The Red, White, and Green

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When I was going through the recipe archives of the Meatless Monday website last week, I was surprised to find that many of the recipes included fish; I was under the impression that the goal was for people to adopt a vegetarian diet once a week. The health benefits of fish and seafood are well proven, but since the movement is also positioning itself as an environmental one  (the concept being that if every American gave up meat just one day of the week, the resulting reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would be the equivalent of all of us switching from normal cars to Toyota hybrids), it seems curious that fish and seafood would be an acceptable choice.

The ecological hazards of the fishing industry are two-fold: First, much like the factory farms used to raise large numbers of chickens, cattle, and pigs in close quarters, commercial fish farming uses myriad chemicals — including antibiotics, pesticides, and hormones — to combat disease and encourage growth. Not only do these toxic substances wind up in the tissues of the farmed fish (and then in your tissues when you eat them); in many cases, they are swept out into the open ocean, where they can contaminate other marine life. And second, many fish that are wild-caught are dangerously close to extinction; it is now estimated that 90 percent of the world’s fish have been killed.

I contacted the folks at Meatless Monday, who said that originally, MM’s focus was public health — the beneficial omega-3 fatty acids in fish have been linked to a lower incidence of heart disease and cancer, among other things — but now that the movement is shifting in a more environmental direction, it may be necessary to eliminate fish recipes from its database.

Until they decide, I’ll be sticking to vegetarian recipes on Monday, and using this handy widget (below) from The End of the Line campaign to find out what type of fish to eat — in moderation — the rest of the week.

–Jennifer Grayson

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