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The primary focus of my work is on the role of animals, especially cattle, in human health and the health of our ecosystem. But here’s a little secret – red meat is not my only source of protein. I love seafood! And I want to make sure I am making the most sustainable choice when purchasing my seafood. 

On the consumer level, it is challenging to sort out label claims, be up-to-date on the current watch lists, and keep tabs on mercury levels, all while trying to put dinner on the table.

For this episode, I have two special guests with me that are experts in the area of sustainability and seafood. Together we are going to break down what sustainability in seafood actually looks like and how we, as consumers, can make better choices.

Jon Russel is the Food Justice Organizer for the North American Marine Alliance (NAMA), where he focuses on supporting the fights of BPOC food producers. NAMA is a fishermen-led organization that is building healthy fisheries and fishing communities.

Also joining me is Shannon Eldredge. Her family has been in the fishing industry for generations, and Shannon was a shellfish harvester and weir fisherman in the Cape Cod area for years. She currently works for and is on the board of Chatham Harvesters, a fisherman-led seafood cooperative.

Jon and Shannon help us cut through the noise when it comes to the complicated issue of sustainable seafood. During this conversation, we cover: 

• Farm-raised vs. wild seafood
• The problem with the Seafood Watch list
• How fishing is like hunting
• Can farmed seafood be sustainable
• Where to source your seafood
• Fresh vs. frozen seafood
• The negative effects of catch shares on small-scale farmers
• Seafood cooking tips

For more information on wild and farm-raised seafood comparisons, NAMA  partnered with FoodPrint, an organization that researches the impact of food production practices on the environment, animals, workers, and public health.  

 

Resources:

North American Marine Alliance (NAMA)

Chatham Harvesters

FoodPrint: The Farmed Seafood Report, The Wid Seafood Report

Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch

Sustainable Dish Episode 234: Storm Baynes-Ryan

Local Catch Network

Wild for Salmon

Fishadelphia

Red’s Best

Block Corporate Salmon

 

Connect with Jon & Shannon:

Website: NAMA | Chatham Harvesters

Instagram: @nama_net | @chathamharvesters

Facebook: @NorthAmericanMarineAlliance | Chatham Harvesters Cooperative

Twitter: @NAMA_NET

YouTube: NAMA NET | Chatham Harvestors Cooperative

 

Episode Credits:

Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers and James Connelly. Our producer is Emily Soape. And, of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Global Food Justice Alliance members, and listeners.

If you believe in making sure that people all over the world should have access to nutritious food, please join my mission through my non-profit, the Global Food Justice Alliance. All sustaining members get early access to ad-free podcasts plus free downloads, and you’ll be helping get healthy protein like meat, fish, and eggs to food-insecure kids. That’s sustainabledish.com/join.

For the month of February, running a free community blood sugar challenge. You’ll learn how to use a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) to guide your food choices, plus a free ebook and access to live Zoom calls.

I’m also partnering with Levels to offer two free months when you sign up as a member to get the CGM without a prescription. Just visit sustainabledish.com/bloodsugar to sign up.

And if you are listening to this after our challenge has ended, you can still get access to my blood sugar challenge ebook and the recorded Zoom calls, plus the special offer from Levels. 

 

Transcript:

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Welcome to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. I’m Diana Rodgers, a real food registered dietitian, author, and sustainability advocate. I co-host this podcast with James Connolly, who was a producer on my film Sacred Cow. I also founded the Global Food Justice Alliance, an initiative advocating for the inclusion of animal-source foods like meat, dairy, and eggs for a more nutritious, sustainable, and equitable worldwide food system. You can check it out and join me at global food justice.org. Thanks again for listening. And now, on to our show. 

(Blood Sugar Challenge Ad) Diana Rodgers, RD

Hey Everyone. I’m really excited to let you know about the free community blood sugar challenge that I am running for the month of February for my followers. You’ll learn how to use a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) to find out how food impacts your individual body so that you can make the best choices when it comes to your diet. It was a complete game changer for me, and I recommend CGMs to all of my nutrition clients. I’m partnering with Levels to offer two free months when you sign up as a member to get the CGM without a prescription. You just need to visit sustainabledish.com/bloodsugar – all one word – and enter your email to get the free ebook, access to the live Zoom calls, and this special offer from Levels. And if you are listening to this after our challenge has ended, you can still get access to my blood sugar challenge ebook and the recorded Zoom calls, plus the special offer from Levels. Learning about how food impacts your blood sugar is valuable information we all should know. Visit sustainabledish.com/bloodsugar to sign up.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Welcome back to the podcast, everybody. I am excited to be talking all about sustainable seafood today. Seafood is a really complex topic. It’s something that I really haven’t done much research on; I’ve been overly focused, as you all know, on health and sustainability when it comes to land animals, specifically grazing animals. I personally love fish; I actually prefer fish to beef, believe it or not, and I eat a ton of fish and shellfish. And I do find it really complicated to make sure that I’m making a good purchase. I don’t always trust the labels that I see in the stores. So I’m going to be learning with you all as we go through this podcast. And today, I have with me two special guests, Jon Russell and Shannon Eldredge. And they’re going to be helping explain how you guys can make better choices when it comes to seafood. So Jon, why don’t we start with you? You can give us a little bit of your background and the work you do.

