop for people who want to turn climate-stressed land into more productive, more resilient forms of agriculture,” says Jonas Guenther, cofounder of We Are The New Farmers, which started producing Arthrospira platensis — more commonly known as spirulina — in 2017. The start-up’s dark green food product, which has the consistency of hummus, can add protein, vitamins, and minerals to anything from smoothies to veggie meatballs.

The wide range of possible environments and the speed with which the single-celled organisms grow leads Miguel Calatayud, the CEO of iwi, to call microalgae “kind of perfection.” His nutraceutical company plans to make it a central ingredient in a line of protein bars and drinks later this year. “It’s unbelievable, like it’s coming from a different planet,” he says. “This is really a revolution in farming.”

Growing Algae

At iwi’s farm in West Texas, in a region where most conventional crops struggle to get enough water, the microalgae Nannochloropsis thrives. Iwi pumps brackish water from aquifers that have grown saltier over time from generations of agricultural use, and the algae love it. And since it’s grown in ponds, soil quality is irrelevant.

Algae is pretty much the most efficient organism at converting sunlight into nutrients.

Sean Raspet, Co-Founder and Product Developer of Nonfood

The growing process itself is also incredibly water-efficient. “It sounds counterintuitive because it grows in water,” says Guenther. During harvesting, the tank-grown spirulina makes several trips through a filter to remove more than 90% of the H₂O. The same goes for the Nannochloropsis grown in iwi’s open ponds. That reclaimed liquid nourishes the next round in a process that can be repeated several times.

Outdoor ponds inevitably lose more water to evaporation than indoor operations. “We can’t get around that,” says Jakob Nalley, iwi’s director of agronomy. But those losses are offset by how much protein algae provides with the relatively little water and land it requires, he says.

One analysis found that microalgae yields between 22 and 44 tons of protein per hectare, depending on the region. That’s as much as 36 times the amount from soybeans. It helps that the entire organism is edible — algae has no stems, no roots, and no leaves. It also grows at a staggering rate; under ideal conditions, spirulina, for example, can double its biomass in as little as 48 hours.

“It’s explosive growth,” Guenther says. Given that, algae can be harvested as often as every few days. And indoor systems can be customized with the ideal temperature, light, and salinity levels for a given strain, making the yields even higher and more consistent throughout the year. (It’s even possible to grow it without any light at all.)

“Algae is pretty much the most efficient organism at converting sunlight into nutrients,” says Sean Raspet, cofounder and product developer at Nonfood, which produces a microalgae powder meant to supplement savory food dishes. Raspet and others also celebrate the crop’s minimal “resource footprint” —  most algae operations do not use pesticides, and although they all require electricity to run, they don’t need fossil-fuel-intensive equipment like tractors.

Eating Algae

When Guenther first learned of spirulina in 2017, he recalls asking himself: “If we have this magic crop, if you will, why is it not something that we eat a lot more?”

Of course, you can’t eat the scum on the sides of a pool or poisonous algal blooms, but humans have been enjoying a handful of edible algae varieties for hundreds of years, if not longer. The Aztecs harvested spirulina and ate it as a dried cake. And it has long been harvested from Lake Kossorom in Chad, as well as in many countries in Asia. But algae is not a regular part of the modern diet in the Western world.

Guenther learned that microalgae’s primary market for humans is in the form of nutritional supplements because many varieties are rich in omega-3 fatty acids and protein. Companies like EarthRise, Nutrex Hawaii, and iwi grow algae for exactly that purpose. But Guenther saw an opportunity to use algae as the foundation of a whole range of foods.

“We want to create a world in which microalgae is a staple in every kitchen, making any meal better, brighter, and more sustainable,” says Guenther.

The folks at Nonfood had a similar idea: The best way of expanding algae production, they thought, was to produce an appealing product consumers could easily add to almost any dish. Nongredient, which is microalgae in powdered form, can be used in stews, curries, salads, and more, enriching them with protein and healthy fats. Cofounder Lucy Chinen says it has an umami flavor profile, and she compares it to nutritional yeast, a product vegans turn to for its savory, cheesy flavor.

Chinen isn’t aiming to create the next fake meat product. Algae stands on its own as both a historical food and something novel. “There’s a lot of talk… about meat replacements and stuff like that,” she says. “Nonfood is not really a replacement for anything.”

Scaling Up Microalgae Production

According to the Department of Energy, 139,886 square miles of land in the United States is suitable for microalgae ponds — a figure that does not include current cropland, forests, or environmentally sensitive areas. That’s larger than New Mexico. Although that analysis was aimed at expanding biofuel production, the fact remains there is plenty of land available to grow algae, regardless of its end use.

But a few hurdles need to be addressed for the algae industry to reach its full potential. Algae start-ups are tackling consumer barriers to embracing algae as a food by demonstrating just how many ways it can be eaten.

Another barrier to seeing algae in more kitchens is its cost. But We Are The New Farmers believes it can make algae more affordable by increasing yields. It is experimenting with injecting carbon, which drives algae growth. They predict the increased productivity, along with expanding production, will bring down retail prices. Iwi, which uses about 20% of its ponds, hopes its new algae bars and drinks will bring production to full scale.

Guenther hopes that by 2050, one-fifth of protein consumed worldwide will come from algae. While most of it won’t be produced in high-density areas, like the New York warehouse his company occupies, he sees growing algae in cities as a way to decentralize the supply chain. “Instead of building one large facility somewhere in the middle of nowhere where it’s super cheap, I’d rather have six facilities close to a major population,” he says. “And if there’s one thing we learned during the pandemic, it’s that being reliant on just one single stream of output is not the best way of operating.”

No one is arguing algae will become humanity’s primary source of food. But there is a growing understanding among environmental scientists, algae producers, and consumers that the magical single-celled organism, which thrives pretty much everywhere, could be a critical part of our culinary future. “We believe in the potential of microalgae to reimagine how we eat,” says Guenther. He hopes for “a circular future in which what we consume supports — rather than depletes — the planet we live on.”

For any environment, from abandoned industrial buildings to regions where the water is too salty for terrestrial crops, there is a type of algae (and a type of growing method) that can work. And that versatility is its power. “We can bring farming to places in the world where farming wasn’t even a concept,” says Calatayud.

Tell us in the comments:

• Would you eat algae?
• Have you ever had spirulina or another algae-based food product?
• What other sustainable crops are contributing to the future of food?

Featured Image: Mihály Köles on Unsplash

Read Next:

• Are Sea Vegetables Good for You and the Planet? — And Are Some Better Than Others?
• Are Green Powders Healthy?

The post Why Algae Could Be a “Magic Crop” for a Drought-Stricken World appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

Before long my fever was raging at 104 degrees, and I was so weak I was unable to muster a cry.

I’m grateful that my parents took me to a doctor, who put me on antibiotics. Within hours, my fever was down, and my sickness had reversed.

That antibiotic prescription may have saved my life.

What Exactly Are Antibiotics?

Alexander Fleming, a professor of bacteriology at St. Mary’s Hospital in London, discovered penicillin — the first antibiotic — in 1928.

He’d been experimenting with colonies of Staphylococcus bacteria growing in Petri dishes. And he noticed that one dish had a spot of mold with a clear ring around it. This ring was a secretion from the mold that prevented further bacterial growth. It turned out to be penicillin.

Fleming and his colleagues worked to isolate penicillin, discovering its ability to attack other bacteria, like streptococcus, meningococcus, and diphtheria bacillus.

In later years, researchers developed new antibiotics that were effective in killing different classes of bacteria.

Altogether, antibiotics have saved millions of lives worldwide — overpowering such potentially lethal diseases as meningitis, tuberculosis, and cholera.

When used appropriately, antibiotics are a blessing and a welcome arrow in humanity’s medical quiver. But the reality is that they’re vastly overprescribed.

According to the CDC, in 2021, health care professionals prescribed 211.1 million antibiotic prescriptions — and many of these prescriptions are unnecessary.

Many health care professionals prescribe antibiotics at an alarming rate. Sometimes they prescribe them without making sure the drug will effectively attack whatever germ is involved — or without confirming that it is a bacteria and not a virus. (Antibiotics are completely ineffective against viral infections.)

And this lax approach doesn’t come without consequences.

The Dark Side of Antibiotic Use

Antibiotics don’t just target harmful bacteria in your body. They’re destructive to all microbes, which can leave your body’s natural microbiome unbalanced and damaged.

And this ecosystem won’t always go back to normal unless you consciously make an effort to make it so. Odds are, if your microbiome is currently out of balance, past antibiotic use has significantly contributed to your condition.

It’s also likely that the health care professionals who prescribed those antibiotics to you didn’t discuss how to counteract the collateral destruction of good bacteria in your body.

A couple of years ago, I was considering taking antibiotics to fight a strep infection. I asked my doctor if he could recommend any protocol for repopulating my body with healthy bacteria.

He replied that he didn’t learn anything about that in medical school, so he couldn’t offer me any advice. “My wife took a nutrition class online,” he told me, “so she’d be a better person to ask.”

It’s pretty crazy, if you think about it, that our medical system is so good at destroying a bacterial ecosystem but so ineffective at rebuilding it.

For more on the importance of gut health, and the use of prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics, read our in-depth article here.

How Antibiotic Overuse Is Creating “Superbugs”

Not only do antibiotics damage good bacteria, but their overuse encourages the widespread development of “superbugs,” or bacteria that display antibiotic resistance.

Bacteria, you see, are very much like accountants. No matter how much you change the tax laws, there will always be wily accountants who will find a way around them to escape taxes. Similarly, when you increase the dose of antibiotics or engineer new ones, some bacteria will find a way to mutate and resist them.

As a consequence of antibiotic overuse, we’ve had to start turning to “last-line” antibiotics, or medications typically only used as a last resort when the usual medications no longer work.

These drugs are meant to be used sparingly in human medicine to limit bacterial exposure to them, in the hope of preventing the development of antibiotic resistance. Unfortunately, because antibiotic resistance has increased, the prescription of last-resort antibiotics has also increased.

Antibiotic Resistance Can Be Deadly

Antibiotic resistance is leading to more and more deaths that were once preventable. That doesn’t sound like the kind of progress we’ve come to expect from the field of medicine.

In the United States, nearly three million people contract an antibiotic-resistant infection each year — with more than 35,000 people dying. Worldwide, antibiotic-resistant microbes are estimated to cause nearly five million deaths per year. And these numbers are rising.

Superbugs now threaten to make many common infections, such as urinary tract infections and pneumonia, lethal once again.

Many public health authorities fear that we could be on the verge of entering into a “post-antibiotic world” that threatens to kill millions of people annually by 2050. Antibiotic resistance already costs over $55 billion in medical treatment and hospitalizations just in the US. And this number is expected to rise dramatically in the coming decades.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that the World Health Organization has declared antibiotic resistance to be one of our greatest global threats to health, security, and development.

But is the medical overuse of antibiotics really the primary cause of the rise of the phenomenon of antibiotic resistance?

Antibiotics in the Livestock Industry

Factory farms, also known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), were created as a way to keep up with an enormous demand for animal products that’s emerged in the last century.

