The problem with farmed seafood
nautil.us
nautil.us
All other issues - be it wild-caught marine-animal ingredients being eroded as a finite input, or simply killing off all-around it due to the increased prevalence of sea lice and industrial activity - are a product of the practices, not the concept.
The problem is exacerbated in a grotesque feedback loop as well as the sea lice can transfer from farms and reduce the health and survival of wild salmon and trout in particular - leading to chemical treatments and other practices which result in everything from algae bloom to facilitating invasive species to straight-forward pollution.
Countries dependent are migratory transnational resource extraction are frankly living on a retarded business model and have only themselves to blame. Reminder 80% of PRC fish comes from sustainable aquaculture that control in their soveign waters. That's your sustainable ecology model, but it requires capex / infra to manage husbandry instead relying on gaia like some hunter gather.
The edge of EEZs, aka the high seas, aka fucking international waters. There's lots of documentation of PRC DWF legally fishing where they're entitled that useful idiots think is illegal activity because US was pumping propaganda bux and generating false narratives / wedge issues countries PRC was cozying up with and rationalize deploying their coast guards to undermine PRC interests.
There's occasionally misbehavior, i.e. AIS shenanigans for incursions from minority of vessels, but PRC bheavior proportionally is slightly BETTER than other DWFs, i.e. SKR, TW, ES. TLDR if an a countries entire extract model falls because some foreign vessels pops a few nautical miles into 200 mile long EEZ, i.e. a few % of occasional incursion, then their national fishing managment models are not sustainable.
BTW, there's a reason only few ships are ever interdicted, because in aggregate, PRC DWF is just not a fucking issue. There were actual attemps where US coast guards tried to board PRC DWF fleets on high seas, again, international waters, and was lolled off. So the answer to all those asking why DWF fleets aren't sunk (I assume in good faith they mean all DWF and not just PRC's), the answer is simple: most operate legally, in international waters, pillaging the commons unsustainably as they are entitled to.
MSM will focus almost exclusively PRC. It's spiked narrative. TLDR, go track "research" on PRC DWF since ~2020 when the champaign started. The estimate of PRC DWF by west aligned research... laundered by western news went from something like 3000 to 6000 (reasonable), to 10000 to 18000... in 5 years. Meanwhile PRC wild catch increased from 12m tons to 15m tons, i.e. PRC somehow built ~30000 new fishing ships in 5 years, 950% increase... only to fish 25% more. It's all stupid all the time.
https://apnews.com/article/whales-antarctica-krill-global-wa...
1. Black Soldier Flies
2. Duckweed
3. Algae (Omega 3s)
Obviously more effort is required to farm them but with automation it should require minimal labor.
If something like this works, it has the double benefit of pulling carbon from the air/water and turning all of the matter into food. With typical plants we grow on land, (generally) most of the plant isn't consumed so whatever carbon it stored is a waste product. In some countries, that waste is just burned and sent back into the atmosphere. But basically 100% of algae's mass is consumable.
I'm not sure it helps at all regarding co2, you'll shit it and breath it out in a matter of days... co2 is only a problem when you burn fossil fuels, because you reintroduce millions years of deposit back in the atmosphere in a very short period of time. That's why things like burning wood aren't a big deal other than localised pollution
(Note you can temporarily also lose weight through water loss - but that isn't the loss of actual fat from your system.)
Planting billions and billions of trees would pull a lot more, but still would only make a small dent. Greening large desert regions with large scale water and local climate engineering projects, ocean seeding, etc. would also pull more but still only make a dent.
So not sure there is much for me to respond to you given that.
I don't have proper calculation, but when you add up all the processing and extra requirement to grow high protein crops, you are actually not very far from meat cost.
Which makes sense because if meat was so inefficient, then vegetal protein replacement should be much cheaper, but they are not.
In many places cows are a natural part of the ecosystem. So much so that in rewilding parts of Scotland they have ended up releasing cattle into the wild.
Its perfectly possible for grass plus grazing animals to be carbon sink, and a provide a rich ecosystem.
"However, reductions to GHG emissions (15-24%) were realized when soil organic carbon accrual was considered"
Sure large herbivores were and still are part of many ecosystems.
But around where I live the majority of the grass for the grass-fed cows doesn't come from anything remotely resembling a rich ecosystem. The grass is literally 'grass': maybe one or 2 types of grass, similar amount of herbs, funghi. Hardly any insects except for flies attracted to manure. These used to be ecosystems with > 20 species of grassses and herbs per square meter.
And these are even relatively small farms; trying to upscale it beyond that to make it possible for millions of humans to eat meat multiple times a week, it won't get any better. If you're putting large amounts of cows in a much much smaller habitat then what they'd naturally use, then it's not the same ecosystem anymore.
Its perfectly possible for grass plus grazing animals to be carbon sink, and a provide a rich ecosystem.
tldr; yes, but only if you want to feed a couple of people from it.