Jon Russell  

Yeah, what’s up, everyone? Yeah, so I’m the food justice organizer at NAMA. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  

And can you explain what NAMA is, please? 

Jon Russell  

Yeah, NAMA is the North American Marine Alliance. And, our goal is to protect the ocean commons. And I feel like every week of the year, that entails completely different work, which is super cool. And also speaks to, you know, the kind of many heads that we’re trying to deal with of, you know, the struggle to protect our oceans. You know, and I think one thing I like to kind of name is that seafood is really complex when you go to the store and everything, but it’s for good reason because it’s one of our only wild sources of food left in like, large commercial settings. Whereas, like, you know, vegetables, fruits, and land animals are all farmed at this point. And so we see huge amounts of species of fish from all different fisheries all different times of the years, all different types of capturing everything. And that’s great. And learning about that. You get to learn about healthier choices, and you get to learn about, you know, your local fisheries or the fisheries of the region that you’re interested in getting fish from, and that’s like, just good knowledge for being healthy.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Totally. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. I already have a bunch of questions that I have written down for you. Shannon, why don’t you introduce yourself to our listeners, and I’ll make even more notes for questions for you.

Shannon Eldredge  

Okay, sure. Yeah. Hi, Diana. I’m Shannon Eldredge. I live out on Cape Cod. I was a fisherman alongside my father and my partner Russell for many, many years. I was a wild shellfish harvester and owned and operated a fishery business out of Nantucket sound. And we just retired our family business last year. And now, I work for a small nonprofit called the fishing partnership that supports the health, safety, and economic security of fishing families across the Commonwealth. I was also on the board of NAMA for many years, and I’m on the board of the Chatham Harvesters Coop, which is a fisherman-led seafood cooperative here in Chatham.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Awesome. All right. So I guess my first question that a lot of people might be thinking in their heads. Let’s talk about farmed versus wild. And also maybe the nuances within farmed with like shellfish versus something like salmon. Who wants to take that one on? Yeah, you can both answer it. Yeah. Go ahead, Shannon.

Shannon Eldredge  

Let me… I can start with, you know, wild shellfish or wild fish. Let’s just start there. Wildcard seafood is our last wild protein, and there’s so many benefits to eat in the wild protein. It’s, you know, not pumped with hormones. And there are a lot of, you know, we use this word sustainable practices to harvest that fish. And, you know, eating sustainably caught wild seafood is supporting a lot of, you know, fishing families across the United States. So that’s kind of a general overview, which is pretty broad. And then when you get into the nuances, we have, you know, an emerging aquaculture industry in the world under the guise that we have a hunger crisis, and we need to feed people, and we have this ocean crisis that we need to protect. And there are a lot of things in that that are very inaccurate. But I will say in terms of farm shellfish that, especially here on the East Coast, we have a lot of family shellfish farmers that are producing oysters, little next and doing a bang-up job feeding people that credible protein and also cleaning our waters as well, which is so huge. So, you know, when you’re talking about farm-raised finfish. So huge carbon footprint to be able to produce that less there’s a lot of harm to the ecosystem when you kind of interrupt the flow of a species’ natural kind of growth cycle in the water column. So plus, anytime that there’s like an industrial scale food production, it harms a lot of different things like the people who are most connected to harvesting that fish the food, you know, the family, the family fishermen, the family farmers. And I’ll stop there. I’m gonna let Jon take it from there.

Diana Rodgers, RD 

Okay, well, what would you like to add, Jon?

Jon Russell  

Yeah, I mean, first off, you kind of nested a couple questions into it to give like some specifics, and any one of those nested questions could have been this whole, like half hour/hour. Yeah, I think so. You know, the common narrative that we see going around is that like, you know, wild fishing and fishermen are destroying the oceans. And we’ve seen you know, Seaspiracy and all these like, huge things. Also, don’t google Seaspiracy, we don’t want to give them more traffic than they already get. But, um, we see all these things talking about like all the like harms and dangers fishermen are causing the ocean. And, you know, there are some, like industrial operations, that are extremely damaging. And you know, who are like the first people, who are like speaking up and like fighting against it are your local like, small, like in regional fisherfolk. Like they’re the ones who are going to be the most impacted by that. So just casting a wide net saying all fish, like all wild fishing is bad, is super dangerous, because it feeds into a lot of these industrial narratives because it’s like, you have like the Pacific’s the Cargill, is all these massive companies who invest huge into space. And when they see like, really bad narratives go into it. You know, you see Cargill starts going towards like all the soy, the GMO soy and everything and like all the plant-based proteins, and you see all these companies like going towards like aquaculture and everything because they’re like, Oh, well, people are mad at that, so we’re gonna go do this, destroy it, and when they get mad at that, we’ll just pivot to the next thing. Meanwhile, all the like small wild fishermen, all the small shellfish farmers, and stuff are just like catching strays all the way through. So like scale’s always got to be, like, such a huge consideration when thinking about, like, what’s good or not. And then like, yeah, just like wild catfisheries are in cycle with the ecosystem. And like when done well are super great. And there’s definitely more work that needs to be done on just like communal management. But that’s like, that’s a good problem to have, like, figuring out how we manage each and work with each other is great. And then just like, you know, banning a type of small sustainable practice is not the play. Yeah, and I also want to shout out Foodprint. We’ve gotten to work with them on two awesome reports. The farm seafood report and the wild seafood report that really dig into a lot of these like details that like we don’t have time to, like really go into. But there’s a lot of really great content between those.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah, we’ll post those two reports in the show notes. And I’ll let people know what they are when we write up the show. I know that lobster and Whole Foods Market have been in the press a lot lately. And I used to work for Whole Foods Market for many years. I know also, there were some groups trying to ban lobster and there was like a billboard in the airport in Portland. Do you guys want to? Are you familiar with that? Do you want to talk about it? I feel like it was all over New England news this summer.