Modern farms look far different from farms of the past. The images that leap to mind when many of us think of a farm — the iconic red barn or a green pasture full of animals happily grazing in the sun — no longer represent how most farm animals spend their lives.

To say that animals in CAFOs endure close quarters and overpopulation would be an understatement. The average chicken raised for meat has less than one square foot of space per bird. And modern broiler operations have bred birds to grow so quickly that they often become unable to walk. As a result, these birds spend their lives sitting in feces. Animals regularly get sick, injured, and even die as a result of these miserable conditions.

So how do modern CAFOs cope with the threat of disease wiping out their livestock? Antibiotics to the rescue! Antibiotics are routinely administered (through injections or medicated feed) not just to livestock who have become sick, but rather to every single animal housed in these filthy and brutally inhumane conditions.

In addition to helping keep animals alive in an unsanitary environment, antibiotics serve another purpose, too. It turns out that antibiotics make animals gain weight faster — which increases producer profits.

How Do Bacteria Become Antibiotic-Resistant in CAFOs?

When bacteria have continual exposure to low doses of an antibiotic, any of the microbes that are resistant to the drug will survive and reproduce. The rest die off, resulting in a new bacteria population resistant to the antibiotic.

Modern factory farms provide continuous low doses of antibiotics to billions of livestock — thus creating the perfect conditions for breeding antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

If, for some diabolical reason, someone wanted to create conditions that would breed antibiotic-resistant bacteria, they would be hard-pressed to do better than the conditions prevalent in industrial meat production today.

The Truth About Food Recalls

Already, the breeding of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics in modern meat production is hurting human health in many ways.

Have you ever gotten sick after eating at a restaurant? It’s an experience that’s not easy to forget. You just ate the most delicious meal, yet hours later, you’re regretting ever leaving the house that day.

Foodborne illnesses — such as salmonella, listeria, and E. coli — affect one in six Americans every year. That’s more than 55 million people annually. About 128,000 of them have to be hospitalized for their symptoms. And 3,000 of these people end up dying.

Two of the most common foodborne pathogens, Salmonella and Campylobacter, cause a combined 660,900 antibiotic-resistant infections in the United States each year.

Where do these bacteria come from? The truth is most pathogens that cause food poisoning originate with the intensive, confinement-based livestock production methods used in factory farming.

The US federal government tests supermarket meats to track trends in bacteria and resistance. Recent findings show that 73% of bacteria that FDA testing found on ground turkey were resistant to tetracyclines, the most widely used antibiotic in farm animals and a critical medicine to treat serious bacterial infections in humans.

Additionally, one in five strains of Salmonella in chicken meat were resistant to amoxicillin — the second most frequently used antibiotic on farms and the number one medication prescribed to children. And 1 in every 25 packages of raw chicken is said to have Salmonella contamination, according to the CDC.

E. coli has also been found to contaminate 40% of raw chicken samples tested. But beef is the most common source of E. coli exposure for humans. This bacteria is thought to cause up to 85% of urinary tract infections each year. It’s also a major part of the Salmonella risk.

What About Food Recalls from Vegetables?

“But, wait!” you say. “What about the E. coli that have been found in plant foods, like romaine lettuce or tomatoes? Aren’t vegetables as risky as animal foods?”

It’s a reasonable question to ask, given the media coverage of E. coli outbreaks. But the truth is, E. coli lives in the intestines of animals.

Last I checked, romaine lettuce and tomatoes don’t have intestines. The only way any vegetable can be linked to E. coli is to be contaminated by the feces of animals.

Usually, this contamination happens because there’s a factory farm upstream (or up-manure) from a vegetable farm. It’s remarkable how often these plain facts are not conveyed in media coverage of E. coli scares.

Pathogens, like E. coli and Salmonella, are abundant in animal waste, which can run downhill during a rainstorm or seep into underground aquifers, ultimately getting into nearby water systems that spread the pathogens elsewhere.

These hardy pathogens can spread not only to raw meat products but also to produce (through water or soil contamination) and to cooking surfaces where food is prepared. When you consume this contaminated food, that’s when you may get sick.

The largest multistate E. coli outbreak in over a decade, related to romaine lettuce, occurred in the spring of 2018. It ended up affecting people in 36 states, resulting in 210 illnesses, 96 hospitalizations, and 5 deaths. What caused it? All evidence points to a large industrial cattle farm near the affected romaine crop in Yuma, Arizona.

How Factory Farming Drives the Problem with Antibiotics

It’s true that antibiotics are overprescribed to people, and that is a problem. But antibiotics are used and abused even more egregiously in animal agriculture.

According to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2015, the world uses about 63,000 tons of antibiotics each year to raise cows, chickens, and pigs. That’s roughly twice as much as the volume of all antibiotics prescribed by doctors globally to humans.

In fact, 80% of the antibiotics used in the United States are not given to sick humans, but to animals on CAFOs.

And antibiotics are typically NOT used to cure disease on CAFOs. Rather, they’re used to promote growth or prevent diseases from keeping animals in unsanitary conditions.

What’s worse, last-resort antibiotics for humans are commonly used in CAFOs. So it’s no wonder that resistant bacteria are rampant in industrial meat products.

Regulatory Efforts Have Been Botched

Attempts have been made to better regulate antibiotic use in CAFOs.

In January 2012, the FDA prohibited the use of cephalosporins in food animals. This didn’t make much difference, though, because this class of antibiotics makes up less than 1% of the antibiotics used in the United States on food animals every year.

A study published by researchers at Ohio State University in 2016 warned of the very real potential of a post-antibiotic age. The study was sparked when bacteria that was resistant to last-line antibiotics was found on a Midwestern hog farm.

The FDA eventually took action in 2017, stating that farmers were no longer allowed to give antibiotics to animals for the purposes of weight gain, nor could they buy antibiotics without the oversight of a veterinarian.

But even after the 2017 attempt to crack down on CAFO antibiotic use, government records show that things haven’t changed as much as many had hoped. While sales of antibiotics for agricultural purposes dropped right after the 2017 ban on use for growth promotion, they’ve somewhat leveled out since then. Officially, there’s no ban on using antibiotics to prevent or treat diseases in animals — and so many animals in CAFOs are unhealthy, that this could potentially allow for very widespread use. The fact is that many companies that pledged to reduce antibiotics in their food supply haven’t followed through.

Beef suppliers for some of the largest fast-food corporations, like McDonald’s and Taco Bell, are still using the highest priority, critically important antibiotics (HP-CIAs) on farm animals, despite the risks to human health. USDA testing shows that between 2017 and 2022, all 10 of the biggest meat packers in the US were using at least one HP-CIA on livestock. And according to reporting by The Guardian, the dosages used are identical to the ones used previously to fatten up cattle.

Because there’s no universal ban on antibiotics in the food supply, companies seem likely to continue finding ways to exploit regulatory loopholes.

Antibiotics Aren’t Only Used for Land Animals

Just as we’ve industrialized agriculture for land animals, we’ve done the same to aquatic animals. And although fish aren’t what typically comes to mind when we envision factory farms, that doesn’t mean that farmed fish are living in better conditions. Antibiotic use runs deep in the aquatic environment, too — and so does antibiotic resistance.

Farmed fish are often packed tightly together in huge, unsanitary pools. Just as happens in the factory farming of land animals, the fish are given antibiotics (and other drugs, like pesticides) to prevent the spread of disease.

A 2015 study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials sheds light on this hidden problem. Researchers looked at 27 fish from 11 countries. The researchers found residues of five antibiotics — including tetracycline and other drugs used to treat human infections.

Remarkably enough, they even found residues in farmed fish with an antibiotic-free label. It turns out that farmed fish don’t have to be given antibiotics directly to carry them because many are eating antibiotic-contaminated fish meal.

Levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in seafood have exploded in the past 30 years.

For more on the true cost of farmed fish, see this article.

What Can You Do About Antibiotic Resistance?

The hope, of course, is that one day, governments will take stronger action against antibiotic use on factory farms.

Some countries have done so already, including Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands. And they are seeing significant reductions in antibiotic overuse.

Whether or not government policy grows more enlightened, we can all take positive actions now to help preserve the efficacy of antibiotics and to support better industrial food practices.

The most significant contribution we can each make is to transition to a plant-powered diet. And for those who opt to consume animal products, it’s best to go organic since the use of antibiotics is not permitted under organic certification. If enough of us make these changes, we’ll drastically reduce consumer support for industrialized animal agriculture — the inhumane industry that’s fueling this public health crisis.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) has made avoiding factory-farmed animal products easier than ever with this handy Shop With Your Heart Grocery List.

How to Change the Future Right Now

Antibiotics are a miracle of medicine. But now, thanks to factory farming, antibiotic overuse has become a driver of what could become one of the most terrifying public health emergencies in history.

Unless we take action to preserve the viability of antibiotics for future generations, millions of lives will be lost.

The problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria isn’t one that any of us can solve all by ourselves. Slowing its spread is going to take collective action from governments, farmers, corporations, and concerned citizens around the world. It’s also going to take reducing the frequency with which doctors prescribe antibiotics to humans.

But just because you and I can’t solve it all by ourselves doesn’t mean we should refuse to do what we can.

As a concerned citizen who wants a safe future for humanity, the number one step you can take is to boycott factory-farmed animal products. You can also go a step further and urge restaurants and supermarkets to do the same.

We should ensure a future in which, if a crisis arises, every baby’s life can be saved by these miracle drugs the way mine was when I was three months old.

Tell us in the comments below:

• Have you ever encountered antibiotic-resistant bacteria?
• Does this help you understand antibiotic resistance and how antibiotic use on factory farms affects humans?
• What did you find useful, interesting, or surprising in this article?

Featured Image: iStock.com/branex

Read Next:

• Unhealthy Conditions for Farm Animals are — No Surprise — Bad for Humans, Too

The post The Surprising Truth About Antibiotics, Factory Farms, and Food Recalls appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

If the beaches are a sea shell museum, then the sea plants that wash up on shores must constitute the vegan option in the museum’s cafe. Popularly known as seaweed, and recently rebranded as sea vegetables (which are technically the portion of all the seaweeds that are edible to humans, though we’ll use the terms a bit interchangeably in this article), these marine plants are poised to become, in the eyes of culinary trendspotters, the “new kale.”

And why not? They’ve got all the buzzwords going for them: organic, regenerative, non-GMO. And they’re versatile: from sushi to roasted seaweed snacks to smoothie ingredients, more and more people throughout the world are eating a wide variety of sea veggies.

While sea vegetables have long been a staple in Asian cultures, until recently, they’ve been largely absent from western cuisine. Only with the rise in popularity of sushi have they made their way into prominence on the world stage. And still, there’s a big gap between daintily nibbling on rice and veggies wrapped in nori, and viewing mounds of seaweed washed up on a beach and thinking, “Oh, yum!”

