I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by a team from CNN on sustainability issues in the sushi industry.This clip is me explaining what I call the “4-S rule” – a simple, if somewhat crude, guide to eating in a more sustainable fashion at the sushi bar (oh, and a small correction to CNN’s byline – I am a co-founder of Tataki Sushi Bar, but I don’t actually own the restaurant.)
As I discuss in the video, there are four adjectives, each starting with the letter S, that form the eponymous rule.If a sushi bar patron bears these descriptors in mind while he or she orders, it can markedly diminish the environmental footprint created by dinner.This is not a perfect system – there are exceptions to each of the four “S” words – but by and large, it does help one to order a more sustainable sushi meal overall.
Skipjack tuna served nigiri-style with gobo, scallions, and a shiso leaf. The skipjack is the smallest tuna found in the sushi industry, and has both the lowest average mercury content and the highest reproduction rate.
The first word is SMALL.Smaller fish are generally lower on the trophic scale (food chain), grow more quickly, die younger, and breed in larger numbers.These biological survival tactics are employed by many fish to help them withstand heavy predation — they play the numbers game and simply create as many offspring as possible so a few manage to escape the yawning maws of hungry predators. In essence, these are the kind of fish that are designed to be fed upon.Their physiology and population dynamics are generally more resilient to our fishing pressure and protein demand than top-of-the-food-chain carnivores, such as large tunas, swordfish, and sharks.Moreover, smaller fish generally have less mercury accumulation in their systems than these apex predators due to their shorter life spans and less voracious appetites.
Wild coho salmon, sashimi-style. Alaskan coho is well managed, healthy for consumers, and seasonally available.
The next word is SEASONAL.Seasonality is key to sustainability.If we are to reduce our carbon dependency and rekindle our connection with the ocean, we need to be more aware of where we are and what time of year it is when we order our fish.A good rule of thumb is to order off the specials board rather than the laminated menu when possible – any items on a year-round menu are unlikely to be sourced on a basis of seasonal awareness.It was our demand that certain intrinsically seasonal products be available to us year-round that gave rise to environmental missteps like conventional salmon farming.This category also offers us the added opportunity to take advantage of seasonal vegetables and fruits, which innovative chefs often incorporate into their specials.
Pacific saury prepared over wood charcoal. These cold-water schooling forage fish have high levels of omega-3 fatty acids.
The third word is perhaps the most surprising – SILVER.Eat sushi that is served with a silver skin still on it.This category of fish is known as hikari mono in Japanese, and contains mackerels, halfbeaks, shads, and similar fish.These animals tend to be loaded with omega-3s as well as being low in mercury, and can be sourced from many well-managed fisheries.An added bonus is that the hikari mono are some of the most treasured fish in the repertoire of a traditional sushi chef; a menu featuring these items will often prove to be an unforgettable culinary experience. I highly encourage all sushi-goers to explore the world of hikari mono – you just may find your new “absolute ultimate all-time favorite” sushi item.
Kumomoto oysters on the half-shell with momoji oroshi. Oysters are high in protein and easy to raise in low-impact farms.
The final word is SHELLFISH, and I’m speaking specifically of bivalves and mollusks.Not only are these creatures excellent sources of protein, but they are considered by many to be delicacies and aphrodisiacs. Bivalve and mollusk aquaculture has sound environmental benefits as well: it tends to involve relatively low-impact farming methods when compared to other types of fish farming, such as tuna ranches or salmon farms.As filter-feeders, animals like clams, scallops, and oysters can be grown without the use of any additional feed. This reduces their dependence on marine resources and eliminates the kind of inefficient protein use that we find in operations like hamachiand unagiranches. These mollusks also grow quickly, and can be raised in cages and bags that require no dredging or other types of seabed alteration during harvest.
That’s about the size of it.Small, seasonal, silver, and shellfish – a quick-and-dirty road map to a more eco-groovy sushi experience.There are, as I mentioned earlier, numerous exceptions to this rule, but it serves as a fairly reliable lodestone for those who are interested in shifting their sushi dining habits toward a more sustainable paradigm.
Oh, and one final quip: as it happens, the letter S occurs exactly four times in the term “sustainable sushi.” Remember that to keep the 4-S rule in mind.