Jon Russell  

Yeah, Shannon has a lot of really good details. And I just want to do some framing of one giant miss, I think there is, is there was a lot of news, whenever, like the lobster, the Maine lobster fishery got like…  I can’t remember the exact details but just like a warning around their engagement and white whale morbidities. So the warning wasn’t that they were killing the right whales, it was that you’re not giving the information as to how they’re dying. They actually got like they were notified that they weren’t monitoring things well, properly, not that they were the ones killing it. And that’s what caused like the notice to go out. And then if you look at the data, and you look at where most of the right whale deaths are coming from, it’s the overwhelming majority, not the lobster fishery. But there’s still you know, because of Monterey Bay Seafood Watch because of MBSC and all these labels, not knowing that or not being aware of it, not listening, not quite sure. They’re still just getting so thrown under the bus, even though they’re doing well.

Shannon Eldredge  

One thing we really need to be careful is to not make our family food producers the enemy. And on the ocean there’s a lot of people that are very passionate about protecting the ocean and protecting the marine mammals and all sorts of species. And fishermen are also the people trying to protect the ocean. There isn’t a fisherman out there that wants to kill the whales, their intention isn’t that and their intention is to protect the ocean, to continue to feed people. So we have this, you know, gear type that sometimes untangles whales and other marine mammals and turtles and things and seals and things like that. And it’s really sad and really unfortunate that it happens. But we also have big ships that bring all your goods into port and things like that, that strike whales and do the same thing in cars, cause more mortalities as well. There are lots of scientists that are working with fishermen to try to mitigate these risks to the marine mammals and fishermen are going to the ends to try to compromise and to be able to continue to feed everybody and protect the ocean. So to you know, boycott or ban a bunch of very, very small scale lobster fishermen, in Maine, and in a state that relies on that industry very, very heavily, is really dangerous on a lot of levels. Because you’re cutting off a food source, you’re cutting off an entire industry, and you’re harming communities of people that are just trying to live and feed everyone. So I think the message is that fishermen are trying to protect the ocean, not trying to do any harm to it or trying to feed everybody and we need to be we need to look at the nuances before we start to boycott there’s a lot of harm that’s done when you do that communities. And so you know, if you’re looking at alternatives like okay, boycott Maine lobster, remember, where are you going? Are you going to an industrial scale lobster production from some other place? Are you importing that and causing a massive carbon footprint of bringing it in from somewhere else? I mean, it’s the list could go on. So the takeaway is that fishermen have sacrificed as well to try to, you know, help manage the ocean and protect the mammals that they’re sharing the ocean with.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah, you know, I see such parallels. I’m just hearing such parallels between what fishermen are facing and hunters when it comes to protecting, you know, our forests and national parks and areas where they’re hunting, they’re stewards of that land because they’re not out there to, you know, fishermen aren’t out there to rape the ocean. They’re out there because they love being on the sea, and they are making their living this way. And, you know, same with livestock farmers, they’re not out there to harm their cattle, they want to steward the land. They want to protect soil health, biodiversity, they love their pastures, and they’re just trying to make a living. And it’s just such a common thing I keep hearing over and over again, you know, with so many podcasts I do where, you know, I just did one the other day with a farmer in New Zealand to, you know, these sheep and beef farmers are being taxed for their carbon emissions when they’re 100%, pasture-based, and these taxes are really going to destroy rural communities and put farmers out of business. And it’s such a similar story to what I’m hearing here. When it comes to farmed seafood, farmed finfish, are there any models that you guys see that are okay? That are better? I mean, I did get in an argument with one seafood company that was doing some farmed fish. And they called themselves regenerative and their inputs were just GMO grains that were going into these fish. And when I called them out, and this was privately I didn’t do it publicly. When I called them out, their response wasn’t, how can we do better or anything. It was, well, you are the only ones who asked us about this. And like, you know, nobody else seems to care kind of thing. You know, we want to call it regenerative. But is there any farmed fish that a consumer could buy that they can feel okay about? Or is it something that you guys as experts 100% reject?

Jon Russell  

So as the average consumer going to like your Whole Foods, or Giant Eagle or you know, just showing my Midwest upbringing.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah. All of us are in Massachusetts.

Jon Russell  

I don’t think so. But that’s not to say that models don’t exist, because there’s actually really cool, small scale finfish farming that happens. You know, there’s a lot of really cool Black catfish farmers, I’m sorry, Black farmers who are farming catfish. But yeah. Down in like the southeast and stuff, working in ponds and small areas. And there are some folks that do just like interesting models of working with, like urban farms, and using like water runoff or using the runoff water from the fish farm to use as fertilizer and stuff for the soil for the urban farm. And like have this like cycle go for it. Because then the water gets filtered. Some of that can be used back again. And it’s super cool. And then like, you know, if you look at Native populations, like they, like farming is definitely not the word that a lot of these communities would use, but just in ways that they create, like

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Ecosystems and habitats that are conducive for that species to thrive.