But that’s changing, and rapidly. Seaweeds — or as they’re often called, sea vegetables — now have some marketing muscle behind them. And there’s a lot to market; many varieties offer intriguing health benefits and may even be associated with increased longevity. Case in point, the centenarians living in the Blue Zone region of Okinawa, Japan, regularly incorporate sea vegetables into their diet.

But despite their benefits to both our health and the environment, there are some potential downsides to consider on both fronts.

So what’s the deal with sea vegetables? Are they good for you or the environment? Where do you find them? And, what are the best ways to use them in your diet?

What Are Sea Vegetables?

In most cases, sea vegetables are actually edible marine algae, or macroalgae. This is different from freshwater algae, like chlorella or spirulina (which also have great health benefits!). The macroalgae are plant-like organisms that generally live attached to rock or other hard surfaces in coastal areas. They have no true roots or leaves, and are more similar to mushrooms or lichen than terrestrial plants. But just like terrestrial plants, sea vegetables use photosynthesis to convert sunlight into energy.

Since the mid-19th century, cooks have categorized sea vegetables by color: green, brown, or red.

There are several popular types of sea vegetables:

Nori

Most commonly known for its use in rolling sushi, nori is a dried, pressed red seaweed. It has a naturally salty, umami flavor and is low in calories and high in minerals like vitamins B12, A, and C, along with iodine, magnesium, calcium, iron, and potassium.

Dulse

You can find dulse — a red sea veggie — in dried flake form, which you can shake onto other prepared dishes like pasta, stir-fries, and casseroles.

Arame

More of a garnish than an actual dish, arame is a brown seaweed served in long, thin strands, often as part of a Japanese-inspired salad. With a slightly sweet flavor, it is high in fiber, calcium, iodine, iron, magnesium, and vitamin A. When sold, arame can be found shredded, cooked, and air-dried and can be reconstituted with water. You can steam it, sauté it, or add it to hot soup.

Kombu

Unlike other types of seaweed, kombu can be used to make an umami soup stock called dashi, which is the foundational flavor of Japanese cuisine. You can also use kombu in dishes to impart a crunchy, firm texture or as a soft and pliable addition. Kombu is rich in calcium and contains more iodine than other seaweeds. This brown sea vegetable is also beloved for its ability to increase the digestibility of beans (making the “musical fruit” less musical). Thanks to its versatility and ubiquity in Japanese cooking, kombu has earned the nickname “king of seaweeds.”

Wakame

Frequently used in Asian dishes like salads, soups, and snacks, wakame also gets used as a seasoning. It’s sometimes known as “sea mustard,” referring to its visual resemblance to mustard greens when cooked. Not surprisingly, it’s a very good source of calcium, iron, riboflavin, folate, and magnesium.

Wakame has a mild flavor and generally comes either dried or salted and fresh in the refrigerated section. If purchased dried, wakame has to be reconstituted by soaking in water for five to six minutes before using. Rehydrated, wakame has a slippery, rubbery, almost squeaky texture. (Maybe one day it will replace plastic in the rubber duck industry!)

Other Less Common Sea Vegetables

Less commonly consumed outside of Asia are sea moss, sea grapes, and sea beans. While not exactly seaweeds, these are also classified as sea vegetables.

• Sea moss (Chondrus crispus) is also called Irish moss, and often gets sold as a dietary supplement in powdered form. The red algae are also the main source of carrageenan — a polysaccharide used to thicken some foods and beverages (You can read about carrageenan concerns here).
• Sea grapes, or umibudo, come from southeast Asia (not to be confused with the seagrape tree native to the Caribbean). If you don’t live within driving distance of one of the villages where they’re grown, you’ll have to order the dried version online. These sea veggies look like tiny bunches of grapes on strands, and deliver a satisfying, crunchy texture and pop when you bite into them. However, unlike regular grapes, sea grapes taste like the ocean and are more salty than sweet.
• Sea beans, or salicornia, may look more like a fish tank decoration, but can be found at many farmers markets in the summer if you live near the shore. Sometimes called “sea asparagus,” sea beans are often used in crunchy salads, as a garnish, or in chickpea frittatas.

Nutrition of Sea Vegetables

So are sea vegetables healthy? Well, they’re packed with nutrients, but are more appropriate as a garnish rather than something to pile on your plate every day. In fact, even in Japan — where sea vegetables are more common — people typically don’t eat them daily.

Sea vegetables are such a rich source of many micronutrients that it doesn’t take much to meet or even exceed our daily requirements for those nutrients. That’s why moderation is key, to keep you from getting way more of certain nutrients than is actually healthy.

Most types of sea vegetables are good sources of protein, fiber, healthy polyunsaturated fats, antioxidants, minerals, and vitamins. Some of the most concentrated minerals in sea vegetables are iodine, sodium, magnesium, and calcium. They’re also rich in B vitamins like folate and vitamin B12, as well as vitamins A, D, and K1.

Certain types of marine algae can even be made into algal oil, a vegan source of the very important omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA.

In one sheet of nori, for instance, you’ll get around 10 calories, 0 grams of fat, one gram of protein, one gram of carbs, one gram of fiber, six percent of the Daily Value (DV) for vitamin A, and four percent of the DV for vitamin C. It also has B vitamins, manganese, iron, and omega-3 fatty acids. One sheet also provides around 11% of the DV for iodine, which could be health bringing, or not, as you’ll soon see.

While different varieties of seaweed contain similar nutrient types, the amounts can vary greatly by species and preparation method. For instance, while 100 grams of dulse contains 307 mg of sodium, 100 grams of rockweed contains over 4,000 mg (more than the average American eats in an entire day)!

7 Health Benefits of Sea Vegetables

Sea vegetables, rich as they are in so many important nutrients, offer a number of health benefits.

1. May support thyroid health

Sea vegetables are the second richest source of iodine, after iodized salt. Iodine is an essential mineral, needed to make thyroid hormones that control your metabolism as well as other important functions for health. Many healthy, plant-based foods contain compounds that can interfere with iodine uptake, making it all the more important to get iodine from reliable sources, like iodized salt and/or small amounts of sea vegetables like dulse, kelp, and wakame.

2. May support pregnancy and postpartum recovery

The recommended daily intake of iodine during pregnancy is 220 micrograms to both meet the mother’s needs and pass on the nutrient to the baby. But many pregnant women don’t get this much. Families in Korea often make seaweed soup, or “miyeok guk,” for new moms to aid in postpartum recovery. It’s intended to provide nutrients like iodine for a baby’s brain development, iron to prevent anemia, calcium to prevent bone loss, and fiber to prevent constipation, among an array of other benefits.

3. May offer anticancer benefits

Sea vegetables may inhibit cancer cell growth and offer therapeutic benefits in the treatment of liver cancer. Red seaweeds contain compounds called porphyran and carrageenan that may help protect against cancer by boosting immunity and promoting cancer cell death.

Other types of seaweeds also contain anticancer compounds like terpenes, polyphenols, phlorotannins, fucoidans, and polysaccharides, which can help defend cells against environmental stressors that may lead to cancer. A 2014 review published in the journal Marine Drugs discusses how bioactive compounds in seaweed may offer therapeutic effects in cases of breast and colorectal cancers, primarily by inducing cancer cell death in both lab and human studies.

4. May support heart health

Sea vegetables are rich in dietary fibers, polyphenols, peptides, phlorotannins, lipids, and minerals, which may have a role in both preventing and treating cardiovascular diseases. Seaweeds are rich in antioxidants, which can help protect cells from oxidative damage that leads to heart disease. Other compounds in them may promote blood vessel dilation, which can bring down high blood pressure.

Additionally, sea vegetables contain flavonoids that may have beneficial metabolic effects on obesity and atherosclerosis, which are two risk factors for heart disease. Still other research has observed the ability of seaweed compounds to help lower blood fats, like total cholesterol, LDL “bad” cholesterol, and triglycerides.

5. May have antiviral benefits

Brown seaweed contains compounds called sulfoquinovosildiacylglycerols (which, sadly, is two syllables short of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, so that particular mnemonic melody won’t help you remember it) — mercifully abbreviated to SQDGs —  that have been found to have antiviral properties, particularly when it comes to herpes simplex viruses or cold sores. Many types of marine algae contain structural sulfated polysaccharides, which inhibit viral replication early in the process, preventing these viruses from attaching to a host (in other words, us).

6. May protect against obesity-associated metabolic complications

Sea vegetables are a rich source of compounds that appear to support a number of metabolic functions. A 2020 study published in the journal Current Developments in Nutrition examined the effects of Pacific dulse (a red algae) and wakame (a brown algae) on metabolic complications in obese mice. (Our view on the use of animals in medical research is here.) The authors found that even when fed a high-fat diet, the mice who were fed sea vegetables excreted more fat, experienced less systemic inflammation, and had healthier gut microbiomes compared to mice who did not eat them.

7. May protect gut health

Research shows that disturbances in the gut microbiome can underlie many chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, gastrointestinal disorders, and cancers. To help prevent these changes, prebiotics are often recommended to promote an optimal balance of good gut bacteria. Compounds in seaweed, such as polyphenols, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and carotenoids, may help break down polysaccharides and oligosaccharides, and promote prebiotic activity in the gut that helps to reduce occurrence of chronic diseases.

5 Health Concerns Associated with Sea Vegetables

Despite their many benefits for your health, sea vegetables also come with potential downsides to consider before adding them to your diet.

1. May contribute too much iodine

As mentioned, sea vegetables are a rich source of iodine. And while iodine is an essential nutrient, there is such a thing as getting too much of it, which can be easy to do if you’re eating a lot of sea vegetables daily. Too much iodine can lead to hyperthyroidism and can also interfere with thyroid medications, like Synthroid.

In fact, some species of kelp (such as kombu) are generally not recommended because their iodine content is so high. The recommended average daily intake of iodine is 150 mcg/day for non-pregnant, non-breastfeeding adults. And most people may want to stay below an average of 300 mcg/day on a day-to-day basis, and definitely below 1,100 mcg/day, which is the daily tolerable upper limit for people without thyroid disease. Since a single tablespoon of dried kelp may contain up to 2,000 mcg of iodine, even modest amounts of this sea vegetable on a regular basis could cause problems.

On the bright side, cooking significantly reduces the amount of iodine you get from sea vegetables. For example, boiling kombu for 15 minutes can make it lose up to 99% of its iodine content, while iodine in sargassum, a similar brown sea vegetable, loses around 40%. Much of that iodine may be released into the water, however. So if you’re cooking sea vegetables and then drinking the broth it’s cooked in, you could still be getting a hefty dose of iodine.

2. May contain arsenic

Arsenic is a naturally occurring heavy metal found in the environment.  It tends to accumulate in air, water, and soil, and shows up in certain foods that are grown using these resources, including seaweed. As you probably know, arsenic can be poisonous to humans and is also a carcinogen.

One type of seaweed, hijiki (sometimes called hiziki), is actually no longer recommended for consumption because it tends to contain high levels of arsenic. Hijiki is an uncommon type of seaweed that’s black in color and primarily sold in dry shreds for use in Japanese and Korean cuisine. While other types of seaweed likely contain some arsenic, it generally shows up in such trace amounts that they’re not considered a threat to health when eaten in moderation. One study of 31 samples of five varieties of seaweed found that only hijiki contained concerning levels of inorganic arsenic.

