The Sustainable Shift Drink

A splash of recent media got me thinking about a concept that isn’t really new, but one that I think takes sustainable food to a whole new level. The idea is eating invasive species. The world is filled with disaster stories of animals moving in and overrunning a new territory. Here in the US we have various snakes in Florida, Asia Carp threatening to destroy the Great Lakes fishing industry and host of other invasive species pushing out native populations. Unfortunately, a great many of these invasive creatures are succeeding so well because they have no natural predators, and they don’t taste that good to potential predators, humans included.

After recently speaking with a biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, I learn Burmese pythons are one such inedible creature – particularly those invading the Florida Everglades. They are not inedible because of the taste or texture of the meat itself, but because samples tested by the National Park Service found unsafe levels of mercury in the snakes. Evidently, the South Florida burns its garbage, and natural weather patterns drop the pollution from the incineration into the Everglades. I’m sure the coal-fired power plants in the area are not helping either. The National Park is currently conducting tests on additional snakes to confirm the first results of mercury-tainted meat.

However, some invasive species do tempt the palate, and I believe the foodservice industry is in a great position to lead the charge in a new culinary trend. In an age of “Foodies,” how better to capitalize on the sustainability trend than serving something new, intriguing and not only environmentally friendly, but environmentally beneficial!

Some are already serving up invasive species. Restaurants in New York and Chicago have served invasive Lionfish from the Florida Keys, in fact the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has come up with an Eat Lionfish campaign to encourage restaurants to start serving the fish that is invading the Southeast and Gulf Coasts, and the Caribbean. In Asia they are finding various uses for the global warming loving jellyfish, Brits are dining on the invasive American grey squirrel, and an entrepreneurial fishery in Illinois is making gefilte fish from Asian Carp.

Mike Schafer of Schafer Fisheries in Thomson Illinois has bigger ideas than just serving up carp in restaurants. He thinks we can solve some of our world hunger and humanitarian problems like Haiti with the ugly fish. Schafer thinks processed Asian carp would make a great, portable protein source that doesn’t need to be refrigerated. The end product would be a cooked mash of fish packaged and sealed in pouches that very mobile, relatively light weight and high in calories. Right now Schafer Fisheries is processing about 12 million pounds of the carp each year, but with increased demand for the fish in Asian, a push from the state of Illinois, and the potential for a humanitarian protein source the production demand for Asian carp is likely to reach estimates of over 30 million pounds a year.

The market seems to be ready for these products. It just needs a few chefs to introduce the fine dining crowd to a new taste.

If you have served or ate Lionfish or any other invasive species, please share your experience.

Tags: Asian Carp, invasive species, Lionfish, Schafer Fisheries, sustainable seafood
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We are honored to have Rich Boot, founder and CEO of FishChoice.com as a guest blogger this week. Fishchoice.com connects commercial seafood buyers with sustainable seafood suppliers. Rich offers some insight into serving sustainable seafood.

Is it the seller’s or the buyer’s responsibility? Actually both. Consumers need to ask where the fish they are buying comes from and how it is caught and restaurants need to make more sustainable choices available to consumers.

There are two reasons this doesn’t happen as often as it should:

1.       Chefs and consumers alike stick with the options that are most familiar to them. And often, neither one is willing to leave his or her comfort zone without a nudge. This is understandable. It’s risky for a chef to put an unfamiliar item on the menu and perhaps not sell it, and it’s risky for the diner to order something they aren’t sure they are going to enjoy eating.

2.       Sellers succeed by satisfying their customer base. If customers don’t ask questions about seafood, sellers assume that it’s not important. Yet, many customers don’t ask because they don’t know enough and don’t feel comfortable asking. Some feel that they shouldn’t be faced with unsustainable choices on menus in the first place. But will they buy an unfamiliar choice?

What’s the solution? Restaurateurs have to make the first move. Start by replacing one seafood menu item with a more sustainable one. Explain to the consumer why you think it’s important to offer more sustainable choices and what makes the new choice more sustainable.

Choose just one option at time to switch out, prepare it well, and be prepared to sell it.

Need ideas for preparing different types of seafood? Sustainable seafood chef/activist, Barton Seaver, has worked with The Blue Ocean Institute http://www.blueocean.org/food/ocean-friendly-substitutes to get the share recipes and substitution ideas with chefs all over the country.

Start by switching out overfished grouper with environmentally friendly, farmed striped bass. Here’s a recipe from Barton to get you started: http://www.blueocean.org/food/barton-seaver/recipes/striped-bass-catalan-broccoli-pine-nut-sauce. Sustainable seafood restaurant, Yankee Pier offers a Striped Bass Carpaccio with Citrus and Olives http://www.yankeepier.com/santana_row/santanarow_menus.html

Register http://www.fishchoice.com/ for FishChoice.com to find a supplier for striped bass today.