Jon Russell  

Exactly. Yeah, there’s a ton of awesome models and you know, Faroe Island salmon – don’t do it. Farm salmon – don’t do it. All these kinds of things are like really easy ‘Nos.’ And if you’re seeing something farmed in a large retail grocery store, that is finfish –  sorry, specifically finfish it’s just pretty easy to say no, as of 2023.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Okay, that’s good to know.

Shannon Eldredge  

And don’t be fooled by, you know, don’t get fooled by packaging that says like organic and natural and things like that, because there’s not a lot of weight to those words when it comes to fish. If you’re going to purchase fish, and it’s wild, it is natural and organic. If it’s farmed, it’s just not. And that’s just a very easy distinction to make. And you know, when you ask about farmed finfish, my mind automatically goes to in the United States, you know, we have… we harvest more fish than we consume wild-caught. And why would we, you know, continue to export that fish when we and then we’re searching for farmed raised fish. I was in the fish market here in Chatham, Massachusetts, the elbow of Cape Cod, which is the third largest fishing port in Massachusetts, a few years ago at a market right on the fish pier. And I walked in and I was looking for… I can’t remember. I think lobster. And I know, they were… I know, they had gotten it from the local fleet. In front of me in line was somebody that was looking for salmon. And the salmon said wild-caught. And the person asked the man behind the counter, but do you have farm-raised? And the guy behind the counter was like, Well, no, we don’t have farm raised. And they were like, Okay, nevermind. And it was the most shocking thing I’d ever like experienced in a fish market Because I was like, Why in the world, would somebody believe that that was going to be a better source of protein for them. Because that’s really what it boils down to, is that, when you’re choosing to eat something, you’re choosing on a couple of levels. One, you’re choosing deliciousness, and you have a recipe and all that stuff. But you’re also putting it in your body, because you need it, you need something about it. And a wild source of protein has way more benefits than then a farm-raised. finfish. So, you know, when you’re thinking about what you’re going to eat, I’m always going to go for fresh. And if a fresh fish, or even flash frozen fish is fine, too, you know, but I’m always gonna go for something that’s wild-caught, because, ya know, we have an abundance of it in this country that is really good.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

And I have, in the past, worked with some farmed seafood companies that, you know, I didn’t make a lot of sustainability claims about them. But I did talk about them being a good source of protein. But I am going to shift that now. So I appreciate you educating me on that. Again, it’s complicated, and these companies have a lot of claims. And it’s hard, even as a sustainability advocate it’s hard to discern that without the background that you guys have. So I appreciate hearing about that. But when it comes to shellfish, oh, and I just wanted to make another point too, because I have looked into the nutritional benefits of wild versus farmed when it comes to fish. Now when it comes to domesticated animals, like grass-fed versus feedlot finished beef, there’s not a huge difference in the nutrient profile because that both animals are spending the majority of their life on pasture and the feedlot finishing doesn’t really dramatically impact the nutrient profile of that burger that you’re eating. But when it comes to salmon, for example, there is a very, very dramatic difference. And they’re so rich in omega fatty acids that the difference between a wild salmon and a farmed salmon is quite significant, especially because there’s such a rich source of omegas. Now when it comes to oysters and other shellfish, I don’t know if there’s a difference. I imagine there’s not a difference because they kind of grow similarly. Yeah. And as far as sustainability-wise, again, you had mentioned that they can be farmed sustainably. Yeah, so Okay. 

Shannon Eldredge  

Absolutely. Yes. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah. And I just want to add to that, oysters are just off the charts, the most superfood I have ever researched out of any food I’ve looked at so I try to eat them as often as I see them on sale.

Shannon Eldredge  

Yeah, and there’s lots of programs to where people are doing shipping and you can pick up at least out here we’re very fortunate out here on Cape Cod where there are you know, oyster farmers and and quahog farmers that do pickups you know programs or you can go to their you know, shanty or shop and buy a kind of retail directly from them, which is really awesome. Unfortunately, we don’t have direct kind of off the boat sales with shellfish in Massachusetts. They do believe that’s possible up in Maine, but I’m out here in mass, you know, you still have to do processing which has to go through some passive things, but it’s as close to free shuffleboard as you can get for now, and there are just so many great family farmers out here that make, you know, a decent living to support their families. And they are you’re absolutely right, providing people with an amazing source of protein that is just absolutely healthy. And yeah. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  

And I have a friend that lives in Summerville that gets an oyster share. So I know that’s an option as well.