So another week has passed, and life aboard the Esperanza goes on relatively unchanged. The air is muggy and heavy, tempered only by an ephemeral breeze, weak to the point of being almost imaginary. The furious equatorial sun rises above the bow and slices the bridge open in the morning, spends the day beating its chest high in the sky, and finally tires itself out, slipping astern, red and exhausted beneath the indigo sea.
We still press on eastward, slowly gobbling up the massive distance between us and our final port, keeping watch for the purse seiners that ply these waters. We also have daily watches that consist of various crew members staring at the sea, searching desperately for fish aggregating devices (FADs) — small rafts or buoys used by skipjack seiners that draw many different kinds of fish together, causing the bycatch problems that brought us out to the middle of the Pacific Ocean in the first place.
The problem is, we haven’t been able to find any of these things. At least, not until a few days ago.
Ghost ship
On Wednesday night, a blip appeared on the Esperanza radar screen. It was over twenty miles out, moving quickly, and in completely the wrong direction, so direct confrontation was out of the question. Still, we were able to raise the ship on the radio. A short conversation confirmed that we had indeed found a purse seine vessel. It was steaming northwest, off to find FADs that it had deposited earlier.
Since we were not going to be able to intercept it, we elected to use some subterfuge. Without disclosing who we were, we mined the seiner’s radio operator for information. A cordial discussion yielded some excellent direction about where we could go to “find some fish,” and where a “private vessel” such as ourselves could reasonably expect to find “productive fishing grounds.”
We cross-referenced the information we got from the seiner with our charts. Everything was matching up — climactic anomalies, plankton blooms, underwater topography — and it all highlighted one particular area as a potential magnet for neighborhood skipjack poachers. Luckily, this target zone was directly on our course, about a week away at full steam.
Aww.. you say such nice things
At present, we’re only about three days away. The crew is energetic, and standard watches on the bridge have been augmented with volunteer labor by officers and deckhands that are eager to see some action. We’ve seen increased signs of life as well in recent days, with pods of spinner dolphins cavorting off the bow and innumerable birds circling off the foredeck. Flying fish continue to provide a beautiful distraction, especially when entire shoals of the delicate little creatures rise from the waves in unison, hundreds of glimmering pairs of wings stretched akimbo, tiny shining bodies gliding effortlessly into the air as the ship splits the water just behind them.
More next week. At the risk of being overconfident, I’m quite certain that I’ll have something more substantial to report by the time next Monday rolls around.
I apologize for not being more on the ball with this update; this conference has been a bit overwhelming.
Anyhow, there’s been a lot of talk here about the growing (?) sustainable seafood movement in Japan, the world’s #1 seafood consumer per capita. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is claiming that there’s a burgeoning awareness within the Japanese consumer public: In 2004, there were no MSC-certified products available in Japan. Today, there are 150.
While I’m certainly glad to see that more and more fisheries are being certified by the MSC, I don’t necessarily agree with their conclusion. The MSC-certified products available in Japan are largely imports from fisheries that also sell their product to other countries, especially in Europe and North America, where the public is much more aware of the MSC. Commitments like those made by WalMart (all wild seafood to be MSC-certified by 2014), or the entire country of Holland (only MSC-certified wild fish to be sold) help to drive demand in these areas.
One could argue that Japan is importing the same products they had been five years ago, but the products simply happen to be MSC-certified now and weren’t previously. So is this really indicative of a growing awareness in Japan?
As of March 2008, a study undertaken by the Japan office of the MSC indicated that only 8% of the surveyed public were aware of the MSC label. That number decreases to 5% when the survey is narrowed to pregnant women and mothers (a demographic which is often responsible for shopping for food and domestic goods, including fish).
The story becomes even more telling when you start to look at the actual products coming from Japan that are being certified by the MSC: Products like snow crab and skipjack tuna. These are items that have garnered popularity beyond Japan with the expansion of the sushi industry into a global phenomenon. Compare this to those fish that were “left behind,” as it were — fish like sayori and kohadathat are only rarely encountered in other countries but have immense popularity and cultural value in Japan.
One could imagine that if awareness of and value for MSC certification was growing among the Japanese public to a level where it was driving demand, we would be seeing certification efforts on these domestically-driven fisheries as well. And yet…?