If you are concerned about the arsenic content of seaweed, or find yourself forced to eat some hiziki (I’m drawing a blank as to how that might happen, but hey, you never know), boiling it in saltwater will reduce the arsenic levels.

3. May interact with medications

As we’ve seen, because of their high iodine levels, some kinds of sea vegetables may interfere with medications used to manage thyroid conditions. If you are taking such medications, you should probably check with your healthcare provider to find out if seaweed is safe for you to eat.

Sea vegetables are also considered leafy greens, which means they’re high in vitamin K. This nutrient is a natural coagulant, which means it helps your body form blood clots. This could be problematic if you’re taking anticoagulant medications, like Warfarin, which are designed to do the opposite.

While it’s not generally recommended to totally avoid vitamin K-rich foods while using these medications, it is important to keep your intake of this nutrient stable. If you take an anticoagulant medication, it may be best to talk with your healthcare provider to make sure your intake of vitamin K-rich foods like sea vegetables isn’t going to interfere.

4. May contain heavy metals

In addition to arsenic, seaweed can contain other heavy metals. For instance, varieties of red seaweed may contain cadmium, copper, manganese, and nickel in higher concentrations than other types of seaweeds. This appears to be especially true if they’ve been grown in southeastern China.

Mercury, a heavy metal linked to cognitive impairment and neurodevelopmental problems in babies when consumed by pregnant women, is a contaminant of concern in all types of seafood. Unfortunately, some research has found that blood levels of mercury are higher among people who eat the most seaweed, compared to people who eat the least. Warmer water temperatures can increase the amount of mercury absorbed by fish in these areas, and the same effect may occur in seaweeds — which is especially concerning with global warming trends.

The presence of heavy metals in seaweed — especially red varieties — is another reason to consume these foods in moderation.

5. May be high in sodium

Many sea vegetables contain high levels of sodium, which can be detrimental if someone already has a diet that’s high in this mineral.

Too much sodium can lead to increased blood pressure and fluid retention in the body, which can raise your risk for cardiovascular disease. This is because high blood pressure stiffens the arteries, reduces the flow of oxygen and blood through them, and makes the heart work harder to pump blood throughout the body.

Sodium intake may also need to be monitored in the event of an existing health condition like kidney disease or hypertension, to prevent the condition from worsening. High sodium intake can increase protein in urine, which can further the decline of kidney function among people with already deteriorating kidneys.

To avoid excess sodium intake from seaweed, it may be prudent to only eat it in small portion sizes, especially if your diet contains other sources of sodium or added salt. You can also soak dried sea vegetables in water, and then pour off the water, which may get rid of a lot of the sodium.

Environmental Benefits of Sea Vegetables

Just as sea vegetables come with both health benefits and concerns, they offer a similar mix of pluses and minuses when it comes to the impact of seaweed farming on the environment, too. Let’s start with the benefits.

Carbon Sequestration

First, sea vegetables help reduce carbon emissions by sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. In fact, coastal marine systems can absorb carbon at rates up to 50 times greater than forests on land. Kelp can grow at a rate of over one foot per day. On a global scale, seaweeds sequester nearly 200 million tons of CO2 each year. And in regenerative ocean farming systems, by removing kelp from the ocean rather than letting it decompose, it prevents the carbon sequestered in the kelp itself from returning to the water. Australian scientist Tim Flannery estimates that if nine percent of the ocean was covered with seaweed farms, it could effectively absorb all CO2 emissions from humans.

Reduce Ocean Acidification

Kelp, specifically, also has the added benefit of helping reduce ocean acidification. Ocean acidification mainly occurs from carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere dissolving into the ocean. This leads to a lowering of the water’s pH, making the ocean more acidic, which threatens the survival of many marine species. Kelp traps carbon from the water and produces oxygen, which may help alleviate some of the acidification. Of course, the most effective way to sequester carbon is to not release it in the first place.

Oceanic Reforestation

Seaweed is essentially the forest of the ocean. Over 95% of sea vegetables come from farms, which are contributing to a kind of oceanic “reforestation.” There are even organizations working on managing seaweed reforestation projects around the world, such as SeaForester, which has the simple (yet actually highly complex) mission “to restore the forgotten forests in our ocean.” How does this work? Regenerative seaweed farms take kelp spores and grow them in tanks before reintroducing them into the ocean to grow, which then produces more spores, promoting reforestation.

Reduce Methane Emissions from Cattle

Sea vegetables can also help reduce methane emissions by adding certain forms of red seaweed (Asparagopsis taxiformis, to be exact) to cattle feed. According to researchers at the University of California, Davis, doing so may be able to reduce methane emissions by 82%. Of course, while this might make industrialized beef production a bit less environmentally damaging, a much more effective approach to reducing methane emissions (and a host of other environmental problems) would be for humans to reduce our consumption of red meat and reliance on factory farms altogether. But as long as people are eating industrialized meat, adding seaweed to cow feed is an intriguing step that could help reduce environmental impact. (I’m wondering if anyone has researched red seaweed’s gas-reducing ability in humans as well.)

Create Biofuels

Lastly, seaweed can create biofuels — renewable energy sources produced from organic matter or waste. This includes biofuel for the transportation sector, reducing consumption of fossil fuels. Compared to soybeans, which can also make biofuels, growing seaweed is faster, more space-efficient, and doesn’t need fresh water or fertilizer to flourish. Seaweed also doesn’t need land to grow.

Environmental Concerns Associated with Sea Vegetables

Despite all its environmental benefits, seaweed also comes with some potential eco-negatives.

Wherever seaweed is grown, it might compete with native species for things like light and nutrients. Without proper management, seaweed farms may also contribute to the problem of plastic, gear, and other types of pollution in the ocean, which can damage ecosystems and threaten marine life.

There are also monocultures of certain seaweed species, which reduces genetic diversity associated with domesticated seaweed species. This makes crops more vulnerable to disease. Plus, growing seaweed in areas where it doesn’t usually grow can increase the risk for invasive species to expand and throw off the natural balance of the ecosystem.

Over-foraging of wild seaweed can also pose problems. Currently, only five percent of all the seaweed that humans eat, globally, is the result of wild harvesting. Small-scale wild harvesting of seaweed happens by hand and is often referred to as seaweed cutting. If this is kept small-scale, and done sensitively, it may not cause much damage, and can even be beneficial if accompanied by reforestation techniques that stimulate the growth of more seaweed in the future. However, too many single wild harvesters collectively can do a lot of damage. For example, Chilean wild harvesting is especially damaging. As a result, the Chilean authorities made wild harvesting illegal in 2016 and are incenting wild harvesters to switch to sustainable cultivation of seaweed.

Where to Find Sea Vegetables

Fresh sea vegetables are generally hard to find, unless you live near the ocean and have local sources available. It’s more common to find fresh sea vegetables in Asian countries or Nordic countries in Europe. In the US, you may have a local source if you live in an area with ocean access, like near San Francisco or the coast of Maine.

If you’re feeling adventurous and want to forage your own sea vegetables, you might even find classes that can teach you how. Some classes offered on the west coast of the US range from a few hours to several days in length, and include harvesting sea vegetables from a kayak and even cooking it.

Fortunately, unlike foraging mushrooms — which can be deadly if you eat the wrong kind — there are no known poisonous varieties of seaweed, though some should be avoided because they can cause gastrointestinal distress if you eat too much. Your instructor should be able to steer you clear of any varieties that might cause problems.

Purchasing Sea Vegetables

Sea vegetables are typically sold in dried and packaged form, to help preserve their nutrients. But if you have a hankering for fresh seaweed, simply rehydrate the dried version before eating. To do so, place it in water until it softens right up — which could happen in as little as five minutes for some varieties.

Nori is typically sold in dried sheets, and is used to roll sushi. It also comes in smaller sheets as a snack food, or a kid-sized addition to bagged lunch. Some varieties, like dulse, are sold in shakers as small flakes. You can use these to sprinkle on dishes like stir-fries, casseroles, soups, and pastas. They also add a hint of ocean flavor to plant-based, fish-free tuna salads. Wakame and kombu seaweed varieties may be sold in dried strips or shredded.

You can usually purchase sea vegetables through online retailers, in many grocery stores, and in Asian markets.

When choosing your sea vegetables, look for organic brands that also use third-party testing to help make sure there aren’t high levels of heavy metals. If you can, it’s often ideal to buy sea vegetables from brands you trust, or from small, locally owned businesses run by people who live in coastal communities.

How Sea Vegetables Are Used

If you haven’t been used to eating sea vegetables as a regular part of your diet and lifestyle up to this point, you’re probably wondering how to use them.

Seaweed is actually commonly used as a thickening agent in food and cosmetics, so you might find it both in your kitchen and your bathroom. For example, carrageenan, a mixture of polysaccharides from red and purple seaweeds, may be found in both conventional and organic foods, including plant-based milks.

Sea vegetables may also be found in supplements. Algal oil is becoming more frequently used in vegan omega-3 supplements. Kelp and other seaweed may also be used in iodine supplements.

And, of course, many varieties of seaweed can be eaten on their own, usually in dried or dehydrated form. Just make sure to follow the recommended serving size to avoid overexposure of nutrients like iodine and sodium, as previously discussed.

Cooking with Sea Vegetables

If you’re suffering from flatulence after eating fiber-rich foods like beans and legumes, kombu can help. Adding kombu to your cooking pot, along with the beans, can help reduce the carbohydrate raffinose that’s found in beans and causes unwanted gas. (See, we are a bit like those cows!) This works because kombu contains the enzyme alpha-galactosidase that breaks raffinose down. Alternatively, you can use cumin or fennel seeds to get a similar result if you want to reduce gas but need to avoid high amounts of iodine in sea vegetables due to a thyroid disorder.

When eaten as a food, you can also use sea vegetables in the following ways:

• Eaten on their own as a snack (dried or toasted nori sheets)
• Crumbled up or sprinkled over various foods as a condiment
• In soups, especially miso soup or ramen bowls
• Used in grain bowls
• Blended into sauces and dips
• Rehydrated and made into salads (either on their own or with other veggies)
• Used to roll up and make sushi rolls
• Used as a sandwich wrap

Seaweed Recipes

If sea vegetables are new to you, it’s time to have fun experimenting! If you’re a sea veggie connoisseur, then we have some new tasty recipes for you to try. And, if you love nori rolls, then you’re going to love preparing the Veggie Nori Rolls even more. The key is letting go of all expectations in creating the perfect roll — enjoy the process of getting creative with your hands!

The Sea Veggie Gomasio is one seasoning that is tiny in size, but big in flavor — and even bigger in the nutrients it offers. Enjoy the colorful Warm Arama and Kale Rice solo as a meal or as a side dish to grilled tofu or tempeh. Arame has a mild flavor, so its use in meals is very versatile. So go ahead — have fun experimenting with sea veggies!