Jon Russell  

Yeah, and I mean, so obviously, if you’re near the coast, obviously, seafood should be fairly straightforward of how to get. But you know, you also check out it’s finder – local catch.org. Local Catch Network has a seafood finder, so you can check out like anything that’s nearby. And you’ll see, okay, if you’re in like Nebraska, like South Dakota, something like that, Not much options yet. We’re working on it, you know, we’re expanding our networks, but otherwise like to like the Midwest to, like a lot of like, especially if you’re like near the Rockies, Columbia River and stuff. There’s a lot of really good sources for seafood, even like away from the coastlines. And there’s companies like, I’ll shout one out that’s in eastern Pennsylvania Wild for Salmon. They’re Alaska fishing folks. And they flash freeze the fish and bring it over to the greater Philly region. Not quite in Philly, but close. And Fishadelphia, also in Philly, amazing crew. And there’s so many people I want to shout out. But yeah, another podcast.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Okay, well, and I think that that also brings up the point of frozen. So let’s talk about that. Because I think, you know, people are starting I think a little bit to get more comfortable with buying their proteins, especially in the case of seafood where it is so perishable, and degrade so quickly. I mean, and having worked in Whole Foods Market for so many years, I saw the waste that would happen because of people’s preference to buy things fresh. And, you know, nobody wants that last anything, right. That’s why produce displays are overflowing with the lemons because no one wants to buy a lemon if there’s just three lemons on display. They want to buy a lemon off 500 lemons on display. And the same thing with the meat and seafood counters. But with seafood in particular, again because it’s so perishable, there’s just ridiculous amounts of waste that happen because people want to see a big variety of fresh or thawed seafood when we could just very easily be buying it frozen. And in some cases, it might actually be fresher to you if you buy it frozen and thawed in your kitchen. Do you guys want to add anything to the frozen fresh conversation? 

Shannon Eldredge  

Well, I can just say, as a fisherman for many, many years, we would stock our own freezer, because how lucky am I to go out and catch fish? I know how to process it in my own kitchen and then freeze it right away to have down the line. So I know that it holds up, you know, especially just you know, poop vacuum sealed, take all the air right out, get it all nice right away in the freezer right away. And then, you know, 3, 4, 6 months later, thaw it out and it tastes just as good as it would fresh. I mean, I know that because I can… I was fortunate enough to be able to compare that. And so, you know, I think I think that’s going to be a really helpful thing for, in general, like kind of the food insecurity challenges that a lot of communities face, to be able to have shelf stable things, to have frozen options to be able to stock your freezer and things like that. Yeah, I… to be able to ship it that way. And expand some of our, you know, domestic hot seafood in to the interior of the us like we’re talking about places that don’t have access to it, so that we’re not exporting it overseas. And when you’re able to do that you’re able to get a better price to the fishermen so that they can actually sustain themselves a little bit more with the high costs of production and things like that. So there’s a lot of benefits to being able to flash freeze something and for consumers to accept that. And yeah, I can’t say enough about that. Our coop is doing that. The Chatham Harvesters Co-Op, we had the fishermen coming right in and we were vacuum sealing and putting it right into the freezer so that we could go to the farmers market two days later, you know, on the days that the guys work, coming in on the day of the farmers market because you can’t always fish that day, right? You got stormy seas, you’ve got closures. There’s a lot of management restrictions, you know, that restrict certain times a year and things like that. But we still got to feed everybody. Right? So if you want to support the ecosystem, then you’re going to have to freeze things sometimes. 

Jon Russell  

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the freezing of fish is like, often not always, but with like liquid nitrogen –  whereas some folks might be familiar with like, some produce the gases used to like cryogenically freeze, at least like fruits and vegetables are super toxic, like, not great for humans to be around. And, you know, by the time it reaches the grocery store, the effect fades, but it’s just like,

Diana Rodgers, RD  

 It’s still the environment. 

Jon Russell  

Exactly. And you don’t have to be afraid of that with fish because it’s most often just nitrogen. Yeah, and, you know, there’s obviously like having to freeze food and ship food and all these things like isn’t great. Like, ideally, you know, we’re working away from like any of that. But like, thinking of like supply chain issues, the damage from farmed fin fish operations, getting larger, taking over the damage from fish, even wild caught fisheries getting overly consolidated, so that it’s only the massive, massive, like factory fleets out there. The damage from those are gonna be way more than the damage from getting really awesomely caught frozen fish from maybe not your region or something like that. So it takes so much knowledge of like the ecosystem of fisheries right now to like, make that comparison. But it’s like, if you talk with any local regional fisherfolk, they’re gonna say, frozen is great. And it’s for good reason.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah. All right, I have two more topics I’d love to talk about one is certifications, of course, and just, you know, where can people go? What are some of the issues going on with some of these organizations that are, you know, giving green lights to some things and red lights to others? And then after that, I want to kind of close out with talking about, like, how can we increase consumption of seafood? What are your favorite ways to cook it? I mean, I think people are just scared to cook it at home, I grew up on Long Island, and we ate fish all the time. And I watched my dad cook it and I’m not scared of my oven and throwing a whole fish in there. So for me, it’s not a big deal. But for a lot of people, I do think it’s intimidating to cook fish. So, so I’d love to kind of just, you know, inspire people to eat more, to get more adventurous. And to you know, maybe pick up that fish that they haven’t heard of the name before that it doesn’t have to be those top four fish, it can be, you know, that beautiful white looking fish that’s just there and looks good. Anyway, so let’s start with certifications. And how do folks navigate all these certifications that they’re seeing at the retail level?

