Letters to the Editor

This letter is associated with the following article:
Author Charles Clover on the scourge of overfishing, disgraceful restaurants, and yes, sustainable McDonald's.
  • No, you don't need to stuff yourself with fish every day.

    There are entire cultures who pride themselves on eating endangered animals because it makes the individuals in those cultures feel like kings. It is scarce and expensive and therefore a way to prove that one is affluent. I don't know how we educate them.

    Then there are the medical fads du jour. I have spoken to women who shriek about how they absolutely must have omega 3 fatty acids or they will die young, get wrinkles, have stunted children or miscarry. "Daily salmon!", they insist. First of all, that nutrient is available in things like walnuts and flax seed oil. Secondly, there are millions of inland people who are doing just fine without a steady diet of Trader Joe's salmon fillets. I never hear a centenarian talk about getting longevity from salmon fillets. They all seem to have lived a long time by having a daily cigar and a shot of bourbon for 82 of those 100 years.

    There are two or three thousand things we humans can eat, and many of those thousands of things are not fish. Pity our focus on the grand trinity of chicken-fish-beef and its handmaidens corn-wheat-carrots has blinded us to the need to preserve the biodiversity that gives us those two or three thousand other things we can eat.