The Seafood Watch is a program of Monterey Bay Aquarium designed to raise consumer awareness about the importance of buying seafood from sustainable sources. On their great website they recommend which seafood to buy or avoid, helping us to become advocates for environmentally friendly seafood.
This focus on frozen and non frozen fish made me want to look into the issue a bit more. Since rules and regulations always just seem to be implemented but never go away, I wanted to see if anyone had tried and solve this issue from a “foodie point” of view. Not a health official point of view kind of. Because I don’t think most of them will ever be into sushi. They just know too much about what these little parasite buggers can do to you. 
Writing about the new EU-regulations and the reaction they got in the UK, I also wanted to find out what this means for Norwegian sushi restaurants. I think they already have to comply with these regulations. This is a factsheet I found on the Norwegian Food Safety Authority’s website, which go in more detail about what is legal to do with raw fish in Norway.
To summarize: Norwegian farmed fish does not need to be frozen to be eaten raw, but most other imported and wild fish must be (fishrasism? :)). The frozen fish must reach an internal temperature of - 20 °C or lower for at least 24 hours. This has to be documented - both of the supplier and the restaurant. Restaurants etc. must be able to document also how they ensure control of the potential health risk posed by food sold. In the end I guess it is up to us sushi eater to ask for these this documentation, but I can’t ever see myself actually doing that. I want to trust that the sushi chef wants me well.
>> Continue reading ‘Sushi factsheet - Norwegian regulations’
Sushi chefs claim that a European Union health and safety directive about freezing fish would ruin the quality of their food.
I think there will always be a fight between health inspectors and raw fish makers… Sushi chefs who train for years to become sushi masters, will argue that freezing and then defrosting the fish can ruin the quality, especially the texture of popular breeds such as salmon, mackerel and whitefish. Health Safety Agencies are more concerned with that people accidentally get sick from eating infected, raw fish.
>> Continue reading ‘EU fish regulations upsets sushi chefs’
A British sushi chain called Moshi Moshi claim they believe in the fundamental principles of Japanese culinary tradition, and “strive to use only the freshest seasonal ingredients to create food which is bold in its simplicity”. Since the world’s fish stocks are in decline because of modern fishing practices and climate change, Moshi Moshi participates in the “Invest in Fish” campaign to change the way fish are caught and eat fish so as to protect fish stocks.
A study from the US National Institutes of Health and Bristol University that questioned 11,875 pregnant women on their dietary habits found that eating more fish during pregnancy resulted in significant, measurable benefits to the communication skills and social standing of their children seven years later.
>> Continue reading ‘Fish boosts babies’ communication & social skills’
Organ donation talk is a bit off topic on a sushi website, but sushiordeath.com would like to be a part of the world wide blogger campaign for organ donor awareness.
Are you an organ donor? How about your family? Do you know if they want to be organ donors? Have you talked about it? Talk about it and sign up as one as soon as possible. Then the body parts that might suddenly be of not much use to you - knock wood - but that still healthy organ might save someone else’s life. That is a fantastic gift - you might play the most important role in someone else’s life.
In Australia, more than 1,700 people are waiting for organ transplants. In Latin America, more than 50,000. In Europe and the United States, more than 170,000. In China, more than 2 million. In Africa, there isn’t enough organization to really know. Without an organ transplant, these people will die.
Again - news on that fish and fish oils are good for you!
Women with certain polymorphisms get twice the breast cancer-preventing punch of eating fish rich in fatty acids. University of Southern California researchers who in 2004 found that certain fish oils appear to reduce breast-cancer risk now have discovered that the oils may especially benefit women with a particular genetic makeup.
>> Continue reading ‘Sushi (fish oils) helps prevent cancer’
Despite it being one of my favorite fish when having sushi, I have decided to stop eating bluefin tuna. There are two important reasons to why I think we should stop or at least restrict eating it;
- 1) It is overfished and endangered
- 2) It most likely contains too high a level of mercury.
Scientists think they have evidence that fish oil could cure mental disorders such as depression and dyslexia - conditions increasingly common in the Western world.
“This really does represent a breakthrough in the managing of individual depressions,” Alexandra Richardson, Senior Neuroscience Research Fellow at Britain’s University of Oxford, told a seminar about depression in Stockholm in 2001. “If the brain does not have the right fats, it will not be working right.”
Most people are in general quite concerned with what they eat these days, and some people seems to be on a constant diet. So - what about our precious sushi in regards to calories? Is it healthy or not? I found this overview over calories in the different types of sushi. I don’t know if this is important to you, but it might still be useful information. Here goes.
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