Shannon Eldredge  

Um, let me just briefly mention, I mean, we see like red, green, yellow lists, Seafood Watch Monterey Bay, places like that, where, you know, they’re saying this is not sustainably caught, therefore, don’t consume it, don’t buy it, don’t eat it. But those lists don’t take into consideration scale. So they might look at some, you know, gear type or something that or, or stock assessment of that fish and say, you know, it’s been depleted from the ocean. And the way that that’s harvested is very, very damaging, because it drags along the bottom or something like that. But what’s concerning is that doesn’t take into consideration that there’s small, medium and industrial scale fishing operations in our waters. And so when you have somebody who’s at a small scale that’s sustainable, because, you know, they’re highly managed, first of all, they’re complying with those management because they don’t have any really other choice. I know this because I was a very, very small scale fishing operation. And some of the fish that I harvested were on those, you know, yellow and red lists, yet. They happen to be abundant in my waters at the time that I was harvesting. And I was literally pulling them out of the ocean with these two hands, pulling nets with no machinery. You can’t get more sustainable In that, so when I look at those lists, it removes the consumer, from the fisherman from their food producer, and just tells them like, Hey, look at this list, and don’t know anything else about the way it was caught. And I know it’s a little, you know, it’s easier to do that, because it’s, you know, there’s scientists, and there’s people behind that list who’ve done some research. And they’ve really thought about it. And ocean conservation is, is the ultimate thing behind all that. But a lot of ocean conservation measures don’t take into consideration the family fishermen, the family, seafood producers, so we really need to look at that, before we can kind of blanket ban certain species, because it does really do harm to those smaller scale producers that are just, you know, using their hands doing what they’ve done for multiple generations, you know, trying to make a living and ended up fishing really in the red because they can’t find a market because their fish has been so to speak banned on a Seafood Watch List.

Jon Russell  

Yeah, and I mean, not to mention, you know, the basis for a lot of these bans comes from, you know, annual quarterly reports of, like fish stock. And it’s like, well, who’s measuring the fish stock? It’s the fishing folks. And, you know, one, like Pacific round fish, for instance, has been something that has been, people have been trying to restore it for a really long time. There is a fishing quota system that was implemented with the Magnuson Stevens act. And, you know, it was like allotted as, look how much like, these quotas like fixed the Pacific round fish, but it’s like, if you actually talk to fishermen who are in the Pacific Northwest, like, they’re like, the quota system is not helping, and like the quota system doesn’t help anywhere. In fact, it’s done damage in a lot of areas. And that’s a whole thing because like the the quota, like the permits for that are like tradable. So people are just consolidating them selling them and typical kind of things in that realm. But the data we have around fish stock is hard. And when you see a small, like fishing operation, you think they’re gonna go fish for the thing that’s like, almost gone, or like in damage, they’re like, they’re not gonna be able to catch anything. So like, they’re gonna go for things that are plentiful and healthy. And if they take it, it’s not going to damage their potential income next year. And so, with certifications, they’re just too reductive. And it’s hard to because I think like at the core, a lot of the certifications like have really good intention. It’s just like, how can we at least steer people toward better food decisions. But I think that hope is like kind of toxic, because all they’re doing is severing the relationships of like, local producers and consumers. And I know that that’s not always possible, because like, you know, people be out here working like two or three jobs, because times are hard. And in that case, I mean, like, you get whatever food, you know, gets you your nutrition, or gets you through the day, don’t sweat it. But if you’re lucky, for the folks who do have the time, like, get to know your producers, even even if not everything, even if it’s only for like eggplants you get or only for beef or something. But like once you get to know one, you’ll get to know two, and then slowly, like that’ll spread out. And they’re going to be way better than any certification.

Shannon Eldredge  

That was a really interesting thing at the onset of the pandemic was there is this collective instinct for people to be food secure. And as a fisherman, with a retail boat license, I’m able to sell my fish, I was able to sell my fish directly off the boat, which we had done for generations, but never like that, where people I’d never seen before coming from Boston and New York, moving out here being like, I need to find where my food producers are. And the sense of relief and gratitude that they had towards us was amazing. And that those relationships continued for some people, and they realize like, oh, yeah, this is a good idea. You know, because if, for whatever reason we lose a sense of food security again, and for some people that is every day, you know, but I remember my my great grandmother who lived out here during the Great Depression, which is certainly not like the Dust Bowl, but there were still hard times. I remember asking her like, what was it? Like? Did you did you not have food? And she said, Oh, no, we always she was a fisherman’s wife. So Oh, no, we always had fish. You know, we could always we, we always had fish. And even if we weren’t catching, we knew somebody who is catching this is one of the benefits of living in a coastal community, or coastal state. You can, you know, within a few hours, you can drive and find somebody who’s got food, you know, for you. And I think that I that’s the most beautiful thing. And what it does is it helps people realize, oh, right, when you think about the ocean, you’re not just thinking about, you know, this, you know, conservation management thing you’re thinking about people actually feeding you. And, and we always need to remember that our food producers probably should be paid like NFL superstars and things like that, but they’re unfortunately not. But they probably should be, because they are giving us the most necessary thing that we could possibly need, which is food.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah, I’ll just add a little anecdote my son who’s 18, during COVID, experience the same thing on the farm, and actually wrote his college essay on how proud he was how we had a new sense of pride, because he was an essential worker. And we actually pulled him out of school so that he could work on the farm during COVID, which was helpful for the farm. And also, he’s just not a zoom kids. So he wanted to, you know, not not partake in zoom learning. And it really solidified for him that he wanted to be a food producer, going, experiencing COVID. And seeing all the people that came out from nowhere, just like you said, driving all the way out from Boston to the little farm, and just being felt so thankful to have a place even just to walk around. But also, you know, to get to know who’s producing their food. I want to now kind of finish up with, you know, thoughts on how do we get more people eating fish? I love fish. I eat it all the time. I wonder, you know, you might know more, maybe it’s not a cooking thing. Maybe people feel like it’s too expensive. Or it’s just too they don’t like the flavor. Like what’s going on? Why don’t Americans eat more fish?

