Never Eat Fish Again???

Posted on 24. May, 2010 by Howard Salus in Education, Environment, Florida News, Healthy Foods, featured

ENV is very proud to welcome Christina Pirello to our family of contributors. You will find her to be very knowledgeable, entertaining and not one to pull any punches. Please welcome her with your comments. But first, some of her illustrious background and her first article:

Christina Pirello, MFN, CCN

Christina Pirello, Emmy Award-winning host of ‘Christina Cooks’ on national public television, is a bright, free spirited, vivacious redhead who is one of America’s preeminent authorities on natural and whole foods with a radiant personality that only serves to make her message more powerful. She’s made it her purpose in life to show Americans that they can look their best and feel great too, by learning to eat natural, organic food.

Christina has written five cookbooks including the bestselling Cooking the Whole Foods Way, which was recently named the “Healthiest Cookbook of the Decade” by the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine; and is founder of The Christina Pirello Health Education Initiative and The Christina Pirello School of Natural Cooking and Integrative Health Studies.
Christina holds a faculty position at The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College, where she lectures as a professor of culinary arts. She also serves on the board of The Farm Market Trust, The Green Council of Philadelphia, The Chefs for Humanity Chef’s Council and is a member of IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) and Women Chefs and Restaurateurs.
Christina earned both her Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Fine Arts from the University of Miami, and was awarded a Masters Degree in Nutrition in 2003.

“I’m honored to be a contributor to ENV Magazine.  While an advocate for healthy eating, I’m equally passionate about our environment and the quality of our food supply.  Watch for my regularly posted blogs and videos on ENV”.  -Christina Pirello

Need A Good Reason To Never Eat Fish Again?
Christina Pirello
Next time you have an urge for fish and chips, barbequed shrimp, fried clams, oysters on the half shell, grilled salmon, or any kind of fish or seafood for that matter…think about this,
“The oil you can’t see could be as bad as the oil you can”!
While people anxiously wait for the slick in the Gulf of Mexico to wash up along the coast, globules of oil are already falling to the bottom of the sea, where they threaten virtually every link in the ocean food chain, from plankton to fish that are on dinner tables everywhere.
“The threat to the deep-sea habitat is already a done deal — it is happening now,” said Paul Montagna, a marine scientist at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.
Hail-size gobs of oil the consistency of tar or asphalt will roll around the bottom, while other bits will get trapped hundreds of feet below the surface and move with the current, said Robert S. Carney, a Louisiana State University oceanographer.
Oil has been gushing into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of at least 200,000 gallons a day since an offshore drilling rig exploded last month and killed 11 people. On Wednesday, workers loaded a 100-ton, concrete-and-steel box the size of a four-story building onto a boat and hope to lower it to the bottom of the sea by week’s end to capture some of the oil. Crews also set fires at the worst spots on the surface Wednesday to burn off oil.
Scientists say bacteria, plankton and other tiny, bottom-feeding creatures will consume oil, and will then be eaten by small fish, crabs and shrimp. They, in turn, will be eaten by bigger fish, such as red snapper, and marine mammals like dolphins.
The petroleum substances that concentrate in the sea creatures could kill them or render them unsafe for eating, scientists say.
“If the oil settles on the bottom, it will kill the smaller organisms like the copepods and small worms,” Montagna said. “When we lose the forage, then you have an impact on the larger fish.”
Making matters worse for the deep sea is the leaking well’s location: It is near the continental shelf of the Gulf where a string of coral reefs flourishes. Coral is a living creature that excretes a hard calcium carbonate exoskeleton, and oil globs can kill it.
The reefs are colorful underwater metropolises of biodiversity, attracting sea sponges, crabs, fish, algae and octopus.
“In my mind, they are at least as sensitive to contamination to oil as coastal habitat,” said James Cowan, an oceanographer at Louisiana State University. “They are in deeper water, so they are kind of out of sight, out of mind.”
There are other important habitats in shallower waters, such as an ancient oyster shell reef off the Mississippi and Alabama coasts. It is a vital nursery ground for red snapper and habitat for sponges, soft corals and starfish.
Scientists are watching carefully to see whether the slick will hitch a ride to the East Coast by way of a powerful eddy known as the “loop current,” which could send the spill around Florida and into the Atlantic Ocean. If that happens, the oil could foul beaches and kill marine life on the East Coast.
“Once it’s in the loop current, that’s the worst case,” said Steve DiMarco, an oceanographer with Texas A&M University-College Station. “Then that oil could wind up along the Keys and transported out to the Atlantic.”
“We’re always wondering when we may reach the point where straw breaks the camel’s back,” Montagna said. “At some point you have to wonder if we will see catastrophic losses.”
Just a little something to wrap your brain around when you think about whether or not to eat seafood or fish of any kind ever again.
Finally, if this all sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, it’s not.  While this monumental environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico seems to be of less interest to newscasters these days, it doesn’t lessen the true impact to our planet.  Not talking about it won’t make it go away.
The true impact of this event to the planet, and to both animal and human life has yet to be revealed to the American people and the people of the world.

Tags: Dining, Environment, food, organic