1. Veggie Nori Rolls

Making nori rolls at home doesn’t require fancy tools or equipment. If it’s your first time, don’t expect it to be a perfectly put-together little package. You can, however, expect it to be a fun experience that results in lots of delicious flavors, varied textures, and loads of nutrition from the mineral-rich nori sheets and nutrient-packed veggies.

2. Sea Veggie Gomasio

While this flavorsome condiment may not seem like much at first glance, with its short list of ingredients and five-minute preparation time, it’s actually packed with nutrients like calcium, magnesium, and zinc from the toasted nori, pumpkin seeds, and sesame seeds. It’s also filled with healthy plant-based fats and protein. Sprinkling just a bit on your grain bowls, stir-fries, and avocado toast not only adds lots of flavor but also oodles of nutrition.

3. Warm Arame and Kale Rice

Mineral-rich, sea veggie arame is sold in its dry form and needs to be rehydrated before using. With its mild flavor, it is a well-suited addition to a variety of taste profiles in stir-fries, salads, and bowls. Here, kale, edamame, peppers, and onions add pops of color, flavor, and nutrition. To highlight its natural and beautiful black color, make this dish with red or brown rice (black works too, but you won’t see the pretty arame!).

A Little Seaweed Goes a Long Way

Sea vegetables are uniquely nutrient-dense foods that are used all around the world — albeit to varying degrees — including in some of the areas associated with longevity. As such, eating them is associated with numerous health benefits and uses. However, many of them are high in iodine, which can be good in moderation, but may cause problems when overconsumed — especially for people prone to hyperthyroidism.

Many seaweed varieties are also high in sodium. And seaweed can contain contaminants as well as high levels of heavy metals. So it’s best to buy organic, locally sourced, or heavy metal tested sea vegetables when possible, and to consume sea vegetables with care and in moderation.

Seaweed also brings multiple environmental benefits, especially as an alternative to land-based agriculture and factory farming. But unsustainable practices occur in seaweed farming and foraging, so how it’s produced matters. Overall, sea vegetables can be a valuable source of nutrients when used in moderation, and can be a sustainable source of nutrition when farmed or foraged responsibly.

Tell us in the comments:

• Do you eat sea vegetables?
• What are some new ways you’re interested in trying sea vegetables?
• Have you ever tried seaweeds like dulse, kelp, nori, or wakame?

Featured Image: iStock.com/joakimbkk

Read Next:

• Vegan Sushi: How to Make It & the Benefits of Fish-Free Sushi
• Is Eating Fish Good For You? The Truth About the Health and Environmental Impacts of Eating Fish

The post Are Sea Vegetables Good for You and the Planet? — And Are Some Better Than Others? appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

On the extreme end of the spectrum, there’s also sushi made with a kind of blowfish (called fugu in Japan) that’s so potentially lethal (in the hands of a poorly trained or momentarily inattentive chef) that it kills about 100 people per year.

Plus, eating fish has its own set of environmental issues (if current trends continue, by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans) as well as being high in mercury and other contaminants.

Yet sushi is so popular and just tons of fun. It’s finger food; it travels well to a picnic or potluck; it can be beautiful; and it involves dipping. Can we get all the benefits of sushi without the fish? Can we even enjoy it safely in Omaha? And, most importantly, can vegans eat sushi?

In this article, we’ll explore the world of sushi and how to go fish-free with vegan sushi. We’ll look at different forms of sushi, see how to make it exclusively with veggies, and check out some delicious plant-based sushi recipes.

Types of Sushi

Sushi comes from the word sushimeshi, meaning “sour rice,” a nod to the vinegar-seasoned rice used in sushi-making. Sushi is a traditional Japanese dish featuring rolled seaweed sheets, specially prepared rice, and usually some type of seafood, nuts, and/or vegetables. Its ingredients are typically raw, cooked, or pickled. And there are different types of sushi differentiated by their structure and composition.

The types of sushi include:

Makizushi

Makizushi is the best-known type of sushi, which consists of a single sheet of seaweed rolled around rice and fillings and cut into 6-8 pieces. The word “maki” means “to roll.” Makizushi comes in two basic sizes: larger circumference rolls with more fillings are known as futomaki, and slimmer rolls consisting of a single filling are called hosomaki. Each piece is meant to be dipped in soy sauce and eaten in a single bite (thus avoiding double dipping).

Another word for makizushi is norimaki; nori is the name of the seaweed sheet that’s lightly toasted, filled with rice and filling, and rolled.

Uramaki

Uramaki is inside-out makizushi. Same form, same ingredients, but with the seaweed hidden inside the roll, and a decoration of sesame seed, fish eggs, or other toppings typically clinging to the outer rice layer. Uramaki is an American invention, from the days when sushi was unfamiliar and seaweed altogether unheard of. The most well-known version of uramaki is the California roll, with cucumber, avocado, and crabmeat inside the nori, and rice outside.

Nigiri

Nigiri is an oval-shaped mound of rice, topped with a slice of something. Sushi makers mold the rice mound and press the topping on the mound by hand, which explains the name nigiri, which means “gripped or pressed (by hand).” Traditionally, the sliced ingredient on top is a fatty fish like tuna, salmon, or shrimp.

Temaki

Temaki, also known as a hand roll, consists of a nori sheet wrapped around fillings in a cone shape. These are typically larger and more filling than the other rolls — one or two of these can make a complete meal.

The Evolution of Sushi

What Americans think of as sushi is quite different from traditional Japanese sushi, which itself isn’t that old. Whereas sushi in Japan is often eaten at special occasions, many Americans consume their favorite finger food multiple times per week. In fact, sushi is now more popular in the US than in its country of origin.

Sushi originated in southeast Asia as a way of preserving fish. Fishermen (and women) would press their fresh fish between piles of salted rice, pile on a heavy stone, and leave it to ferment. Initially, this process took several months. Once complete, the rice was tossed as waste. And since it was so labor intensive, only the wealthy could enjoy this delicacy.

Over time, people figured out that adding vinegar to the rice could speed up the rate of fermentation from months to week or even days. At these speeds, the rice itself stayed tasty and safe enough to consume and fish and vegetables became popular toppings and fillings because they were readily available.

The evolution of sushi continued in the port city of Edo, Japan (now Tokyo), where fishmongers found that putting the fish next to hot cooked rice could reduce prep time to just a couple of hours. But modern sushi as we know it really came about in the 1820s when entrepreneur Hanaya Yohei opened a sushimeshi stall on the banks of the Sumida River. With access to fish so fresh, Yohei dispensed with cooking and fermenting, and simply sliced raw fish over cooked and seasoned rice in the nigiri sushi style. In a sense, sushi became an accessible, fast food thanks to Yohei (albeit healthier than the modern version).

The Problem with Eating Fish

When it comes to fish consumption, speaking purely from a health perspective, there are some significant positives. Studies tell us that people who eat fish tend to live longer and enjoy healthier lives, with lower risk for chronic diseases that impact much of the Western world. But fish also has some serious drawbacks. (For a whole article on the pros and cons of eating fish, click here.)

Overfishing

The problem is, we aren’t actually fishing our oceans — we’re overfishing them. Thanks to nets that are up to two miles long and have openings the width of a football field, fishing trawlers catch marine life like whales, dolphins, sharks, and sea turtles. In fact, up to 40% of all catch is what’s termed “bycatch” — marine animals that will not get sold, and may end up dead or disfigured due to these extremely inefficient and cruel methods of industrial fishing.

Farm-Raised Fish

So maybe we can avoid the problems associated with fishing by raising fish in farms, rather than catching them in the wild? Nope. Farm-raised fish — which now comprise half of the world’s fish harvest — are, if anything, actually worse than wild-caught fish on most counts. They generate massive amounts of pollution, and large amounts of antibiotics are required to keep fish alive under toxic conditions. Other chemicals, including pesticides and anticorrosives, are liberally used and leach into the environment. Not to mention that the fish raised in captivity aren’t as healthy as wild-caught, with less protein and a less favorable omega-6 to omega-3 ratio.

Pollution & Other Contaminants

On the topic of health, wild-caught species are often nearly as polluted as their farm-raised counterparts. We’ve been treating our oceans, rivers, and lakes like garbage dumps, resulting in the fish we love eating becoming riddled with toxins such as mercury, PCBs, and even pharmaceutical drugs.

To add potential injury to injury, fish used for sushi is typically raw, which also means a heightened risk for bacterial and parasitic infections.

Ethical Concerns of Eating Fish

From an ethical perspective, eating fish also means taking another creature’s life. And studies tell us that fish do feel pain, as evidenced by their ability to produce endogenous opioids (natural painkillers). Many people prefer not to cause pain to other sentient beings if they don’t need to.

Fish Tastes Fishy

And finally, not everyone loves the taste of fish, especially when it’s raw.

The good news is, you can still enjoy sushi if you don’t eat or like the taste of fish (for whatever reason). The trick is to view sushi as primarily a rice, veggie, and seaweed dish, rather than a delivery system for raw fish.

Types of Vegetarian Sushi

Rice seasoned with salt and vinegar is a pretty good base for a vegan meal. However, to make vegan sushi, the trick is to replace the fish with fish-free fillings and toppings. You can make sushi out of almost any food you can think of. But these are some of the typical vegan sushi offerings that you can find at restaurants or make at home.

Cooked Vegan Sushi

One favorite, cooked vegan sushi filling is mushrooms, which can sort of mimic the texture and mouthfeel of certain kinds of sushi fish. In addition to the common white button mushroom, you can also use shiitake, portabella, baby bella, or just about any other kind of edible mushroom.

Cooked veggies that go well in sushi include eggplant, carrot, and sweet potato. You can steam or microwave these vegetables, or even cut them into strips, marinate them, and bake or air fry them to mimic the taste and crunch of bacon.

Baked tofu also adds a chewiness to vegan sushi and can absorb whatever flavor you soak or cook it in. And lately, the inventive vegan blogosphere has been abuzz about techniques for turning beets and even tomatoes into very convincing mock raw fish. Done well, it even looks like raw tuna!

Raw Vegan Sushi

To make raw vegan sushi, we can start with the plant-based ingredients from traditional sushi making. Avocado and cucumber pair well together in sushi. Avocado is the classic substitution for fatty fish, and the cucumber adds moisture and crunch. You can cut and slice either veggie in many ways to accommodate the form and visual appeal of whatever kind of sushi you’re making.

Carrots, sliced thin or julienned, also add color, flavor, and texture to your rolls. And raw cashews or macadamia nuts, laid in a tight row over the rice before rolling, can add a fatty crunch to every bite.

You can also sprinkle raw sesame seeds on the rice for visual and flavor appeal. Black sesame seeds, available in specialty shops and online, make a nice black and white contrast that shows up especially well if you make uramaki sushi (the inside-out variety).

Pickled or Fermented Sushi

You can also pickle or ferment many types of vegetables for vegan sushi. Some of the classics include radish, summer squash, and asparagus, but you can go to town here, and consider pickling carrots, cabbage, beets, or whatever’s in your garden or fridge. A word of caution here: some Asian grocery stores sell commercially-produced pickled squash and radish, which may include preservatives and artificial coloring. Check the label before purchasing, or do the fermenting yourself.