Jon Russell  

I can jump in because I think Shannon can one speak to some cooking stuff and like processing stuff. That’ll be really awesome way to close this out. And mine’s a little less happy, cheery. So that Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot to it like, and fish, like as a resource from the ocean are not expensive. Fish in a grocery store are extremely expensive. And, you know, I mentioned this quota system. And for folks who like want to check out more like there’s a lot written up about catch shares is the colloquial name. Colloquial, is that the right term? And what happens is, because there’s a limited amount of fish that can be caught any season, which again, not inherently a bad idea, but there’s permits to the rights to those percentages of fish. And in a lot of places, there’s like, sometimes down to like two people or businesses who have all of it. And they don’t even own a boat or a fishing pole or anything. They are just rich people who bought these as an investment. Which means if you were a local fisherman in that area, you have to pay someone to be even able to go out on the water to catch and it gets extremely bad. Sometimes we have someone in our network who fishes out of the Gulf and the going rate for like, red snapper per pound. The Gulf of Mexico, there’s a lot of gulfs – so the going rate for a pound of red snapper was $4.50 a pound to be able to fish for those red snapper in the first place. They had to promise or they had to get a deal that they would pay $4.25 per pound that they caught. Which means for all the red snapper they’re catching, they’re getting 25 cents a pound. So obviously they stopped like that was there last season. That’s just impossible. And there’s a lot of situations like that where you know people have to, like absurdly inflate the cost of these fish to make up for just like a flat amount being taken off because of these closed systems and Um, and these quotas could exist without a privatize, like ownership to them, like there can still just be, like limits to catch. Because these management, like the fishery management councils are like, and you know, there’s improvements that can be made. But the fishing folk have to buy, like abide by like the communal management process like managing the commons is like things we’ve done for millennia. But then, for some reason that like, now you can’t do it anymore. Do these catch shares. So that drives up the cost so much. And then on top of that, just like the narratives like, oh, there’s mercury in fish, which is also you can get very say fish from mostly like anywhere in the US. And the culture of like, fish workers being like gross and stinky, is just like, it’s it creates this awful stigma around fish that it’s our… it’s like, our last like, major source of wild caught food. And that’s incredible. Like, it should be like revered in that sense. So yeah,

Shannon Eldredge  

Yeah. I mean, just to illustrate something that you were asking Diana, about the, you know, why aren’t people eating more fish? Think about a lot of Americans make a burger patty, right. They take ground beef or pork or whatever, they ball it up in their hands, they pat it and they spend some time on the grill. They got to, you know, watch that burger, so they don’t overcook it, put it you know, prep a bun, put it on a thing, whatever. That’s a that’s, that’s an American tradition that a lot of people enjoy and spend time doing. It takes so much less time to open up a package. Let’s just say let’s just say any white fish, we just say like, let’s just say a skate wing because nobody knows what skate wing is. But I can tell you, you can get a skate wing. They’re abundant in Massachusetts waters, you can open up a package of skate wings, you can put it in a casserole dish, put some breadcrumbs on it little olive oil and throw it in the oven and walk away and read an article on whatever. And 15 minutes later pull it out of the oven and you have dinner.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

That tastes like scallops magically. 

Shannon Eldredge  

Yeah, it tastes amazing. And it was wild caught and you’re supporting a local fishermen. And so you know, people talk about I don’t know how to cook fish. I don’t know the timing. I don’t know this. Well, you just got to experiment a little bit. And most local fishermen or local seafood kind of coops or community supported fisheries, they want to tell you how to process it, they want to tell you how to cook it and prep it. We know because we’ve been spending our entire lives generations back doing it and have the expert knowledge. I can tell you right now a lot of people are like whoa, mackerel. Whoa, bluefish, ugh. It’s ugh. Top favorite fish – mackerel. Right here. It’s so easy cooking whole. All you do is cut the head off, cut the belly out, that takes literally two seconds, and you pop it in the oven, and you’ll let it go. And then you take it out. It’s like playing with your food, you pull the rack right out, that’s fun. You pick the meat away, you can eat it with your fingers, I mean, and it’s so good. It is so dense with those omegas everybody’s looking for – omega three fatty acids. It helps with your brain function. It eliminates all the brain fog from the stress and all the cortisol spikes that we all experience every single day. All that just kind of, you know, melts away over time if you eat more fish like that. And so I’m a huge advocate of eating fish. I’m a huge advocate of eating the whole fish. And a lot of people are afraid of the time it takes to process a whole fish. But the majority of the world actually does that. When you go to a market in Asia, or in Europe, there are more whole fish in the display case than there are filets. And for some reason the majority of Americans have gotten away from that because we want everything to be quick fast. But we also in the same breath want to spend more time with our families and we want to prep meals and cook meals and we want that so if we want that then we have to choose to take the time to do that the same way you choose to make your burger patty and spend 10 minutes up the grill. It’s the same amount of time.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah, I’m right with you with the mackerel and the blue fish and in fact one time in my fish share my community fish share. There was a whole fish like two feet long in my bag. And I’m like what is… I didn’t even know what it was because we didn’t, I don’t know, I wasn’t like on the newsletter list or whatever. So I didn’t even know, I just would wing it with whatever I got with this thing. So I looked it up, it was a blue fish. So I just roasted it whole. And it was actually the best fish I’ve ever had in my entire life. So delicious. And I just also want to put a plug in for you parents out there. I think it’s important to condition kids at a young age to be excited and curious about their food. And I certainly did that with my kids. And like, the more tentacles, the more close it is to an actual animal, the more cool it was to them. And to be able to pull the rack out or the fin apart or like to poke at the eyeball if I left it on there. Like they actually thought it was amazing that they got to eat this thing. And I think most kids, if you just let them be curious and playful with their food would also have that attitude towards their food instead of like utter disgust, which is, you know, I think what parents might feel themselves or kind of subliminally pass along to their children. And I’m just… I’m really psyched now to have such adventurous, older teenagers that eat everything have amazing palates, and are still in the more tentacles, the better kind of category. So and oh, and I want to do a shout out too for squid, just you know, as we’re talking about sustainable fish, squid is super sustainable, super healthy, really cheap way to get your protein. And fun because it has tentacles and my kids like thought squid was the funnest thing ever when I would cook it and it doesn’t have to be deep fried calamari, there’s a lot of different ways to prepare it. So you guys with me on the squid train?

