Friday, February 26, 2010

Saying bye-bye to Tuna


As much as it saddens me to say it, I'm no longer eating tuna.  I have been hearing about how the Blue Finned Tuna is quickly becoming extint for some time now but I've finally heard enough to convince me to stop eating it.

A few months back I heard an interview with Daniel Pauly on the NPR show FreshAir (which you can listen to here or see my other post here) in which he said the following:

“Eating a tuna roll at a sushi restaurant should be considered no more environmentally benign than driving a Hummer or harpooning a manatee.”

The first time I went to sushi after I heard this, I stayed away from anything with tuna on it.  I even went on a quest to find a sustainable sushi restaurant and found Mashiko in Seattle.  (We planned on going on our next Seattle trip but we never went while we were there.)  Over the next 3-4 sushi trips I slowly convinced myself that the tuna I was eating was NOT the same kind of tuna that was becoming extinct. There is of course NO way for me to know what kind of tuna I'm eating.

So after much debating (mostly internal) I've decided that they only way I can know for sure that I am not eating Bluefin Tuna is to simply not eat tuna.

There is a lot of information online about this and I hope you will take some time and do some reading on this subject.

Here are some sites I suggest:
Not eating any tuna might be a little excessive, but it feels right for me.  What are your feelings? 

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