Kenny Torella
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
She basically believes that the fish farming industry should switch to forms of seafood that just have way fewer welfare and environmental concerns.
But the other one is bivalves, which includes oysters, mussels, and scallops.
They can be farmed in a really environmental-friendly manner.
And there's also a lot of skepticism that they are even sentient, that they can feel pain.
So she presented that as kind of an alternative to the future of seafood, is choosing species where we don't have to grapple with all these trade-offs.
What I hear you saying is it is not all or nothing.
People just need to be conscious about what they're eating and where it's from, which, Kenny, I will tell you I feel optimistic about because the whole point of aquaculture in the first place was that people were aware that we were overfishing and it was bad for fish and it was bad for oceans.
So it's not like this is completely hopeless.
Yeah, I think the last 50 years of the rapid rise of fish farming teaches us a few things about food systems is that they are really complex and that maybe we kind of got ahead over our skis with rapidly domesticating and farming 200 aquatic species when the whole fish kingdom is incredibly complex and diverse and is not a monolith.
My hope is that in the future, as fish farming grows bigger and bigger, while at the same time we learn more and more about the environmental consequences, the impact on the fish themselves, the seafood industry can be much more intentional and careful about how seafood is produced.
Kenny Torella is a senior reporter for Vox's Future Perfect section.
Kelly Wessinger and Laura Bullard checked the facts.
Today's episode was supported by Animal Charity Evaluators, which received a grant from Earthshare.
This holiday season, if you sign up for a Vox membership, your Vox membership goes further than it does the rest of the year.