Читать книгу Oceans For Dummies - Joseph Kraynak - Страница 34

Humans and our ancestors have been eating seafood for a looooooooooong time. Yep, in a cave called Figueira Brava, located outside Lisbon (Portugal), remains of harvested mussels date back to a Neanderthal dinner some 80,000 to 160,000 years ago. Evidence also shows that Homo sapiens harvested shellfish at South Africa’s Pinnacle Point between 164,000 and 120,000 years ago. So our love of seafood and its important nutrients goes way back.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, three billion people around the world today depend on wild-caught or farmed seafood as their primary source of protein. Now that’s a whole lot of sushi (and other seafood), and it doesn’t count consumption by the other five billion or so people on the planet. That makes seafood the largest traded food commodity on Earth. But this incredible ocean bounty is being pulled out at unsustainable rates; 90 percent of all fish stocks today are either over-fished or fished to capacity (see Chapters 19 and 21 for details).

To feed the nine or close to ten billion people estimated to populate the planet by 2050, we need to make sure our fisheries are healthy and brimming with fish. According to one estimate (oceana.org/feedtheworld), with the right management and restoration, we could increase global fish stocks by 15 percent, enough fish to feed one billion people a seafood meal every single day.

Save the fish! One way you can contribute to a sustainable ocean is by switching supplements. Currently, fish and krill are a main source of omega 3s in most supplements. But fish and krill get their omega 3s from algae, so all you need to do is cut out the middleman by switching from fish oil to algae oil. Algae pills provide the same omega 3 benefits, but they’re vegetarian, tasteless (no nasty fish burps after taking them), and ocean-friendly. Why make the switch? Well, the fish oil/krill oil industry is wreaking havoc on the marine food web. See Chapter 21 to find out more about what can be done to restore marine life populations and diversity.