{"id":6858,"date":"2012-02-29T10:30:13","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T18:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingvancouver.ca\/?p=6858"},"modified":"2013-01-21T07:10:43","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T15:10:43","slug":"walk-the-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/vancouver\/2012\/02\/29\/walk-the-talk\/","title":{"rendered":"Walk the talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Food is intrinsically linked to place, whether it is agricultural land, rivers, or oceans. Interest in sustainable foods and food security has increased across Canada: municipalities have been integrating community gardens to allow residents to grow their own food. Towards this end, the City of Vancouver introduced several pocket farmers markets last summer to increase access to local, organic food.<\/p>\n

The David Suzuki Foundation<\/a> is building on this momentum, running its first ever Sustainable Seafood Walk on Granville Island on Saturday, February 25th to introduce people to the wealth of ocean-based food choices available in Vancouver. Reinforcing the region’s reliance on local seafood in one of Canada\u2019s most popular public spaces, the self-guided walk included stops at the fishing docks (Seafood from the Source<\/a> and Organic Ocean<\/a> fishermen) and several shops on the island (Lobster Man<\/a>, Longliner Seafoods<\/a>, The Salmon Shop<\/a>, and Seafood City<\/a>). Cooking demonstrations, featuring sockeye salmon and pacific spot prawns, were held at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew that Granville Island and Richmond were areas where lots of new immigrants and families were buying seafood. They\u2019re areas of high seafood consumption, where these products are culturally significant,\u201d says Sophika Kostyniuk of the David Suzuki Foundation.<\/p>\n

Fisheries have been an important issue for the Foundation since it began in 1990: some of its first projects involved protecting the health of oceans and marine species such as salmon and clams. Over the years, their work has broadened from policy development to building capacity and forming coalitions with other organizations interested in protecting fisheries. In recent years, the Foundation has worked with fisheries, retailers, and consumers to change consumption habits. Their SeaChoice<\/a> Business Guide helps retailers include a sustainable seafood strategy into their business practices.<\/p>\n

In 2007, the Foundation partnered with Overwaitea Food Group<\/a> to encourage more sustainable options in its grocery stores. Overwaitea agreed to drop several unsustainable seafoods (Chilean sea bass, orange roughy, and yellowfin tuna); among their other sustainability practices, the move garnered them the title of \u201cMost Sustainable Grocer\u201d from Greenpeace USA. Most large retail chains have now partnered with sustainable seafood programs in the interests of corporate social responsibility:\u00a0Safeway Limited partnered with SeaChoice<\/a>, Loblaws<\/a>, Canada\u2019s largest buyer and seller of seafood, partnered with the Marine Stewardship Council<\/a> and the World Wildlife Federation<\/a>. Loblaws has committed to only selling sustainable seafood by the end of 2013.<\/p>\n

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Sample from The David Suzuki Foundation's Canada's Sustainable Sushi Guide that is available for download.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Among the Foundation\u2019s outreach efforts are several guides to help consumers choose more sustainable seafoods: Suzuki\u2019s Top 10 Sustainable Seafood Picks<\/a>, Canada\u2019s Seafood Guide<\/a> and Canada\u2019s Sustainable Sushi Guide<\/a>. All are downloadable and designed to be portable, so that you can carry them while you shop or eat at your favourite restaurants.<\/p>\n

Beyond listing seafood under the headings of Best Choice (green-listed), Some Concerns (yellow-listed) and Avoid (red-listed), the guides also require a higher level of engagement than merely choosing a shrink-wrapped package to add to your cart. For example, in order to choose the ten most sustainable seafood products, you need to ask your grocer, fishmonger, waiter, or chef how and where the item was caught. Pacific cod caught in Alaska by bottom longline, jig or trap are a top pick, but Atlantic cod is not. Fishing techniques can have devastating effects on the environment; while closed-containment farmed salmon is sustainable, open net pen farmed salmon is produced in ways that may harm wild salmon stocks.<\/p>\n

I asked Kostyniuk whether consumers feel comfortable asking for sustainable products and whether language barriers might be a problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, that was one of the first issues we identified right off the bat,\u201d she admitted. This week, several of the materials will be launched in traditional and simplified Chinese, and Japanese and Korean translations could be on the way soon. \u201cWe still need the French version, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Kostyniuk says that both consumers and retailers are searching for healthy, sustainable options and are asking questions about the products they buy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAsking questions about where the products come from is sort of the next level of commitment for people,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s making an impact already, and we just want to make sure that the oceans and the fisheries are here for generations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the consumer, and the shops, and challenging them,\u201d says Julian Bond, Executive Chef and Program Director at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts. \u201cThere are some stores out there that don\u2019t follow [SeaChoice or OceanWise<\/a>]. You know, because profit is obviously very important. But if we all try to stick to the green-listed products and avoid the red, we\u2019re off to a brilliant start. \u201d<\/p>\n

All of the featured retailers and fishermen on Granville Island were extremely knowledgeable on their products, fishing stocks and methods. At the Lobster Man, tanks of lobsters and crabs flanked bins of mussels, clams and oysters marked as Ocean Wise products. Helpful staff handed out free recipes and information about making sustainable choices. The Salmon Shop featured beautiful arctic char, Alaskan halibut, and sablefish, among other green-listed choices.<\/p>\n

Randy Cramer of Seafood From the Source had samples on hand of his salmon candy, cold smoked salmon and cold smoked tuna loin. He fishes every summer on the northeast tip of Haida Gwaii and offshore Vancouver Island, and the fish is smoked locally.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople know the fish comes from \u201cCaptain Randy\u2019s boat\u201d. It\u2019s kind of goofy, but that\u2019s who I am,\u201d Cramer beams. \u201cThis is the job that I want to end my working career with. I can\u2019t see doing anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cramer and Bond both extolled the high quality and sustainability of fish that is frozen quickly at sea. While consumers tend to turn their noses up at frozen fish, Bond says that \u201cfresh\u201d fish sold at markets is at least eight days old and has been flown hundreds of kilometers in Styrofoam containers, which can only be used once due to health regulations. Flash-frozen fish is cleaned and frozen before rigor mortis sets in, and can be packed in cardboard and shipped on trains.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe quality and the texture of the fish, and its colouration, is the best you can buy,\u201d says Cramer. \u201cBefore the whole sustainability issue became as important as it is now\u2026back then, this always considered the export quality, the top quality, which sadly didn\u2019t always get to our local market.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBeautiful sushi-grade ahi tuna has been previously frozen,\u201d Bond points out. \u201cBy law. There is no such thing as never-been-frozen tuna in Canada. With sushi we freeze all our salmon but nobody complains about that\u2026it\u2019s tasty. It\u2019s about changing our mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Events like the Granville Island Sustainable Seafood Walk illustrate the deep connections between place and food: we think of Vancouver as a place of stunning natural beauty, but tend to forget the contribution of its agricultural and ocean-based foods to our daily lives.<\/p>\n

As recently as a few decades ago, local food products were important economic generators in this region. This is why the David Suzuki Foundation hopes to hold its next sustainable seafood walk in Steveston\u00a0\u2014 the largest commercial fishing port in Canada\u00a0\u2014 where the Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site<\/a>\u00a0will be launching an exhibit on sustainable seafood this May. If you’re interested in the local food movement, choosing sustainable seafood products is another way to walk the talk.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Ren Thomas<\/strong> is an urban planner interested in the complex social spaces, interactions, and policies found in cities. She has written extensively on issues such as public transit provision, affordable housing policy and city governance on her blog, www.renthomas.ca<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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