And when you're spreading seaweed over a fish farm, a good chunk of that is flowing back out into the ocean and contributing to the cycle of carbon deposits.
https://animatingcarbon.earth/fish-the-excretion-effect-boos...
and the earth probably did turn into an ice ball millions of years ago
The oil with omega-3 acids is not produced from any algae, but from cultures of special strains of Schizochytrium.
Schizochytrium is a fungus-like organism (not related to true fungi). It is called "algae" in marketing language, because "Schizochytrium" or "Stramenopiles" are words unknown to the general population and because "algae" sounds more appealing to the rich vegans who have afforded to pay the high prices under which this oil has been sold for many years.
In any case, this does not matter much. Long-chain omega-3 are an essential fish food ingredient, but by mass they are a small fraction of fish food. Much more can be gained regarding carbon dioxide by using for the fish food a mixture of vegetable proteins that have been preprocessed to enable their digestion by fish.
Schyzochytrium has enabled the production of long-chain omega-3 acids without capturing small fish or krill for a few decades, but in the past the cost of Schyzochytrium oil was too high.
In order to be used as an ingredient in farmed fish food the cost of Schizochytrium oil had to be decreased a lot.
It appears that at least Veramaris has succeeded to do this, but unfortunately such progresses have not become visible yet in the retail price of Schizochytrium oil for human consumption.
A decade ago, Schizochytrium oil was 8 to 10 times more expensive than fish oil. Then its price has decreased, so that 4 or 5 years ago it already was only 3 times more expensive than fish oil.
Unfortunately, after that there were no further price reductions, so today the retail price of Schizochytrium oil is about the same as 5 years ago.
If the production cost of Schizochytrium oil has really diminished, as said in the parent article (because it cannot be used in fish food, unless it is cheaper than fish oil), then the producers have now increased profits, without decreasing the retail price. Of course, like always, it is not certain that this is really the winning strategy for them, because there may be many others like me, who wait for a reduction in the price of Schizochytrium oil in order to switch to it from fish oil, so keeping this inflated price may result in a much lower sales volume than with a smaller price.
Moreover, for whoever wants to consume vegan oil with long-chain omega-3 acids, there is an additional trap with Schizochytrium oil. The original Schizochytrium oil has a double concentration in comparison with fish oil (i.e. around 2 grams of omega-3 acids per 5 mL of oil), but there are many sellers who sell diluted oil at the same price like the sellers who sell non-diluted oil. Thus the true price of long-chain omega-3 acids from the sellers of diluted oil may be 10 to 20 times higher than from fish oil. Therefore when buying omega-3 capsules or bottled Schizochytrium oil one must read carefully the fine print and compute the price per gram of DHA+EPA, in order to be sure that the price is right.
I'm not quite sure "fish-free fed fish” is going to have the same cache as “grass-fed beef," despite the article's suggestion.
I thought it was a way to make the silly character look pretentious and pseudo intellectual, but misremembered. It appears that it was actually a way for the character to narcissistically draw attention.
Apparently, it was a source of cheap protein during wars, but didn't provide enough nutrients and tastes like pond scum. It ended up in the supplement sector because it was easier to get approved as it over food. Soylent Green was inspired by it.
I hope it does go back into the fish food sector - it's cheap and nutritious but tastes worse than soy.
[0]https://bapcertification.org/Home [1]https://bapcertification.org/Downloadables/pdf/standards/BAP...
Sea Shepard DOs:
- Document illegal fishing or whaling with evidence.
- Intervene to prevent illegal capture of protected species.
- Promote awareness and education about marine conservation.
- Buy local
- Boycott trawling method of catch
https://github.com/Michael-Nolan/Public/blob/main/Notes/2025...
It seems like it will have the same problem with inputs or perhaps even worse. This is one of the reasons I'm still skeptical about lab grown meat taking off.
[1] https://www.gourmets.net/salon-gourmets/2025/exhibitors-cata...
https://norayseafood.es/en/producto/raw-shrimp-40-60-pieces-...
As much as I like salmon and the occasional flounder, my life would not be any worse if I had to stick to sprats (smoked sprats are delicious), sardines, anchovies and whatever else is a lower trophic level.
And you don't have to worry about mercury as a bonus.
Throw a line in the pond, whatever bites will bite. Clean it and you've got dinner.
Versus with hunting, historically (and even now) if you miss your shot or don't hit a part that immediately takes it down, now you've got an angry wolf/bear/moose bearing down on you. Wolf is also probably too close to dog for most cultures.
Nowadays you can get meat from bear/moose/whatever, but there isn't much of a culinary tradition associated with them. So the only people out for them are the curious or macho types
On top of that, you can't really farm predators, almost by definition (I'm sure you could but that would be very stupid).
I've never had the chance to eat cougar, but I've talked to folks who have, and they say it's their favorite meat - like a light, tender pork.
That's surprising. I would've thought it'd be dry. Or even fishy.
The most common fish that we eat are those that other fish also eat, like herring, and there aren't a good comparable land based animal in our current diet. It would be a bit like if a primary diet for humans would be wild rodents.
One reason could be that fish like herring schools, but wild rodents don't. It is easier to hunt large quantity of animals if they are located in the same location and bunched up.