You can also ramp up the flavor of your sushi with the fermented soybean dish known as natto (which is one of the best sources of the essential vitamin K2), or use the tangy, slightly sweet, and very salty, umeboshi plum paste.

How to Make Vegetarian or Vegan Sushi

If you’ve seen the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, about a master sushi maker who approaches each cut and roll with the attention of a surgeon performing a heart transplant, you might be intimidated about your own ability to make sushi. Certainly, becoming a master sushi chef takes decades of practice. But just as you don’t have to win the Indy 500 in order to drive to work, you can start enjoying vegetarian or vegan sushi right away at home. Sure, your initial rolls might look a little rough around the edges. But the good news is, they’ll probably taste awesome from Day 1.

Here’s how to get started.

Sushi Tools for the Kitchen

First, you’ll need some basic kitchen tools. The only tool most people don’t already have in their kitchen is a sushi mat. You’ll need this for making neat and tight rolls that are even in diameter all the way through, and to apply sufficient pressure to get the rolls to maintain their shape once you cut them into pieces. Here’s one that I like for under seven bucks.

If you don’t have a sharp knife, your sushi will look like you tried to shape it with a hammer. Dull blades rip the nori, and squash the edges of each piece. This 8” gyutou knife pairs traditional Japanese design with German engineering and costs about $30. It also includes the very helpful advice, “Do not use your hand to test the hardness of the blade.”

Along with a knife, you’ll need a cutting board, unless you enjoy designing scratches into your countertop and ruining your knife on a regular basis. While you can always find a cheap plastic cutting board, I recommend using a natural material such as wood or bamboo. Here’s a beautiful, organic bamboo cutting board that should last you a long time.

Sushi-Making Supplies

One thing you definitely need for making sushi is the seaweed wrap. You can get sheets of nori, usually in packs of 10 or 50, in Asian grocery stores and upscale supermarkets. You can also order nori online, where you’ll have a better selection. I recommend buying organic nori if at all possible. You can find lots of options here.

Next, you need your grain filling. Rice is traditional, but we’re adventurous food iconoclasts here, so you might want to try quinoa or millet or even riced cauliflower if you’re concerned about arsenic in rice. If you do go with rice, get sushi rice or short-grain rice, as it will get stickier than basmati or other longer grains. And you definitely need your rice sticky, so your rolls don’t fall apart.

Since the word sushi refers to the sour taste of the rice, you’ll need rice vinegar to flavor your grain. Some rice vinegars are pre-sweetened with refined sugar (they’re often called “sushi rice vinegar” or “seasoned vinegar”). But if you want to avoid white sugar, get plain rice vinegar and then (if you so desire) add your own sweetener, such as maple syrup or date paste. These are good for making your rice stickier. To add umami flavor to the grain, you can use tamari soy sauce (or a soy-free alternative such as coconut aminos), umeboshi vinegar, or umeboshi paste.

Finally, choose your optional dipping sauce. This is usually a salty liquid, such as tamari, soy sauce, coconut aminos, and the like. If you enjoy the taste and sensation of horseradish or Chinese mustard, you can mix green wasabi paste with the tamari for that special feeling of having your sinuses cleared by a power washer. Again, beware of commercial wasabi paste; that bright green hue is almost certainly due to artificial colors. Look for natural wasabi paste, or buy dry wasabi powder and make your own.

How to Make Vegan Sushi

Now that you have your sushi-making tools and supplies, it’s time to roll up your sleeves — and your sushi. If you haven’t done this before, I recommend starting by watching some videos. It’s much easier to watch someone make sushi than explain all the steps in print. (Writing them out makes it seem much harder and more complicated than it really is.) But if you prefer to read instructions, check out this WikiHow on how to roll sushi.

For visual instructions on rolling sushi, here’s a short (three-minute) video by a professional sushi chef that shows you everything you need on How to Make Sushi.

Let me tell you from experience that your first rolls will probably not be anything to write home about, unless your letters home include statements like “My sushi looked like a bunch of gladiators had a food fight.” Be patient, and enjoy the process. Even a roll that falls apart when you look at it isn’t a complete waste — just dump it into a bowl, add some condiments, and pretend that was your plan all along. You’ll be making fine-looking, delicious, and healthy vegan sushi before you know it. To get you started, here are some recipes for inspiration.

5 Fish-Free Vegan Sushi Recipes

How many versions of vegan sushi are there? The options might just be endless! While we had to limit ourselves to just five for this article, we would encourage you to experiment in your own kitchen with a variety of veggies and grains after trying our offerings below.

Our Veggie Nori Rolls are the classic vegan sushi you may already know and love. Then kick your culinary experience up a notch by making the Vegetable Hand Rolls using a nori sheet (which is sort of like replacing whole grain tortillas used in traditional wraps). Have fun experimenting with grains other than rice by using quinoa to make the Avocado and Mango Quinoa Nigiri or millet to make Rainbow Millet Rolls with Miso Peanut Sauce.

Finally, deconstruct your sushi (which might happen naturally during early sushi-making sessions!) to make a Vegan Sushi Bowl with Wasabi Mayo. No matter how you roll it, err, create it, have fun making these vegan sushi options!

1. Veggie Nori Rolls

We provided a list of suggested vegetables to include in the nori rolls, but anything goes! Use whatever veggies you have on hand, just make sure they’re julienned or cut small enough to fit in these plant-based sushi rolls without busting the seams!

2. Vegetable Hand Rolls

You can enjoy temaki sushi like any other wrap. Add whole grains such as brown rice or quinoa, a plant-based protein like tofu or tempeh, colorful vegetables — think carrots, sprouts, and peppers — and your favorite sauce to a nori sheet before wrapping it into a unique little cone shape. This vegan sushi is a great way to switch things up with your wraps by adding variety to your diet with mineral-rich nori.

3. Avocado and Mango Quinoa Nigiri

Sushi-making can bring out your inner artist! Forming the oval-like nigiri shape, wrapping the quinoa with a piece of nori, carefully placing the mango and avocado on top, and finishing it off with a drop of Sriracha and a sprinkle of paprika make this piece of art almost too good to eat. Almost! Because it tastes pretty darn good, too, just be sure to take in your artistry before you dive in.

4. Rainbow Millet Roll with Miso Peanut Sauce

Set aside what you may think of as sushi and take the non-traditional route by using millet instead of rice, peanut sauce instead of soy sauce, and, of course, veggies instead of fish. What’s traditional about this plant-based sushi roll is the nutrient-packed nori seaweed that lends the sushi its crunchy texture and signature flavor.

5. Vegan Sushi Bowl with Wasabi Mayo

Vegan sushi roll transforms to Vegan Sushi Bowl, with all the usual tasty (vegan) sushi ingredients, but disassembled! Make it your own by using veggies from your fridge or garden. Pretty much any veggies are a-go here, but to truly create the sushi experience, don’t skip the sushi rice, nori sheets, or wasabi mayo!

Roll Up Some Fish-Free Sushi

Sushi is a fun and portable food that originated in Japan and has now spread around the world and become immensely popular. Although it’s often made with fish, vegan options that use a variety of plant-based ingredients are fun to make, and delicious, too! So don’t be afraid to experiment, get creative, and give fish-free, vegan and vegetarian sushis a try!

Tell us in the comments:

• Have you ever tasted vegan sushi? What did you think?
• What ingredients do you want to try in your homemade vegan or vegetarian sushi?
• Have you tried any of the vegan “mock fish” sushi on the market? How did it taste?

Read Next:

• Healthy Snack Ideas That Taste Good & Are Good for You
• Healthy Plant-Based Starters and Appetizers for All Occasions

The post Vegan Sushi: How to Make It & the Benefits of Fish-Free Sushi appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

Meanwhile, in a 2019 review of 44 studies that was published in the highly specialized medical journal PLEFA (“Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes & Essential Fatty Acids” isn’t what most people would call light reading), researchers concluded that children of mothers who ate seafood weekly had significantly higher verbal I.Q. scores. The review also concluded that children who ate seafood had better school grades, and higher I.Q. by as much as 9.5 points when compared to their peers who ate no fish.

Why are we seeing these benefits? Is it because fish is high in the long chain omega 3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA, and these are beneficial for brain and cardiovascular health? Is it because fish-eaters are generally eating less red meat, or less processed foods – and these are the real culprits in ill-health? Do fish-eaters tend to get more exercise? Are they less likely to smoke? Do they live healthier lifestyles, in general?

Research is ongoing, and the data isn’t necessarily conclusive. However, there is a large body of evidence that for most people, at least compared to the Standard American Diet, fish consumption may be linked to positive health outcomes.

But… there’s something you should know about eating fish

But before you run out to chow down on a fish burger, or buy a bunch of stock in the nearest fishing fleet, there’s something you should know.

Fish are killed, of course. And for ethical vegetarians, that’s reason enough to steer clear. It’s true that some scientists say that fish do not have the neuro-physiological capacity for a conscious awareness of pain, and do not feel pain the way humans do. But others say that it is impossible to definitively know whether another creature’s subjective experience is like our own. What’s certain is that in recent years, fish biologists around the world have discovered substantial evidence that, just like mammals and birds, fish also experience conscious pain. It is now widely accepted that fish produce the same opioids—the body’s innate painkillers—that mammals do.

And there are some other issues, too. Wild fish swim in polluted waters and exist at the top of very long food chains. As a result, many wild fish today are contaminated with dangerous levels of mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and other toxins. And industrialized fishing operations are practically strip-mining the oceans, leaving fish stocks depleted, eviscerating marine food chains, and threatening the viability of the commercial fishing industry for future generations.

What about fish farms? They have some big, big problems, too. So more people are wondering what is it about seafood that seems beneficial – and whether there are any better ways to derive the benefits, without devastating our oceans or exposing consumers to dangerous levels of pollution.

Types of Fishing

When we think of fishing, we conjure up images of intrepid fisherman in yellow oilskin jackets bravely sailing out of the harbour, enduring lashing rain and fierce winds, and returning at the end of the day with a fresh catch. That romantic vision has nothing to do with how fish are caught these days. The modern fishing industry relies on two methods for the vast majority of its product: trawling in oceans and seas, and farming in human-made lakes and tanks.

Wild-Caught Fish

Fish labeled as “wild-caught” come from the ocean through commercial fishing methods. There are several huge problems with wild-caught fish.

Overfishing

Overfishing is exactly what it sounds like. We’re pulling more fish out of the ocean than the natural ecosystem can replenish, creating an unsustainable system that has put certain species on the edge of extinction. Overfishing has been a problem since at least the early 1800s, when the whale population was severely affected by humans looking for blubber to use in lamp oil.

Commercial fishing industries are actually harvesting over 160 billion pounds of sea life out of the ocean every year – that’s nearly a half of a billion pounds every single day. And if fishing rates continue apace, nearly all of the world’s fisheries will collapse in the next 30 years.