Tags: sustainable food, sustainable seafood
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I recently posted a couple articles about food waste in the news section of sustainablefoodservice.com. One was on the regulation of food waste, and the other about a restaurant group that has installed an on-site composting machine called the eCorect. I don’t normally post articles about specific restaurants going green, but this one brought up some specific thoughts for me.

What does sustainability mean when it comes to composting?

In the big picture, there are a lot of interworking systems that go into composting, and therefore carbon footprints. Large-scale industrial facilities have enormous infrastructure including aerators, heavy machinery and some sort of distribution system while small-scale systems like the eCorect have a large initial carbon footprint in the manufacturing of the machinery, and continue to consume energy throughout the machines life.

Large-scale worm bin that processes 120 gallons of restaurant food waste a week.

Smaller, traditional composting bins don’t use any power or need a huge infrastructure, but can’t process large amounts of material or any meats or dairy. They are usually just not practical for most restaurants. Other systems like large vermiculture systems are simple to build and can process large amounts of material, but you still need the space on-site to process the food waste. There are also anaerobic digesters and several types of on-site composting machines.

Despite the carbon footprint from the infrastructure of large-scale composting facilities that most restaurants will use, composting is the most sustainable option – there have been studies done… Ideally we would all have a compost bin out back, but that is obviously not practical nor is a composting machine in every restaurant.

I do think there is a place for every system depending on the foodservice operation. Small, rural restaurants may have enough room to have their own compost pile, an on-site composter or send their food scraps to a farmer, while urban restaurants are generally going to use composing machines or a commercial composting facility with regular food waste collection.

Whichever service is available or system used, restaurant owners need to start thinking about food waste if they are not already. As noted in the article from the UK, regulations on organic waste are on their way. San Francisco recently enacted mandatory composting, and many areas will soon follow as they build composting infrastructures.

This should be viewed as a good thing for restaurant operators. Composting whether with a hauler or on-site is cheaper than waste hauling and will only get more economical as landfills run out of space and gasoline prices continue to rise.

Tags: composting, food waste, Waste Reduction
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The EPA recently released a new food cost calculator that estimates the financial savings of source reduction, donation, and composting of food, and recycling of yellow grease. The calculator takes user input such as food costs and amounts of waste (so you will need some in-house data) and calculates savings and environmental benefits based on several scenarios. The calculator is created in a Microsoft Excel file and you will need macros enabled to run the file.

In addition to the calculator, the EPA also provides a wealth of information on food waste.

The food waste calculator is available on the EPA website.

I will also post a link to in on www.sustainablefoodservice.com under the Tools section.

Tags: calculators, food waste, Waste Reduction
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The Consumer Union has been in the news a couple times in the last couple of weeks. Just before Halloween the CU filed a petition with the FDA requesting that the governmental organization ban the practice of feeding chicken feces and basically anything else found on the floor of large chicken operations to beef cattle. This is a common practice in CAFOs, and of course affirmed as a safe practice by the beef industry. Interestingly enough, McDonalds the largest beef purchaser in the world is in support of the ban.

The CU also made recent headlines with a report that will be published in their December issue that tested for Bisphenol A in common food products. All 19 products tested showed BPA contamination at various levels. This is really not groundbreaking news as the many other studies have shown that BPA from food packaging leaches into food. The Environmental Working Group’s 2007 report on BPA showed baby formula had some of the highest levels tested.

With the release of the Consumers Union report, the industry in question is again stating that the results are flawed, and that their own testing and other reports show that BPA is harmless to humans. This, despite numerous other reports showing harmful effects of BPA, and support of the CU report from organizations such as the Breast Cancer Fund, Clean Water Action, Clean New York, Center for Health, Environment & Justice, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Oregon Toxics Alliance and other environmental health advocates.

Regardless of what studies one believes, the fact remains that there is some weird stuff in our food. Food packaging liners that are supposed to keep things out of our packaged food are leaching BPA into the food. Cows that are supposed to eat grass, are eating chicken poop and feathers. These are the facts, no one is debating them. Yet somehow the debate is on whether these things are harmful to humans and not on why they are in our food. A man made chemical is found in almost every packaged food on stores shelves (and restaurant kitchens). Beef is being created with chicken poop and the scrapings of the coop. This is just not a healthy, safe or sustainable option.

So, what are restaurants to do? Take the advice of sustainable food and agricultural advocate Wendell Berry:

•Participate in food production

•Prepare your own food

•Know the origins

•Deal direct

•Learn about industrial food production, agriculture, food   species

It basically comes down to the root of a sustainable foodservice operation; preparing fresh, local and sustainable food. Opening a can of product produced by an unknown company with ingredients from unknown producers places too much responsibility in the hands of others. Products made in-house from fresh ingredients sourced from producers known by name have an inherent pride and responsibility for quality and safety in them. Pride and a sense of responsibility create good food. Good food creates repeat customers…

Tags: BPA, sustainable food, Wendell Berry
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