About Seafood

It’s been a couple days since I first opened my Inbox after
my wedding time off, and I’m happy to report that my outstanding emails are now
in the single digits. I’m actually happy
to be back – my schedule (to account for the five hour time difference) has
shifted from 7am – 3pm, so I get to work on the projects I’m passionate about
and still have a few hours in the afternoon to enjoy the beautiful Hawaiian sun
and sand.

Hawaii
is new to me (I’ve been here just once before several years ago with my family on
vacation), and since it might be new to you too, I thought I’d take a couple
minutes to orient you to the spots I will surely mention. First, Hawaii
consists of six islands. Oahu, where we live, is the most populated by far. Lloyd and I were hoping to get to most of the
other islands while we’re here, but since we’ve been on Oahu,
we don’t have any desire to leave.

Here’s a closer look at Oahu. Honolulu
is considered the “rat race” around here.
Coming from Washington,
DC, I hardly agree. But I suppose it is much more cosmopolitan –
restaurants, bars, shops, packed beaches – than the rest of the island. I’m a city girl, so I’m happy we’re only
about 30 minutes from Honolulu. Also, this is where I’ll likely be getting some of my
fresh fish. We’ve asked around, and the
best place to go seems to be an open air fish market there.

Another area we can’t wait to explore is the North Shore. The heart of it is between Haleiwa and
Kahuku. This is where the pro surf
competitions go down in the winter on six-story-high waves. This is also where the famous shrimp shacks
serve sweet white shrimp raised by local farmers in shallow freshwater ponds.

The final area we’ll be spending the most time in is
Windward Oahu. The Marine Corps Base is
right on the piece of land that juts out between Kaneohe
and Kailua. You may have heard of the latter because it’s
where the Obamas stayed on their Christmas vacation. It’s also the town we’re hoping to live in,
but as you can imagine, it’s quite desirable and pricey. For now, we’re in temporary lodging on the
Marine Corps Base, which is nice enough, and today I noticed, has an outdoor
grill! We’ll be using that very soon.

Windward Oahu holds its own when it comes to restaurants –
in addition to Mexican, Island, and sandwich spots;
we also stumbled upon delicious and inexpensive sushi take-out. Last night we got the rainbow roll, dragon
roll, and sauted mandoo (dumplings) from Hojin Sushi.

Tonight, I’m hoping we can use that grill. Now that we’re married, I can go to the commissarry and buy groceries all by myself, so that’s where I’m headed now.

Actor Jeremy Piven is in full damage control mode. Ever since his wacky mercury poisoning “diagnosis” and subsequent flight from Broadway he’s been laying low-recuperating… except when there are award shows and parties to attend.

Well, he’s going to party with Dianne Sawyer on Good Morning American on Thursday. Let’s see if the GMA crowd does its homework and asks the newly minted dietary expert about the weight of 5 years worth of researchthat clearly shows the benefits of seafood far outweigh any potential concerns associated with the trace amount of mercury found in seafood.

I can’t wait to see if GMA gets snowed by Piven or asks real pointed science-based questions that expose his latest acting job for what it is— a fraud.

There’s a story making the rounds that actor Jeremy Piven has had to pull out of a Broadway play because of high mercury levels he associates with having eaten too much sushi. But it would appear this fish tale is beginning to unravel.

Now stories are percolating that Piven is just trying to abandon a play that has been called a “sinking ship” and found a medical-grounds-loophole that could get him out of his contract. The word on the street is that it’s no coincidence that his doctor says he’ll be back in shape to act again by February or early March— hmmm that’s when the new season of Entourage will begin filming (interesting timing; Piven was under contract on Broadway until February 22.)

And who is his doctor? Well, he too has been called “fishy,” the former body builder turned celebrity physician and motivational speaker has been a pitch man for muscle-building health supplements and has reportedly been hauled into court four times for allegedly faking lab results so companies that paid him could promote ephedra as a diet supplement.

And today environmental lobbying groups latched on to the story and are trying to make hay with it but they are quickly finding that they may have hitched their cart to the wrong horse. As it turns out the play’s investors aren’t buying the diagnosis and may call in their own doctor to get a “second opinion.” Now, wouldn’t that be something if producers, who were paying Piven $15,000 a week, decide to sue and it comes out in court that this questionable diagnosis was a ploy? Talk about having egg on your face. I hope those activists have more faith in Piven’s claims than the New York Times whose sarcastic headline reads, “Actor Jeremy Piven to Enter Sushi Rehab.”