They actually clean the water and have a positive impact on the ocean! Farming them is good!
[1]https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/louisiana-oyster-in...
If you live near a sea and can get them dirt cheap why not, but if you live far into the land, they are mostly a waste of good money and a way for pretentious people to appear fancy/rich at the Christmas holiday.
While it's true that their rise in the West was mostly from clever marketing, oysters are just considered normal seafood in many countries and are cooked into dishes.
But yes, the premium price due to the raw oyster trend makes it not worth it if you live far away from the sea.
If they would make cooked products with them at a decent price I could have an interest, but since they make so much money by selling it as a delicacy with a premium price it's never going to happen.
It's just not a very competitive protein source, regardless of the taste/enjoyability and that's the issue in the end...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-pescatores-dilemma_b_2463...
I always find it super weird that people will eat soy bean products over, say, meat or cream when they’ve never seen a soy bean plant in their whole lives.
Take salmon for instance. In a lifetime of preparing and then eating several portions of salmon per week, I've noticed that the farmed salmon are pretty much always:
-Very pale pink color, as though the animal was unhealthy (sometimes stores even add red food dye to cover this up)
-Weak and mushy flesh, even when fresh; healthy salmon flesh is muscled and springy, it isn't naturally slimy and it holds its shape
-Weak flavor that seems to be missing a lot of the more robust flavor notes entirely
-Thinner or nearly-nonexistent layer of fat between the flesh and the scales (contributes to less flavor overall and removes a lot of the umami); the same problem also applies to the thin bands of fat between the rows of muscle in the filet itself
-Skin/scales slightly disintegrate or fleck away at a touch instead of remaining intact
I don't even bother buying it even if it's significantly cheaper.
I can't imagine that the nutrient content is the same as the wild-caught fish. And based on the sickly look and taste of the meat, it's also very hard to believe that the farmed fish live a life that they find to be pleasant, to the extent such a thing is possible.
https://www.dal.ca/news/2023/03/21/farmed-salmon-colour-heal...
The amounts differ, and the farm feed may be synthetic.
I eat wild-caught salmon every day (as part of https://srid.ca/carnivore-diet) and can totally confirm this. Farmed salmon's taste is very off-putting. I noticed this only after switching to wild salmon for a few weeks.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-per-protein-poore
I'd argue that if we're looking for a full top-to-bottom sustainable food system, animals will play a role. But we need to be cognizant of the whole system, not playing whack-a-mole with issues.
Good in theory, horrible in practice.
[1] FDA “Approved Drugs for Use in Aquaculture” — https://www.fda.gov/media/80297/download
[2] Jensen et al., Nutrients 2020 — https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12123665
Also what I wrote about shrimp from any 3rd world country is valid - I've seen such place this summer in Indonesia, and from what I've heard whole south east Asia is exactly like that, or worse. Getting shrimp from some western democracy with strong consumer protection rights ain't possible in many parts of Europe, not sure about other places
According to your source, there are 15 sources of protein that emit less greenhouse gases (GHGs) per 100g of protein than farmed fish, including poultry and eggs, and 16 sources that emit more (including items that are not known for their protein content like coffee, apples, and dark chocolate). Being highly charitable, farmed fish is squarely in the middle.
Additionally, farmed fish emits twice the GHGs of tofu, and almost 22 times that of nuts. So just comparing placements on the list paints a misleading picture.
As for "not willing to go full vegetarian": you may as well say "not willing to stop eating fish", because they are equally unserious limitations when discussing these topics. "Not being willing" is only a slightly more mature version of a child saying "I don't want to".
If you're quibbling about wording, all I meant was: farmed fish and chicken are among the most sustainable meat sources.
I'm not making a statement that people should eat meat, but many people do eat meat, so it's worth comparing which meat sources are better than others. I think it would be great if more people knew that beef produces 10x the greenhouse gases than chicken/fish do.
If you'll forgive me borrowing your logic: "I'm not saying that people should eat beef, but many people do eat beef, so it's worth comparing which beef sources are better than others."
Plant-based diets are a very good answer to the problems caused by animal agriculture. If someone takes issue with that answer, I'd need a better reason than their personal pleasure to take them seriously in the conversation.
I think this harm-reduction approach might make more sense from a governmental policy perspective, but is otherwise silly for us to take as individuals because we have such comparatively little influence over each other's choices. I wouldn't waste that small influence encouraging someone to make a slightly less bad choice.
The comparison of food to transportation is a bad one. Nutrients are nutrients, and everything else is personal pleasure. In other words, you can easily hit your same macros by replacing animal products with plant products without even having to change grocery stores. You cannot easily transport a mattress on a bicycle instead of a car.
Calling harm reduction "silly" because tofu exists just shifts the target. We can hold two thoughts at once: (1) plant-heavy diets are best, and (2) for the vast majority who aren’t going vegan tomorrow, steering from beef to chicken/fish dramatically reduces damage right now. Dismissing that because it’s not maximal purity guarantees we leave real cuts on the table.
So is there any hypothetical harm reduction that you believe is too small to be worth your time to encourage?