One obvious outcome of this collapse is, no more fish for us. We’ll regale our grandchildren with unbelievable tales of shelves loaded with cans of wild-caught salmon, and how even poor kids could get a tuna sandwich for lunch from time to time.

We don’t know exactly how the removal of entire species from the web of ocean life will affect the rest of the food chain and ecosystem, but various models make it clear that we can expect devastation that will lead to dead zones and impaired human health. As biodiversity in the ocean declines, that leaves more room for invasive species to colonize coastlines and further destabilize ecosystems. As algae-eating fish go extinct, algal blooms can pollute water and contribute to epidemics of disease in humans (and other species, too!).

And while commercial fishing produces the vast majority of the fish we eat, there are still plenty of places where old-style fishing cultures are still catching enough for subsistence and a local economy. These cultures are being devastated by the die-off of their preferred seafood sources due to overfishing.

Bycatch

Commercial fishing nets – also called trawling nets – are no joke. They can be up to two miles long and around the size of a football field at their opening. Do you think a net that large will only catch the salmon, shrimp, or tuna that commercial fishers set out to catch? Certainly not. Approximately 40% of global commercial catch is actually not the intended species. This 40% is called bycatch, and can include species like dolphins, sharks, whales, sea turtles, and anything else that happens to be swimming through at the time of the catch.

Besides being incredibly sad, bycatch causes other problems. It leads to more overfishing, slowing down the recovery time for exploited and overexploited species. It kills already endangered species like sea turtles and seabirds. They may be caught in the nets and killed, or they could become entangled in netting debris, carrying around pieces that are disfiguring and can even drown or starve them. Bycatch is also extremely wasteful, both physically and financially. Even fisheries that are certified sustainable have been found to toss a large percentage of their catches overboard.

Destruction of Ocean Ecosystems

Millions of ocean species cannot be killed without also causing disruption to the ocean itself. Any dead carcasses thrown overboard can attract scavenging species and cause a disruption in the ocean’s nutrient balance.

Plastic Pollution

Netting debris often gets caught in the physical ocean environment, like the seabed, coral reefs, and sponges. A 2019 Greenpeace report found that the biggest source of plastic pollution in our planet’s oceans comes from fishing. More than 640,000 tons of lost or abandoned fishing gear finds its way into the ocean every year. Just to give you an alarming visual, that’s the weight equivalent of about 210,000 Hummer 2 SUVs, or a new Hummer hitting the water every two and a half minutes, all year long.

This “ghost gear,” as it is known, kills hundreds of giant sea turtles annually, and can compromise the ability of whales to filter water as they feed. It can also suffocate seabirds, crustaceans, and small fish.

Farm-Raised Fish

Spurred on by the depletion of the oceans and the stocks of fish that swim in them, an ever-growing share of the world’s fish is being produced in fish farms. In fact over half the world’s fish harvest now comes from aquaculture. Unfortunately, this isn’t great for the oceans, either.

Farm-raised fish contribute a significant amount of pollution and disease. The largest source is the waste that fish produce, as well as uneaten food that sinks to the bottom of the pens and contaminates the water. Chemicals – like pesticides, antibiotics, disinfectants, and anti-corrosives – are widely used in fish farming to try to prevent the spread of diseases. However, these chemicals contaminate the water, the fish themselves, and the equipment.

And in a spectacle remarkably similar to factory farming of cows and pigs, fish are given routine doses of antibiotics simply to keep them alive under miserable conditions. The overuse of antibiotics in these environments poses a significant public health risk, increasing the likelihood of antibiotic-resistant bacteria entering our food system. Farm-raised fish are also contaminated by the cancer-causing chemicals known as PCBs, which may be found in farm-raised salmon at 16 times the concentration found in wild-caught salmon.

Nutritionally, most farm-raised fish are problematic as well. Fish raised in these environments have been found to promote inflammation due to their higher ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acids. Additionally, they may have up to 20% less protein than fish that come from the ocean.

You may have noticed a color difference between farm-raised and wild-caught salmon. Because fish raised on farms don’t have access to things in the ocean that would naturally give them their carotenoid-rich pink pigmentation – like crustaceans and algae – most salmon farmers add pigmenting compounds like astaxanthin to their salmon feed to enhance the coloring that consumers want. These chemical dyes that turn otherwise grey fish into a rich reddish hue are actually the most expensive part of farm-raised salmon feed.

Farm-raised fish are far from sustainable, which can be seen in the feed conversion ratio it takes to produce them. For every pound of salmon, 2-3 pounds of fish chow are needed. This chow is usually made from other fish, like mackerel, anchovies, or sardines. Some of the species used to make farm-raised fish chow are threatened, and their role as an input in the production of other fish accelerates their own extinction. Some fish farms also feed their fish GMO soybeans and waste byproducts from factory farmed livestock.

Genetically Engineered Fish

Another concern in the fish farming industry is the genetically engineered (GE) fish. At least 35 species of fish are currently being genetically engineered around the world. Some of these include trout, flounder, catfish, salmon, tilapia, and striped bass.

What does this mean? Many GE fish have been engineered to have a gene for growth hormones, which speeds up maturation and results in a fish getting bigger, faster. The economic benefit of doing this is that more fish, and larger fish, will be available to consumers faster. Other GE fish have been “improved” to be more tolerant to varying temperatures, resistant to diseases, and even to have larger muscles. The genes being used are often sourced from bacteria, mice, and other fish.

In November of 2015, AquaBounty Technologies produced a GE fish called the AquAdvantage Salmon, which grows twice as fast as regular salmon. The FDA approval for consumption caused quite an uproar from consumers, members of Congress, environmental groups, chefs, and restaurant owners.

What’s the big deal? For starters, the environmental dangers are significant, with great concern regarding what could happen to wild salmon populations if these GE fish escaped into the wild. In short, they could cross-breed. And with the competitive advantage of rapid growth, they could take over, and effectively eliminate wild non-GE salmon stocks in short order. As for human health impacts, these remain unknown since there haven’t been any studies conducted. But we do know that GE salmon are more susceptible to disease, and tend to receive larger amounts of antibiotics than other farm-raised fish.

Can Fish Be Farmed Sustainably?

Since our oceans are increasingly depleted, and human appetite for fish has been on the rise, the question naturally emerges: Is there a way that fish can be farmed safely and sustainably?

With farm-raised fish production outpacing that of wild-caught fish and of global beef, the good news is that a rapidly growing conversation around sustainability in this industry has surfaced. The goal of more sustainable fish farms is to raise healthy fish that don’t damage local ecosystems. More sustainable farms steer clear of additives, chemicals, hormones, and antibiotics, and for fish like Tilapia, they use fish feed that is mostly or entirely vegetarian.

More sustainable fish farms are vigilant about monitoring the quality of the water and insuring that they don’t produce levels of pollution that harm local ecosystems or native wild fish. Some are in the deep open ocean, where the water is more pristine, and currents are strong and steady enough to continually flush the farms of fish waste and pests such as sea lice. Others are placed in zero-waste closed loop systems based on land.

While practices like these can be a big step forward, the reality is that there is stunningly little government oversight of the aquaculture industry, and claims of “sustainable” may or may not mean anything. So if you wish to partake, here are a couple labels that might mean something:

The Global Aquaculture Alliance developed the voluntary Best Aquaculture Practices Certification. The standards address environmental and social responsibility, animal welfare, food safety and traceability.

The Aquaculture Stewardship Council, founded by the World Wildlife Fund and the Dutch Sustainable Trade Initiative, certifies responsibly farmed seafood and manges global standards for sustainable aquaculture. It doesn’t represent the most stringent of standards, but it’s a meaningful step in the right direction.

And probably the single best “one stop shop” resource for reviewing the sustainability of different fish is Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, linked here.

However, even if aquaculture were to evolve to become a model of sustainability in the future, fish eaters would still be left with another concerning problem…

Contaminants in Fish

Fish tissue tends to be fatty, and most environmental contaminants are fat soluble. Compounding this problem is the fact that bigger fish eat smaller fish, so the contaminants get more concentrated the higher the food chain we go. And a lot of the fish we love to eat are pretty high on that food chain. You can’t see the contaminants,  so you never know what – or how much – of something harmful could be lurking in the fish you buy. What are some of the most common contaminants in fish, and where do they come from?

Nearly all fish contain at least trace amounts of mercury, and some contain a significant amount. Mercury is a toxic metal. It can cause neurological and chromosomal problems and harm unborn babies if they are exposed during pregnancy. Certain species tend to contain more mercury than others, largely due to their predatory position in the aquatic food chain. For this reason, many experts advise avoiding consumption of shark, swordfish, tilefish, and king mackerel, as these fish tend to eat many smaller fish, which contributes to their mercury load. Albacore, yellowfin and bigeye tuna are also very high in mercury.

And even those fish that are lower in mercury still contain some. This is why pregnant women are advised to avoid many types of fish, to prevent harm to their fetuses.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are toxic man-made industrial compounds that can build up in the fatty tissue of fish. Unfortunately, even though the use of PCBs has been banned in many places, they tend to stick around in the environment for a long time. The EPA considers fish a persistent source of PCBs in the human diet. Consuming PCBs can have lasting neurological, endocrine, circulatory, digestive, and central nervous system effects. Some states have told people to limit their consumption of all fish and shellfish from freshwater or coastal areas nearby due to the high risk for PCB contamination. Research has shown that PCBs can cause birth defects, smaller birth weight, and delayed learning among infants, and older adults can experience reduced memory and learning.

Dioxins are cancer-causing industrial pollutants and have been called some of the most toxic chemicals known to science. They’re also known to be harmful to reproduction and human development. Unfortunately, fish are a major source of dioxins in the human diet. Similarly to mercury, dioxin tends to accumulate in larger fish up the food chain. In fact, dioxin levels in fish can be 100,000 times that of the water around them.

Pesticide residues from factory farms can also end up in the fish you eat, by way of the waterways that run into the ocean.

And lastly, plastics from landfills can end up in the water, be eaten by the fish, and ultimately end up in your body. Research has shown that plastics can linger throughout generations of fish.

What You Can Do

Probably the most important question to ask after recognizing all of the concerns around eating fish is: what can you do about it?

One option, of course, is to reduce (or eliminate) your fish consumption altogether.

If you do choose to eat seafood, choose fish from one of the more sustainable and low mercury options, such as wild salmon, sardines, anchovies, and herring—which are all uniquely high in omega-3 fatty acids and tend to be low in mercury.

You can buy only such wild-caught fish, or farm-raised fish that have been certified by third party companies like BAP (Best Aquaculture Practices), ASC Pangasius, Naturland, Canada Organic, or the MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) to minimize contamination and ensure sustainability. Or take advantage of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, which provides a guide to how responsibly certain types and origins of fish are produced.

And if the main reason you’re eating fish is for DHA and EPA, consider taking an algae-based DHA and EPA supplement instead, like Complement Essential. Pair this with a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and you can reap the benefits of these long-chain fatty acids without the risk of marine contaminants, the ethical problems associated with all forms of animal agriculture, and the environmental concerns raised by eating fish.

