4 ms·

As a resident of a first world country I stopped eating all seafood about 15 years ago. It seems unethical to support over-fishing if I have plenty of other goo

by duhuh 6y ago

As a resident of a first world country I stopped eating all seafood about 15 years ago. It seems unethical to support over-fishing if I have plenty of other good food to eat.

missedthecue 6y ago
Plenty of seafood is farmed. The majority of shrimp for instance comes from farms.
- usrusr 6y ago
  Ocean fish farming is more a conversion process than a production process. Most of the feed is wild catch fish.
  - all_usernames 6y ago
    Something like 3lbs of wild caught fish as feed to produce 1lb of farmed salmon.
  - riffraff 6y ago
    but does this apply blanket-like to all farmed seafood, or is it mostly about fish? E.g. I would expect shrimp, mussels, clams to not be fed processed wild catch, unlike salmon.
- ajmadesc 6y ago
  100 Grams of shrimp has a carbon footprint of 198kg(436lb) https://phys.org/news/2012-02-tiny-shrimp-giant-carbon-footprint.html https://phys.org/news/2012-02-tiny-shrimp-giant-carbon-footp...
  - philipkglass 6y ago
    The numbers cited in there don't make sense. Something has to have been garbled from the original research report. The article says: The farms are inefficient, producing just one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of shrimp for 13.4 square kilometers (five square miles) of mangrove But Asian shrimp farms produce over a million tons of shrimp per year: http://www.shrimpnews.com/FreeReportsFolder/NewsReportsFolder/WorldShrimpFarmingProductionStats.html http://www.shrimpnews.com/FreeReportsFolder/NewsReportsFolde... If it takes 13.4 square kilometers of mangrove per kilogram of shrimp, Asian shrimp farms would occupy more than 13.4 * 1000 * 1000000 = 13,400,000,000 (13.4 billion) square kilometers of mangrove. That's about 26 times the surface area of Earth.
- benibela 6y ago
  Most shrimp farming uses a lot of antibiotics and destroys mangroves
ip26 6y ago
If you're picky about the fish you eat, there are some very sustainable choices. In a happy coincidence, some of the healthiest fish are also some of the most sustainable fish.
Stupulous 6y ago
I've been wondering lately if cutting out a product is less ethical than buying the ethical version and supporting that market. Relatedly, people often don't eat meat because they oppose unethical treatment of animals. But I imagine farmers who treat animals well are disadvantaged by that strategy- people who care enough to buy their more expensive product opt out of the market entirely.
- vzidex 6y ago
  > I imagine farmers who treat animals well This is a cherry picked argument, at least in the US, where "factory farms raise 99.9 percent of chickens for meat, 97 percent of laying hens, 99 percent of turkeys, 95 percent of pigs, and 78 percent of cattle" [1]. Besides, even in this ideal farm where the farmer treats the animals perfectly and lets them live long, fulfilling lives, they're still killing the animal at the end of the day. Hard to see how that is "treating [it] well". [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/its-time-to-end-factory-f_b_1018840 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/its-time-to-end-factory-f_b_1...
  - Stupulous 6y ago
    I don't think 'cherry-picked' is the right descriptor. My point is that in order for those percentages to change, we need to seek out ethical farming and pay for it. If you believe that it is unethical to raise livestock with fulfilling lives and then kill them for meat, by all means do not eat meat. I disagree, but I accept that as a valid, reasonable position to hold. I think most people are more concerned with animal cruelty specifically, and also have a lot of difficulty switching to vegetarianism.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
  I really do think people want ethical food products, but with food in particular, it's really a lot to ask of individual consumers. There's a reason we have so many regulations around food quality - it just makes all our lives easier. I've always thought less-than-ethical food products should be taxed more heavily, and the money should be used to subsidize the more ethical, healthier alternatives. Outright bans on certain product classes can be tremendously distortionary and have unintended side effects, but it's hard to imagine little pigouvian nudges being anything but beneficial to society.

by duhuh 6y ago

As a resident of a first world country I stopped eating all seafood about 15 years ago. It seems unethical to support over-fishing if I have plenty of other good food to eat.

missedthecue 6y ago

Plenty of seafood is farmed. The majority of shrimp for instance comes from farms.

usrusr 6y ago
Ocean fish farming is more a conversion process than a production process. Most of the feed is wild catch fish.
- all_usernames 6y ago
  Something like 3lbs of wild caught fish as feed to produce 1lb of farmed salmon.
- riffraff 6y ago
  but does this apply blanket-like to all farmed seafood, or is it mostly about fish? E.g. I would expect shrimp, mussels, clams to not be fed processed wild catch, unlike salmon.
ajmadesc 6y ago
100 Grams of shrimp has a carbon footprint of 198kg(436lb) https://phys.org/news/2012-02-tiny-shrimp-giant-carbon-footprint.html https://phys.org/news/2012-02-tiny-shrimp-giant-carbon-footp...
- philipkglass 6y ago
  The numbers cited in there don't make sense. Something has to have been garbled from the original research report. The article says: The farms are inefficient, producing just one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of shrimp for 13.4 square kilometers (five square miles) of mangrove But Asian shrimp farms produce over a million tons of shrimp per year: http://www.shrimpnews.com/FreeReportsFolder/NewsReportsFolder/WorldShrimpFarmingProductionStats.html http://www.shrimpnews.com/FreeReportsFolder/NewsReportsFolde... If it takes 13.4 square kilometers of mangrove per kilogram of shrimp, Asian shrimp farms would occupy more than 13.4 * 1000 * 1000000 = 13,400,000,000 (13.4 billion) square kilometers of mangrove. That's about 26 times the surface area of Earth.
benibela 6y ago
Most shrimp farming uses a lot of antibiotics and destroys mangroves

ip26 6y ago

If you're picky about the fish you eat, there are some very sustainable choices. In a happy coincidence, some of the healthiest fish are also some of the most sustainable fish.

Stupulous 6y ago

I've been wondering lately if cutting out a product is less ethical than buying the ethical version and supporting that market. Relatedly, people often don't eat meat because they oppose unethical treatment of animals. But I imagine farmers who treat animals well are disadvantaged by that strategy- people who care enough to buy their more expensive product opt out of the market entirely.

vzidex 6y ago
> I imagine farmers who treat animals well This is a cherry picked argument, at least in the US, where "factory farms raise 99.9 percent of chickens for meat, 97 percent of laying hens, 99 percent of turkeys, 95 percent of pigs, and 78 percent of cattle" [1]. Besides, even in this ideal farm where the farmer treats the animals perfectly and lets them live long, fulfilling lives, they're still killing the animal at the end of the day. Hard to see how that is "treating [it] well". [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/its-time-to-end-factory-f_b_1018840 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/its-time-to-end-factory-f_b_1...
- Stupulous 6y ago
  I don't think 'cherry-picked' is the right descriptor. My point is that in order for those percentages to change, we need to seek out ethical farming and pay for it. If you believe that it is unethical to raise livestock with fulfilling lives and then kill them for meat, by all means do not eat meat. I disagree, but I accept that as a valid, reasonable position to hold. I think most people are more concerned with animal cruelty specifically, and also have a lot of difficulty switching to vegetarianism.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
I really do think people want ethical food products, but with food in particular, it's really a lot to ask of individual consumers. There's a reason we have so many regulations around food quality - it just makes all our lives easier. I've always thought less-than-ethical food products should be taxed more heavily, and the money should be used to subsidize the more ethical, healthier alternatives. Outright bans on certain product classes can be tremendously distortionary and have unintended side effects, but it's hard to imagine little pigouvian nudges being anything but beneficial to society.