I’m now in week five of having no kitchen, and the void is
palpable. Taking a kitchen away from an
RD is like taking a canvas away from a painter – my art is totally
stunted. So what am I doing to
cope? Collecting more recipes than ever
in anticipation of the big day when I can cook again. Going out to eat has lost its thrill, so once
I’m set with a kitchen, I plan to eat every meal at home for several
months. Today I happened upon this
fun blog about how to make one of my favorite out-to-eat meals, in –
homemade sushi. You’ll have to be on
your best food handling behavior, but otherwise, it doesn’t look too
tough. I love the ice cream-cone shaped
handroll idea.

Whether you’re braving it at home, or leaving it to the
pros, here is a list
of Japanese words that may come in handy.

What would you think if someone sent you a gift promoting a sushi pocket guide that was supposed to, among other things, help protect you from the perceived evils of things like mercury… but the gift itself featured a warning label that said it contained a chemical that might “cause cancer or birth defects?”

Well, a group of industrious reporters at the Mercury News (the irony of the name is not lost on this blogger) found that The Monterey Bay Aquarium sent press kits to reporters promoting its pocket guide that included a coffee mug. And according to the Mercury news while, “it sported cartoon ocean critters on the side, the bottom also bore a sticker warning that the decorations contain lead, lead compounds and/or cadmium, which are chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer or birth defects.'”

The Aquarium folks, who by the way do a lot of “dismissing,” dismissed the warning noting that because of California’s strict labeling laws the mug “falls under an umbrella of things for which there is an obligatory warning.”

So, let me get this right.

Trace amounts of mercury in your seafood- whoa, that’s a no go. But “lead, lead compounds and/or cadmium” in your coffee- not a problem.

You know, I’m still a little confused. If I only had a coffee-mug-pocket-guide to help me choose the best coffee mug.

This past weekend, Lloyd and I were in New York visiting friends and enjoying fall
in the city. I also attempted to go veil
shopping, but failed miserably because I have no idea what I want. This was maybe the sixth time I’ve been to New York in my life, and
the first I can honestly say I didn’t feel entirely overwhelmed. We spent most our time in the upper West Side, which is rich with interesting shops and
restaurants, but still feels like a welcoming neighborhood in most parts. Saturday night we ate an absolutely delicious
Indian dinner, and Sunday for lunch we were both craving sushi. I got a bento box with lightly seared salmon,
assorted sashimi, and a mixed greens salad.
It was as luscious as it looks.

I’ve seen some newspaper articles this week about three new
sushi sustainability guides created by environmental groups. The cards rank species as “best” and “worst”
choices. I like the idea of providing
interested consumers information about sustainability. But I continue to feel uncomfortable with the
often confusing and incomplete messages these cards give. One I saw, for example, claims several species
are both “best choices” and necessary to “limit due to contaminants.” I much prefer NOAA FishWatch as an un-biased
and science-based sustainability source.
And for info on all things related to health and nutrition, doctors and
dietitians are the experts to turn to.

It wasn’t that long ago that NFI went head-to-head with the New York Times over its misuse of science and distortion of data in reporting about seafood. You might remember that led to not only a correction by the paper but an admonishment by the Times public editor and a rebuke by Time magazine, Slate.com, and The Center for Independent Media. It wasn’t quite the dark days of Jayson Blair but it also wasn’t a journalism highlight for the Old Grey Lady.

This week the Times proves it has apparently not learned from its mistakes. The following is an “Editor’s Note” found in the corrections section:

• An article in the Itineraries pages last Tuesday reported about the increasing stress on business travelers, and cited the findings of “Stress in America,” an annual survey of the American Psychological Association. That survey found that economic factors were the leading causes of stress levels in 2008, but it did not say, as the article did, that “the crisis on Wall Street was the No. 1 cause of anxiety,” nor did participants in the survey say they felt most vulnerable to stress “in the office and on a business trip.” The survey included data from Sept. 19 to Sept. 23, 2008, a period of volatility on Wall Street, but none of the questions in the association’s survey referred to Wall Street or any economic crises. Participants were not asked how business travel affected their stress levels or where they felt most vulnerable to stress. The author of the article distorted the survey’s findings to fit his theme, contrary to The Times’s standards of integrity. The article also quoted incorrectly from a comment by Nancy Molitor, a psychologist in Wilmette, Ill., who told the author that, “In my 20 years of practice I’ve never seen such anxiety among my patients,” not “among my banking and business patients.” While Dr. Molitor does have patients in banking and business, she did not single them out as being more anxious than her other patients.

