Las Vegas’s Daily Diet of 60,000 Pounds of Shrimp

That figure comes from Rick Moonen, the chef at RM Seafood in Las Vegas who has a passion for sustainable fish. He mentioned that Las Vegas’s daily consumption of 60,000 pounds per day is more than the rest of the nation combined.

Where does that shrimp come from? Largely from farms in southeast Asia, which have a number of problems: the destruction of mangrove swamps where the farms are based, the application of pesticides and antibiotics in the fish farms that are banned in the U.S., the reliance of low-wage labor. His solution? He uses only wild caught US species.

This came out of a panel at the Cooking for Solutions conference at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which brings together about 60 journalists to learn about sustainable food. It’s one of the few conferences that gathers terrestrial and oceans experts in one forum and is flat-out one of the best conferences I’ve attended on these issues.

The day was opened by Gene Kahn, a founder of the organic food industry, who has since moved onto greener pastures at General Mills. As global sustainability officer, he set the theme of “continual improvement” -- that there is not one singular solution to sustainable food systems and that it demands incremental gains, not either/or approaches.

Kahn said he’s most interested in changing the mainstream since 1 percent change at General Mills is “revolutionary.” As a former organic food entrepreneur, he said he’s no longer interested in “selling food to yuppies” and that the mainstreaming of these values in everyday products represents a “democratization.”

Interestingly, he said the biggest risk to this entire movement is “greenwashing,” that is the practice of companies making claims that are so limited as to be functionally meaningless. The solution was to have transparent goals, processes and results. 

But back to shrimp, which along with tuna and salmon were the topics of the first panel.

The major issue with salmon is the destructive practices of farmed fish, both in pollution and the use of wild caught fish as feeder stocks. None on the four-person panel could endorse any farmed product. Indeed, the only positive farmed products mentioned were tilapia, trout, with a nod to Kona kampachi and barramundi. And of course, mollusks, such as mussels and oysters, which have been highly successful in farmed systems.

Tuna is one of the most widely eaten species, but the only population that won an endorsement from the panel was the pole caught albacore on the West Coast (low in mercury toxins, high in omega 3 fatty acids) and a few poll caught species off of Hawaii. The other major issue with tuna is that governmental norms over its harvest differ or are non-existant. Illegal fishing is also rampant.

“It’s a highly migratory species and requires international agreements that have not been forthcoming,” said Brad Ack of the Marine Stewardship Council. “The (consumer) market has not begun to drive that change, and that’s going to have the biggest influence.”

Pen-raised tuna (much of it in Australia and the Mediterranean) has been put forward as one solution, but Corey Peet of the Aquarium mentioned that these tuna require 25 pounds of feeder fish to create one pound of tuna - a horrendous ratio that is not sustainable. Furthermore, wild caught  juvenile fish are farmed in these pens, depleting wild stocks in which they might breed.

Paul Johnson, owner of the Monterey Seafood Market, said he expected some blue fin tuna populations to be extinct within the next three or four years. Whether he’s right or not is only a matter of degree.

As for salmon, the familiar advice to buy Alaskan wild salmon was widespread; species such as coho and sockeye will be more prevalent and cheaper than king salmon.

But Johnson said, “We are going to pay more for seafood if it’s sustainable.”

The solution: eat a smaller portion ... or different species.

Moonen said that smaller species are generally more sustainable - mackerel, sardines, trout - but that consumers have to learn how to cook them. To that aim, he recently published a cook book on this topic, Fish Without a Doubt, which we soon hope to review.

- Samuel Fromartz

Comments

[Rodney North]

(Sam, if this is too tangential don't hesitate to cull it like, say, some unwanted by-catch.)

re: Gene Kahn, General Mills & the "democratization" of organic foods.

As someone who cherishes democracy and cares about language it always grates when someone abuses the word "democratization" like this, which is far too often.

What Gene means is "popularizing" or "spreading" or "mainstreaming" or maybe "mass-marketing" organics.

"Democracy" = demos/people + kratia /rule. It is inviolably about the distribution of decision-making power on principles such as one person/one vote.

Making things cheap and affordable can be a good thing, but its a market phenomenon, not a political one. Any "power" involved is exercised on a one DOLLAR/one vote basis, which is, by definition, plutocracy, not democracy.

Otherwise the hero's of our democracy would not be Adams, Madison and Thomas Paine, but James Watt, Henry Ford, & Sam Walton.

If I seem a wee-touchy about this it is because some in the organic industry actually have 'democratized' their companies in the literal sense.

Specifically the founders of Equal Exchange and La Siembra both turned over power to their employees one a one person/one vote basis. (They're worker co-ops and were just named two of the world's most democratic workplaces, see www.worldblu.com).

Farmer co-ops (like Organic Valley and Big Tree Farms) and consumer food co-ops are also governed democratically in the true sense of the word.

[Sam Fromartz]

Rodney, Thanks for your comment. I think by "democratization" he is interested in having an impact on foods most people buy, which are conventional. He's working to improve practices in that area. He's gotten a lot of heat over the years, and I would just say, there is no singular approach to sustainability - it's about a diversity of approaches with the same impact as biodiversity.

[Eli]

Hi Sam,

The 60,000 lbs of shrimp consumed daily in Las Vegas is disturbing, but it is not surprising.

Shrimp is the most popular seafood among Americans, and most of it is imported from Asian and South American countries, where giant shrimp farms have destroyed mangroves and coastal ecosystems, depleted wild fish stocks, degraded biodiversity, and polluted water and agricultural land.

Shrimp farming has caused social and health problems as well; local fishing communities that traditionally relied on mangroves for food and resources have been displaced and impoverished, and child labor and abuse of women have also been associated with shrimp farming. In the U.S., local fishermen have been put out of business due to the “dumping” of cheap imports.

There are also significant consumer health risks from eating contaminated shrimp, which is alarming given the results of a recent report from Food and Water Watch that found that the government physically inspects less than 2% of seafood imports, even though antibiotic and pesticide residues in the flesh of imported farmed shrimp can cause serious illness.

Mangrove Action Project (MAP) has recently launched a campaign, "Shrimp Less, Think More" to raise awareness about these problems and to encourage consumers to choose more sustainable seafood.

More information is on the campaign blog: www.shrimpless.wordpress.com

[Mark Powell]

Sam, what do you think is going on when no panelist can endorse a single farmed seafood product? Are they aiming too high, and asking for perfection? Or, are the impacts just so severe that they're right in saying you shouldn't eat any of it?

[Samuel Fromartz]

Eli, there are some good shrimp farm operators outside the US, it's just tough to make sure you're eating their shrimp.

And Mark, the focus was really on the big three - salmon, shrimp and tuna -- all of which have issues in farming. I've heard of less benign salmon operations, with reduced density. I also have heard of some novel fish meal solutions, but I don't think anyone is there on a large scale. But again, which farms and how do we know what we're buying - that's the challenge right now.

There were positive comments made about tilapia, catfish and to a degree, trout, as well as barramundi (http://www.australis.us) and kona kampachi (http://www.kona-blue.com) but those last two are very small, early efforts. Thigns are far ahead overseas, especially with barramundi, which is a great fish to eat!