Editor’s Note: This article may stir some controversy. In the comments below, I encourage you to (respectfully) share your opinions and experiences. Robust dialogue can make us all wiser and healthier. Just please remember that most of the other people reading and engaging care about the planet, animals, and the wellbeing of future generations, like you do — even if they eat or think differently.

Tell us in the comments:

• What is your biggest takeaway from this article?
• Do you eat fish? Why or why not?
• Do you do anything special to insure you are getting enough DHA and EPA?

Featured Image: iStock.com/Natissima

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• 5 Key Supplements for Vegans and Vegetarians to Thrive on A Plant-Based Diet

The post Is Eating Fish Good For You? The Truth About the Health and Environmental Impacts of Eating Fish appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

How U.S.-caught seafood subsidizes the North Korean government on its way to the Walmart freezer

On Wednesday, October 5th, the Associated Press released a bombshell investigation into China’s use of North Korean labor, specifically focused on workers processing seafood in a Chinese plant. While it’s not exactly news that North Korea sends its citizens to be “guest-workers” elsewhere in the world—in July, The Guardian reported on how the practice helps the country offset devastating sanctions—the story contained a major revelation: The snow crab, salmon fillets, and squid rings produced in the plant end up in American homes.

“Americans buying salmon for dinner at Walmart or ALDI may inadvertently have subsidized the North Korean government as it builds its nuclear weapons program,” according to AP, since the country kept up to 70 percent of its guest-workers’ paychecks. “Their purchases may also have supported what the United States calls ‘modern day slavery’—even if the jobs are highly coveted by North Koreans.”

It’s a crazy story, and well worth the read. And like AP’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2016 report on slavery in Thailand’s shrimp industry, it’s a reminder that our seafood food supply chain is still largely invisible—even when the dish on the table is as bare bones as a salmon steak.

But one detail in this story hits closer to home than the living quarters described in the piece—a faraway, harshly-lit dormitory in Hunchun, China. Some of the seafood in question, painstakingly picked apart by North Korean workers, was snow crab originally caught in Alaska. Which means the crustaceans somehow made the 4,000-mile journey from Alaska to China, before traveling 4,000 miles back to American distributors like Rhode Island’s Sea-Trek Enterprises, which ultimately shipped them out to retailers all over the world.

How can that globe-spanning supply chain possibly make logistical—let alone economic—sense?

Turns out, it’s common for U.S. seafood companies to send their catch to China for processing. In 2005, the Seattle Times published a story probing a single company’s decision to send 30 million pounds of its Alaskan salmon and Dungeness crab catch to China for filleting and de-shelling. In terms of raw profit, the decision has a kind of graceful economic logic: “Something that would cost us $1 per pound labor here, they get it done for 20 cents in China,” Charles Bundrant, founder of Trident Seafoods, told the paper. Even after the company accounted for the cost of shipping seafood thousands of miles (and keeping it cold the whole time), sending it to China was still worth the time and money. Fish and crabs are full of tiny bones, Bundrant reminded the paper, and it’s tough work that can’t currently be automated. Human hands are still the best at picking them clean.

As The New Food Economy reported last month, this problem—millions of tiny bones and no one to pick them out—is exacerbated by an ongoing labor shortage in Alaska. It should’ve been a banner year for the salmon catch in Bristol Bay, but seafood companies weren’t able to hire enough employees to gut all those fish. The companies, which typically recruit workers from as far away as Guam, pay about $10 an hour, not enough to entice local Alaskans to take up a dirty, grueling job. At the same time, processors weren’t able to take advantage of the country’s limited quantity of H-2B visas for non-seasonal guest workers. Two companies profiled by our reporter Sarah Gibson had actually built new facilities to avoid sending their headed and gutted salmon to China and Japan for filleting. But the labor shortage meant they couldn’t staff those new operations, and the low profit margin for wild-caught salmon meant they couldn’t offer employees higher salaries. The region’s snow crab fishermen, it seems, face a similar labor bottleneck.

When you consider the ongoing shortage of processing staff, the temptation to ship American-caught seafood out to Asia starts to make more sense. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that between 2010 and 2014, about a quarter of the U.S. snow crab catch was exported to China.

Once in China, crab meat is picked out of the shell and sold elsewhere—often to Japan, which is the second-largest consumer of snow crab in the world. That global cold chain is made more economically feasible by the use of North Korean laborers, who, according to AP, are reliable and inexpensive. Officially, the U.S. considers all North Koreans working abroad to be engaged in “forced labor,” and while their toil can be bought cheaply, the numbers add up. AP estimates that the North Korean government is sending tens of thousands of workers worldwide, netting as much as $500 million a year. “That could account for a sizable portion of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, which South Korea says have cost more than $1 billion,” according to the report.

The story’s impact may prove to be explosive. It will undoubtedly provoke anger at the likes of Walmart for inadvertently subsidizing the North Korean government. And major American companies may have violated federal law, thanks to an order signed by President Trump in August that banned the import of goods produced by North Korean labor anywhere in the world. There may be political implications, too, at a time when diplomacy is quickly flailing—tempers are flaring between two nuclear powers over real and perceived slights, and rhetoric is ratcheting up.

All so no one chokes on a fishbone.

This article was originally published by The New Food Economy, an independent, non-profit newsroom that investigates the forces shaping how and what we eat. Sign up for their newsletter here. 

The post How American Seafood Is Subsidizing the North Korean Government and Supporting ‘Modern Day Slavery’ appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

On December 21, at the very end of the last business day before Christmas week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quietly released its environmental assessment that found “no significant impact” from the controversial AquaBounty AquaAdvantage transgenic salmon. We’re now in a 60 day comment period that ends on February 25, at which time the FDA is widely expected to initiate formal approval. UPDATE: The FDA has determined that genetically engineered salmon is safe to eat.

What is the rationale behind genetically engineered salmon? Why have scientists spliced genes from an eel-like creature called the ocean pout into the genome of the Atlantic salmon?
These genes crank out growth hormone year-round, resulting in a fish that grows faster, cutting the time to reach market weight almost in half. This could mean cost savings for fish farmers, leading to higher profits for the salmon farming industry and (they promise) lower prices for consumers.

But there are massively disturbing ethical, environmental, and health concerns that make the introduction of Frankenfish highly controversial.

Corporations Given the Power to Create Life

Humans have been using natural selection for years to favor certain genetic expressions in animals and plants. But natural selection on the farm is entirely different than taking genes from two or more completely different creatures, and splicing them together in a laboratory.

Some people are concerned that the power to create new life now sits in the hands of corporate interests. Others are disturbed by the notion of eating genetically engineered animals when there isn’t even so much as a label to give them choice in the matter.

With countless more genetically engineered animal creations waiting for approval, the release of genetically engineered salmon could lead to a plethora of new life forms coming onto the market. John Robbins, author of The Food Revolution and many other best-sellers about food, health and the environment, calls this “Pandora’s Pantry.”

Impact on Oceans and Wild Salmon

AquaBounty, the company behind the first Frankenfish, insists that their creation poses no threat to wild salmon populations. But research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that a release of just sixty GE salmon into a wild population of 60,000 would lead to the extinction of the wild population in less than 40 fish generations.

AquaBounty insists that their fish will be raised in controlled pens and will never be released into the ocean, and that besides, their fish will be sterile. But every year, millions of farmed fish escape from fish farms into the wild. It’s true that initial introduction of AquaBounty’s fish is slated for Panama in highly controlled pens. But AquaBounty is planning to market the eggs, not the fish. Once the production of GE fish becomes commercialized, it will be impossible to control the whereabouts of every single individual and assure compliance with appropriate containment measures. Some degree of release may be inevitable.

As to sterile fish, at present, there is no guaranteed method to produce 100% sterility. In fact, the FDA’s most recent study found that five percent of the animals were in fact fertile. If large numbers of fish escape, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that some fertile fish might not only survive in the wild, but thrive. Because AquaAdvantage fish grow many times faster, and become mature much more quickly, than wild salmon, they may have the ability to outcompete wild salmon for food, and to reproduce at a much faster rate.

By stipulating that AquaBounty’s fish will never by produced in the United States, the company was able to avoid having to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that would analyze what would happen if things don’t go as planned. So long as the fish are only produced in countries with relatively lax environmental laws, they may be able to get away without further study.

But if the fish escape into the wild, they won’t stop swimming at national borders. This means that if they survive in the wild anywhere, they may soon be driving wild salmon into oblivion everywhere. The impact on marine and freshwater ecosystems, and on the economic wellbeing of fish-dependent coastal communities, could be devastating.

The FDA chose to review AquAdvantage as an animal drug, rather than a human food. In the FDA’s view, the refashioned DNA that is in every cell of the fish’s body is considered a drug, and that’s what the agency is regulating. If approved, the AquAdvantage salmon would not only be the first GE animal approved for human consumption, but also the first animal drug that’s theoretically capable of swimming off into the ocean and reproducing.

Is Genetically Engineered Salmon Safe to Eat?

The FDA concluded the salmon to be “as safe as food from conventional (farmed) Atlantic salmon.” While this might be debatable, considering that the genetic makeup of the fish is a new creation, and there have been no long-term studies conducted on humans actually consuming genetically engineered salmon, let’s suppose for the moment that the FDA’s conclusion is accurate.

Is being as safe as conventional farmed salmon such a great thing? Salmon has been widely touted for its prevalence of Omega 3 essential fatty acids. And it’s true that wild salmon has low levels of many of the contaminants found in other fish. But farmed Atlantic salmon is an entirely different matter.

Jane Houlihan of the Environmental Working Group comments: “Nearly all (farmed) salmon (that) Americans eat are grown in dense-packed pens near ocean shores, fed fish meal that can be polluted with toxic PCB chemicals, awash in excrement flushed out to sea and infused with antibiotics to combat unsanitary conditions.”

Many medical experts are already recommending reducing farmed salmon consumption to one serving per month or less. Compared to wild salmon, studies have found farmed salmon to have significantly higher concentrations of contaminants, including such lovely substances as PCBs, dioxins, dieldrin, and toxaphene.

If AquaAdvantage does come to market on a large scale, and if it does reduce the cost of farmed salmon, thus making it more widely available and more affordable, is this really a boon to a hungry world? Or might it be a recipe for even more cancer and environmental pollution?

What You Can Do

Tell the FDA what you think: If you are disturbed by the prospect of a solid green light being given to sale of genetically engineered salmon in the United States, now is a great time to speak up. The FDA’s comment period lasts until February 25. You can submit comments online, or sign petitions like this one.

Take action for labeling: Genetically engineered crops are already unlabeled, inadequately tested, and present in an estimated 75% of the foods in America’s restaurants and supermarket shelves. Surveys have found that as much as ninety-three percent of the American public supports the labeling of genetically engineered foods. Perhaps the prospect of genetically altered animals pouring onto American dinner plates without labeling will tip us over the edge from concern into action. To support labeling, sign Just Label It Campaign’s petition to the FDA.

Protect yourself and your family: You can get a non-GMO shopping guide and mobile app that can help you and your family avoid genetically engineered foods if you want to do so.

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