Sustainable.
yea, but for who(m)
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I live in a Mexican fishing village. Not a big one, just a village. Still old boats and old ropes and people pulling clams out of something they dug a bucket into sand a couple weeks ago. Just small lancha boats, very rarely maybe 3x a year I'll see a trawler come in with shrimp.
Most days on my walks the dogs go direct to the cabana with the clean out pipe that puts all the guts directly on the beach. Yes it stinks. The birds get the bulk. The dogs love the shark heads and I pick up extra fins from the "cazon" tiny sharks also known as "dogfish" and dry them in the sun and they can chew on that for hours. Seems to help Brady with her limp...she no longer has one. At 13 and kinda chunky, that's a plus.
I see manta rays littered all over with just the sellable meat on the wing removed. A lot of fish are turned inside out after taking the body meat fillets. Cazon is 80pesos/kilo filleted and cleaned and we're on a tight budget as there are many mouths to feed and the meat here sucks so it's fish season. 80 pesos is about $4.50 or about $2/lb. it's a mild fish and there is plenty of it and the fisherman will deliver it to my door in about 15min. I'm making ceviche, fish stock, dog food, tacos, soup...and while looking it up, there it was.
STATUS: Vulnerable.
My heart sinks. How can this be? it's everywhere! And my American brain (and former life of sourcing pastured meats for my restaurants and growing organically for 14 years on a tiny farm) I felt that guilt. I'm the problem. We're the problem. Eaters. Useless eaters. You can't even just drink a soylent green and not feel guilty for perpetuating the monoculture crops that put too much estrogen into the foods and and and.
A fisherman brought me a very small 2 lb tuna the other night as a gift left over from a delivery to a bigger city. People here don't really eat tuna. All the things ran through my head. Predator fish, full of mercury, but this one is small so probably okay. Is it too small? Isn't it catch and release? or is that just certain fish. Is tuna endangered? How can it not be? Is this fish $10000 in Japan and I'm getting it for free? (and a tip of course) have I insulted him? Have I insulted the fish? Ignorance really is bliss. it makes me want to eat nothing but hummus on a carrot for the rest of my life. But what of our depleted soils!?
Thus is the path of the wellness counselor. The organic chef. The gentlewoman farmer. The over researcher. Everything can be toxic. Politically, agriculturally or actually. But here, people will drink Coke for breakfast and wait until they get paid after work to eat a taco and drink some more calories but guess what. If some Fish Watch page somewhere (with likely inaccurate information, because really...the ocean is VAST) says Don't EAT THAT, a ton of people who work in the industry don't eat at ALL. So if there's skate wing demand and there are skates everywhere then skate it is. Ditto dogfish. Snapper. Branzino and whatever else. The only thing that makes them stop pulling and filleting is the game commission. if there's a buyer, they're going to sell it. But that's not sustainable!
So I care more about the fish than the fisherman? That feels misdirected, no?
The conflict of eating for MY health and the health of a local economy and my wallet...it's funny how you'll make do with non organic peanut butter when it's not available for less than $20. And I'll have you know that if I need cod liver oil for my goofy brain inflammation and migraines I don't give a hairy hoot where they're getting all these cod from. (Except I want them from Norway please) how is that different from some guy with erectile dysfunction who needs a rhino horn pill for his virility? Because rhinos don't grow on trees and apparently salmon does, but what if I don't want it farm raised. And what of these local fishermen? What does the farm raising of fish off shore on these little Sea of Cortez estuaries do to these folks still weaving nets in their off time?
It's a tough battle and I may know too much but now seeing the other side of limits and greenwashing I'm just keeping my mouth shut, eating what's available here (which isn't much) and being grateful that the dogs and I can have affordable protein.
Thanks for reading, thanks for subscribing. If you’d like to know more about my rescue efforts and the dogs or donate food or buy a tshirt you can go to my linktree