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The Asian ApertureSushi: The Global Catch
POSTED BY JASON FETTERS, January 7, 2014    Share



I have been taking family vacations to the beach for all my life. The place we love to go is on Madeira Beach, near John’s Pass. I like driving up and down Gulf Blvd to check out the latest things to do and the cool looking restaurants. Since I returned from Japan back in 2002, driving on Gulf Blvd, I notice a couple of sushi bars and I remember thinking when did those bars open in this area and why?




I got some answers when I watched the documentary called Sushi: The Global Catch. Sushi started out as street food in Tokyo some 200-years ago and then spread from Tokyo to the rest of Japan. Following that, sushi went on to because a popular cuisine in the US and Europe. Sushi is no longer a food that most people feel strange eating. With that in mind, the international community has developed a taste for sushi and fish are flown all over the world to meet this demand. The problem is that with China’s huge population and the estimated number of sushi restaurants opening up there, what will happen to the fish population?

Sushi: The Global Catch has interviews with sushi chefs starting in Japan, moving to Europe, and then to the US. You get a nice look at the world famous Tsukiji fish market in central Tokyo. There the priced catch is tuna and expert workers divided the tuna into grades with the best ones being placed in the front for auction. With this taste for tuna developing worldwide, the demand is so great that the tuna populations are decreasing, particularly Bluefin Tuna.

According to the marine biologists and various concerned entrepreneurs, the Bluefin Tuna is an apex predator and due to overconsumption may become extinct and thus removing the tuna would destroy the ocean’s ecosystem as many apex predators, such as sharks, are overfished by humans.

Various ideas are presented to help stop this process such as farming and my favorite idea is sustainable sushi, which means eating fish from populations that are not going extinct and can sustain populations in the future.

The concept behind sustainable sushi is to know the alternatives to a popular sushi, like Bluefin Tuna, and, find its sustainable equivalent. Great efforts have been made by the Tataki Sushi Bar in San Francisco that only serve sustainable sushi and other sushi restaurants are quickly adapting this approach.

Efforts are being made to farm Bluefin Tuna near Australia and one Japanese fisherman who fishes for Bluefin Tuna and only brings back one tuna per trip, advises consumers to only eat one or two pieces of Bluefin because he stresses that they probably won’t be around for future generations.

Sushi: The Global Catch is an eye opening documentary that tells the story of sushi’s rise in popularity and the negative effects on the environment. What I find extremely helpful in sustaining fish population is this handy guide from the Monterey Bay Aquarium that lists the fish you should choose and the ones to avoid, due to overfishing. More information is available at their website http://www.seafoodwatch.org and the consumer guide is available for downloading at http://www.seafoodwatch.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/sfw_recommendations.aspx.

If we all pitch in to help then maybe, over time, the fish populations can increase instead of the current downward spiral.

I encourage everyone to check out Sushi: The Global Catch, even if you are not a sushi lover, for more information on a global concern.

Highly Recommended

5 out of 5 Stars



"The Asian Aperture" is ©2014 by Jason Fetters. All contents of Crazed Fanboy are ©2014 by Nolan B. Canova and Terence Nuzum.

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