Progressive Wednesday

One Fish, Twelve Fish, Good Fish, Bad Fish.

Food & Water Watch, a socially and economically progressive non-profit organization, just recently came out with their 2010 National Smart Seafood Guide. It’s an eye-opener.

First, here’s a little more about Food & Water Watch and why this guide is legit and significant. Food & Water Watch’s goal is to ensure that our food, water, and fish are “safe, accessible and sustainable.” Common sense policies designed for the public good, not for private gain, are at the heart of what drives this organization. It is interested not only in safety, but also in the economic viability of family farmers. To read more about them, click this sentence.

This year’s National Smart Seafood Guide will probably change the way you eat (in good ways, both for you and for small fisheries). To create the guide, Food & Water Watch “analyzed over 100 different fish and shellfish to create the only guide assessing not only the human health and environmental impacts of eating certain seafood, but also the socio-economic impacts on coastal and fishing communities.”

You can peruse the guide by fishing region or by general categories of fish.

But there’s an alarming section of the guide as well. Food & Water Watch calls this list “The Dirty Dozen,” and it includes seafood to be avoided completely because each of them fails multiple criteria used by the organization to evaluate fish.

Editor’s Note: This list is in alphabetical order. This is not a ranking.

• American eel (a.k.a. yellow or silver eel). Why? They are jacked to the max with concentrations of mercury and PCBs.
• Atlantic bluefin tuna. Why? They are chocked full of mercury and PCBs. They are overfished and are reaching levels that would categorize them as facing extinction. They are listed as “critically endangered.”
• Atlantic cod. Why? This is an incredibly overfished fish, and it appears on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. As if that wasn’t disconcerting enough, they are fished using bottom trawls, which can destroy seafloors for other animals.
• Atlantic flatfish (a.k.a. flounder, sole, halibut). Why? They are overfished beyond belief, and their fishing results in a high level of bycatch, despite efforts to reduce it.
• Atlantic and farmed salmon. Why? The farmed variety can have high levels of PCBs, pesticides, and antibiotics. The method of raising farmed salmon creates an environment where diseases can flow from the farm into the wild. Editor’s Note: Farmed salmon is usually labeled “Atlantic salmon.” Fishing wild Atlantic salmon in the U.S. is banned because the fish is facing extinction.
• Caviar. Why? Sturgeon, the fish responsible for the “highest quality” of caviar (I put that in quotes because I think it’s all pretty foul) are overfished because of their slow maturation and impressive lifespan (most will outlive you and me, that is, if we don’t make them extinct).
• Chilean sea bass. Why? Mercury, for one. Illegal fishing, for two. Fishing that has killed several species of endangered birds, for three.
• Imported catfish. Why? Because of how poorly regulated Southeast Asian fish is (both in terms of chemicals and antibiotics), and because the FDA only inspects less than two percent of imported fish.
• Imported King Crab. Why? This one is seriously messed up. Okay, so, even though many of these crabs live in U.S. waters, the U.S. imports a great deal of crab. Why? Get this…. Exporters will sell crab caught in the U.S. to other countries where it can fetch more money, and then we import cheaper crab. Much of this imported crab is caught illegally. (I wrote it before I’ll write it again: less than two percent of imported fish is inspected by the FDA.)
• Imported shrimp. Why? 90 percent of shrimp eaten in the U.S. (I should note that it is the most eaten seafood in the U.S.) is imported (there’s that pesky two percent inspected, again), and those countries exporting to us have poorly regulated working and production conditions.
• Orange roughy. Why? First, they can contain high levels of mercury. Second, they are overfished.
• Shark. Why? I feel like a broken record (or MP3): mercury levels in shark can pose a serious health risk.

Am I saying you shouldn’t eat fish? No. Is Food & Water Watch saying you shouldn’t eat fish? No. In fact, their guidebook will help you pick healthy, safe, and sustainable seafood.

This Wednesday: Reviving Niagara

Problem:

The first years of my memory are of Niagara Falls. We lived on Orchard Parkway in a tiny second-floor house apartment. And as I grew up in the surrounding area, I learned to think of my hometown as the honeymoon and suicide capital of the world.

I grew up with daredevils risking life, limb, and the lives and limbs of their rescuers, by plummeting in various contraptions over the Horseshoe Falls. I saw news reports of poor fools who fell and drown to their deaths on kayaks and jet-skis as they tried to conquer the cataracts. I watched national television coverage of the lawsuits connected to Love Canal, a neighborhood that was the site of one of the worst toxic-waste-dumping scandals in American history.

My first job, as a bakery assistant, was in Niagara Falls at the headquarters of Di Camillo Bakery, a family business still thriving in this city. And I watched as department stores and jewelry stores and restaurants evaporated from Main Street, turning the road into an assortment of seedy bars, adult novelty stores, and boarded up buildings, each empty as the pockets of the homeless wandering the city. And I watched as the factories closed their doors, and added good, hard-working souls to the unemployment lines– ¦.

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Make Progress:

But I also grew up next to a place where people teem to see one the natural wonders of the world. And I grew up in an area where my relatives worked the bluest-collar of jobs, but managed to put lasagna on the table (we're good Italian-Americans, after all). And I grew up where my grandfather landed after traveling the Atlantic to move to America, the same city where my father was raised and remained, the same city where my sister got married. And I grew up next to one of the marvels of electrical science, the Niagara Power Project.

And so I believe in this place. And I love this place. And it's time we all helped this treasure of not just New York, but of America, and not just of America, but of the world. We're ready, if you are, to make progress in Niagara Falls.

• Buy
• Sign
• Give
• E-mail
• Eat

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Editor’s Note: Below you’ll find photos of some of our favorite locations in the city of Niagara Falls.

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The Little Italy neighborhood and business district.

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The genius that is the Niagara Power Project. To learn more about it, click here.

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Di Camillo Bakery, where they make the best Italian bread you’ll ever eat.

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The Niagara River in autumn (if it wasn’t obvious from, you know, the leaves).

Reviving Niagara: Eat

Eat:

That should probably read “Mangia,– because Niagara Falls, New York is famous for it's Italian eateries. The Como Restaurant was even featured on the Food Network. And the Little Italy section of the city is larger than the one in New York City, and believe you me when I say that I don't exaggerate when it comes to food.

We've eaten Italian food in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Cleveland, Tampa, Columbus, the District of Columbia, Chicago, Las Vegas, Trenton, Newark, Baltimore, and Los Angeles, and nothing, nothing comes close to the variety or quality of the Italian food you'll find in Niagara Falls.

Whether you live in Omaha and you're planning a trip to see this natural wonder of the world, or if you live in Erie County, just steer clear of the homogenized junk served up at Applebees, Texas Roadhouse, Don Pablo's, and The Olive Garden, and hit the privately held establishments in the Falls. Gobble some gnocchi, Fettuccine Alfredo, chicken Parmesan, or good old spaghetti and meatballs at the Como, Michael's, Fortuna’s, Macri's Italian Grille, Gagster’s, Good Fellas Pizzeria, La Bruschetta– ¦.

The list goes on and on and on and on, and what a tasty list it is.