This is no small matter. What you’ve read is the New York Times casually noting that its reporter “distorted the survey’s findings to fit his theme.”

We’ve got a reporter writing about the psychological impact of the Wall Street collapse and using as evidence an annual survey that did not address the Wall Street collapse; “none of the questions in the association’s survey referred to Wall Street or any economic crises.”

What’s more he made up quotes to fit his theme.

Distorting science, filling in the blanks to fit your story and making up quotes- that’s Mad Libs not journalism.

Here come the guides– the Blue Ocean Institute, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Monterey Bay Aquarium have all launched sustainable sushi guides that not only conflict with red and green lists from other environmental lobbying groups but offer health advice too.

If they’re talking about health advice for the oceans perhaps they’ve got a horse in this race but when it comes to human health I’ll stick to doctors and dietitians.

The Washington Post says the guides help consumer know if the sushi “has been caught or farmed in ways that harm the ocean or pose health risks to diners.” But they don’t report on the real limitations of these guides and the confusion they can cause.

For instance the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s guide was released on October 22nd and lists Alaska pollock in its “Best Choices” column. On October 9th, Greenpeace announced people should not eat Alaska pollock because it is “on the verge of collapse.” (Alaska pollockwas also featured on Greenpeace’s “red list“back in June.)

As far as health advice goes the first fish on the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Best Choiceslistis “Aji.” If consumers read the legend, they’ll find the asterisk next to this species corresponds with a message to “limit consumption due to concerns about mercury or other contaminants.”So, is it the best choice or should I be limiting my consumption? What’s more, consumption limits with regard to mercury apply only to pregnant women, women who may become pregnant and small children. So the potential for confusion is fairly obvious.

While the advice we see from environmental lobbying groups is sometimes confusing and contradictory, what they are really doing is seeking to boil sustainability down to a neat wallet card or a handy list. This is an unrealistic and improper goal because it ignores the three facets of sustainability that must be considered in order to truly asses something’s “sustainability”; (in alphabetical order) economic, environmental and social. Cards that distil the sustainability story of any one specie down to a list or a ranking rarely take in to account all three considerations and there for fail in their goal.

The seafood community is not against efforts to responsibly educate people about sustainability, in fact we embrace it, but these cards don’t succeed in doing that.

If you want a dynamic constantly updated look at the real status of the stocks we suggest the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s FishWatchWeb site.

Before she was admonished by the New York Times public editor for the failures of her now discredited story about mercury in sushi tuna, Marion Burros was sleuthing around Gotham spiriting fish samples off to the lab for toxicology tests. Time magazine, Slate.com, and The Center for Independent Media also weighed in on her misguided scare story and the results were far from an endorsement of her work.

So what’s Ms. Burros up to now? Well, today she’s writing about Country Of Origin Labeling (COOL). Those are the laws that already apply to seafood and will soon apply to beef, chicken, vegetables etc. They stipulate that products must be labeled so consumers know what country they came from.

Ahead of the expansion of these laws Ms. Burros set out to put 25 grocery stores and markets in New York to the test to see if their seafood was COOL compliant. Note-when she was crusading for public health with her Woodward and Bernstein-like sushi expose` she only visited 20 stores, so she’s upped the investigative ante with this one.

What did she find? Drum roll please. Three of the 25 stores that should have had labels did not and two of those said they were unfamiliar with the requirement.

As of Monday of this week “fish was properly labeled at all three stores.”

But we can’t ignore some of the other shocking finds her analysis uncovered like the fact that some of the signs contained lettering that “was small and very difficult to read.” Or that some fish that should have been labeled as previously frozen was not and only if asked would “employees behind the counter… point out the previously frozen fish.”

Thankfully Ms. Burros took her findings straight to the FDA who let her know that, “Since it isn’t a safety issue, a violation of this type would not be a priority.”

Foiled again— But at least we know someone is still pounding the pavement of Metropolis keeping the citizens safe.

The entirety of my evening yesterday was spent peeling stubborn little stickers off candle holders I plan to use at our wedding reception. Because this was a) not fun and b) the first of many times I’m going to have to do this, I treated myself to take-out from my very favorite neighborhood sushi restaurant. I got the nigiri combo – 9 pieces plus a California roll. It was enough for two refreshing meals, dinner last night plus lunch today.

I am hoping to continue my enjoyment of ethnic seafood dishes with dinner at a near-by Spanish restaurant this weekend. They are having their annual Paella Festival, featuring bacalao (codfish, in Portuguese) and clams paella and baby octopus paella. Mmm.