Careful what you eat

I grew up in East Tennessee in the 1960s. Fish was something that came in breaded rectangles out of the freezer. Growing up Roman Catholic, it’s what was for dinner on Friday. I never cared for fish back then.

We honeymooned in Charleston SC (“where the Ashley and Cooper rivers meet to form the Atlantic Ocean”) and that’s when I first had shark. While we were in grad school in North Carolina, we occasionally enjoyed crab and rock shrimp. There was good seafood in St. Louis, but fresh fish meant trout and catfish.

When we moved to New England, I was looking forward to more, and more varied, seafood in my diet. Soon after we moved, though, I was warned about mercury in seafood, so don’t eat it every day. 

Now, I’ve learned via articles in The New Yorker and the Boston Globe how much of New England fish is sourced from Chinese fishing boats that (a) are overfishing and risking fisheries collapse in some parts of the world and (b) abuse the fishermen who are held in near-slavery conditions for years.

Obviously, trout and farmed salmon are safe from supporting Chinese fishing abuses. I assume that the scallops and clams are locally sourced as well. We do eat tuna (steaks and canned), and should pay attention to sourcing there.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/08/04/opinion/chinese-seafood-outlaw-ocean-project/

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