Posted by dnetesn 2 days ago
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-pescatores-dilemma_b_2463...
I always find it super weird that people will eat soy bean products over, say, meat or cream when they’ve never seen a soy bean plant in their whole lives.
Take salmon for instance. In a lifetime of preparing and then eating several portions of salmon per week, I've noticed that the farmed salmon are pretty much always:
-Very pale pink color, as though the animal was unhealthy (sometimes stores even add red food dye to cover this up)
-Weak and mushy flesh, even when fresh; healthy salmon flesh is muscled and springy, it isn't naturally slimy and it holds its shape
-Weak flavor that seems to be missing a lot of the more robust flavor notes entirely
-Thinner or nearly-nonexistent layer of fat between the flesh and the scales (contributes to less flavor overall and removes a lot of the umami); the same problem also applies to the thin bands of fat between the rows of muscle in the filet itself
-Skin/scales slightly disintegrate or fleck away at a touch instead of remaining intact
I don't even bother buying it even if it's significantly cheaper.
I can't imagine that the nutrient content is the same as the wild-caught fish. And based on the sickly look and taste of the meat, it's also very hard to believe that the farmed fish live a life that they find to be pleasant, to the extent such a thing is possible.
https://www.dal.ca/news/2023/03/21/farmed-salmon-colour-heal...
The amounts differ, and the farm feed may be synthetic.
I eat wild-caught salmon every day (as part of https://srid.ca/carnivore-diet) and can totally confirm this. Farmed salmon's taste is very off-putting. I noticed this only after switching to wild salmon for a few weeks.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-per-protein-poore
I'd argue that if we're looking for a full top-to-bottom sustainable food system, animals will play a role. But we need to be cognizant of the whole system, not playing whack-a-mole with issues.
According to your source, there are 15 sources of protein that emit less greenhouse gases (GHGs) per 100g of protein than farmed fish, including poultry and eggs, and 16 sources that emit more (including items that are not known for their protein content like coffee, apples, and dark chocolate). Being highly charitable, farmed fish is squarely in the middle.
Additionally, farmed fish emits twice the GHGs of tofu, and almost 22 times that of nuts. So just comparing placements on the list paints a misleading picture.
As for "not willing to go full vegetarian": you may as well say "not willing to stop eating fish", because they are equally unserious limitations when discussing these topics. "Not being willing" is only a slightly more mature version of a child saying "I don't want to".
If you're quibbling about wording, all I meant was: farmed fish and chicken are among the most sustainable meat sources.
I'm not making a statement that people should eat meat, but many people do eat meat, so it's worth comparing which meat sources are better than others. I think it would be great if more people knew that beef produces 10x the greenhouse gases than chicken/fish do.
If you'll forgive me borrowing your logic: "I'm not saying that people should eat beef, but many people do eat beef, so it's worth comparing which beef sources are better than others."
Plant-based diets are a very good answer to the problems caused by animal agriculture. If someone takes issue with that answer, I'd need a better reason than their personal pleasure to take them seriously in the conversation.
I think this harm-reduction approach might make more sense from a governmental policy perspective, but is otherwise silly for us to take as individuals because we have such comparatively little influence over each other's choices. I wouldn't waste that small influence encouraging someone to make a slightly less bad choice.
The comparison of food to transportation is a bad one. Nutrients are nutrients, and everything else is personal pleasure. In other words, you can easily hit your same macros by replacing animal products with plant products without even having to change grocery stores. You cannot easily transport a mattress on a bicycle instead of a car.
Good in theory, horrible in practice.
[1] FDA “Approved Drugs for Use in Aquaculture” — https://www.fda.gov/media/80297/download
[2] Jensen et al., Nutrients 2020 — https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12123665
Also what I wrote about shrimp from any 3rd world country is valid - I've seen such place this summer in Indonesia, and from what I've heard whole south east Asia is exactly like that, or worse. Getting shrimp from some western democracy with strong consumer protection rights ain't possible in many parts of Europe, not sure about other places