Shannon Eldredge  

Absolutely, in our fish weirs that was our target species was squid. And we spent a lot of time processing squid and you can do things with the ink and it’s so much fun to cut and clean with kids. Yeah, I mean, it’s messy, which, you know, just throw some newspaper down and do it on your counter, wrap up the newspaper and ties it like not a big deal. Sorting squid, stuffing it and baking it, grill it, stuffing it and grilling it. I mean, that’s just the endless, endless possibilities. Yeah, and the tentacles are super delicious. And if you ever get squid at a restaurant and you don’t see tentacles be aware that it’s probably not squid.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

We’ll leave that to people’s imagination. I know what you’re referring to some people might not because they might not have heard that one. But yeah, gross. Yeah. All right. So where can people um, Shannon, let’s start with you. If people want to join, you know, a fish community in Massachusetts, who do they call?

Shannon Eldredge  

Yeah, so a couple of places. I mean, like Jon was talking about. Local catch.org has the seafood finder tool, and that is nationwide. Out here on the cape, we have the Chatham harvesters cooperative, and we have a number of different programs and we have a retail space out here in Chatham. That’s Chatham harvesters.com. You can go there and check out you know, what markets that we’re in in places like that. Yeah. And there’s just, I mean, there’s there’s community supported fisheries all throughout the Commonwealth all throughout New England. Jon, I’m gonna throw to you probably have some ideas.

Jon Russell  

Yeah, I mean, yeah, there’s always a lot of good options. Red’s Best works with like, a lot of folks in the area to like, if you’re like in Boston, and who they source from is a lot of really good local fishing folks. And honestly, even beyond just like going from Red’s Best, asking Red’s Best, where to direct source and stuff. It’s always a cool idea to if you are in this area, but otherwise, you know, finder, dot local catch.org

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Great, and any plugs for NAMA? We’ll put the FoodPrint links on the show notes, but you know, can they can… they follow them on social media, like pimp your stuff?

Jon Russell  

Yeah, so definitely check out NAMAnet.org or our website, check. You know, we put out a lot of stuff. I think it’s nama underscore net on Instagram. I just don’t know our socials. But another one I will shout out Block Corporate Salmon. It’s a crew that we work with who are fighting against genetically engineered salmon because it’s a land-based genetically engineered salmon farm, which is just everything wrong. Just a nightmare situation. And can always use more voices in fighting against that, because if that were to happen, there’s 30 or 40 other genetically engineered animals in the works. And so check it out on social media: block corporate salmon, all one word. And there’s a lot of really good information there and nama underscore net for Instagram, and I’m sure on our website, we have to like store other socials.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Awesome. Shannon, did you want to add any shoutouts or links?

Shannon Eldredge  

Yeah, just Chatham harvesters. We’re on Instagram and Facebook, Chatham. harvesters.com. You know, supporting local fishing families, at least in the Commonwealth. I always want to put a plug for a fishing partnership. And we’re keeping the fisherman safety safe and healthy with a number of resources. And we got to keep our food producers safe and healthy fishing is a dangerous job in the country, and we want to make sure that they come home and they bring their catch home and their home for their families and keep fishing. So you know, support your fishing families, support your food producers in a number of ways by buying what they catch, and just recognizing that they are there to feed you.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Wonderful. All right. Well, thank you. That was a little bit longer than I warned you it might be. But I was super interested in the conversation. I learned a ton. I hope our listeners did too. Thank you so much for your time, and have a great evening.

Shannon Eldredge  

Thanks, Diana.

Jon Russell  

Thanks. Good talking.

Diana Rodgers, RD 

Thanks so much for listening today and for following my work. If you believe in making sure that people all over the world should have access to nutritious food, please join my mission through my non-profit, the Global Food Justice Alliance. Visit sustainabledish.com/join and become a sustaining member today. All sustaining members get early access to ad-free podcasts plus free downloads, and you’ll be helping get healthy protein like meat, fish, and eggs to food-insecure kids. That’s sustainabledish.com/join. And thank you.