FEATURES
Features
intentions to not destroy our wildlife, or to consume healthy Omega-3s
or cut down on our waste.
We go shopping and find packets advertising sustainably farmed
salmon, cod, trout, chickens, pigeons and almost all meats and
more! Sadly, ‘farmed’ often means being given growth hormones,
colouring agents, antibiotics, pesticides (yes to ‘protect’ the
animals) and fed artificial foods. They are artificially spawned,
brought up and kept literally fin by fin or wing by wing in small
enclosures. Did you know you can get almost a million large
salmon (all alive) in a football pitch–sized enclosure? There are
added benefits for cooks—fewer scales on fish, more tender flesh
on birds, meat that somehow holds its shape better.
SUSTAINABILITY
AND
HHYC MEMBERS
The Wizard’s back...and on a soapbox
Nice restaurant, overlooking the sea, yachts coming and
going, lovely—and so to the menu which included sustainably
farmed salmon from…Wizard looked at the startlingly
pink salmon which had travelled several thousand miles in
chilled comfort, triple wrapped in plastic and protected in
polystyrene boxes which, on reaching the kitchen of the
restaurant in question, were all thrown out at the end of one
journey (excuse given—hygiene, a lack of space) and thought
sustainable? Really? So Wizard took a peek into how this
‘sustainable’ bit of food came to be called sustainable and
was horrified at the answer.
So what is sustainability? This increasingly popular term
is, at minimum, a complex and challenging concept and
very hard to pin down. Wizard challenges us all to take a
look at any reputable convention, law or approach and to
summarise sustainability in a couple sentences. APHA defines
a ‘sustainable food system’ as, “One that provides healthy
food to meet current food needs while maintaining healthy
ecosystems that can also provide food for generations to
come with minimal negative impact to the environment. A
sustainable food system also encourages local production and
distribution infrastructures and makes nutritious food available,
accessible, and affordable to all.” And another definition,
44 Hebe jebes • mar/apr 2015
“In ecology, sustainability is how biological systems remain
diverse and productive.”
We sailors talk about the sustainability of our playground, the
ocean. Yet do we really try to live in a sustainable way? Do we
actually make changes? Do we select carefully? Do we really
care? And if we do, do we look behind the labels? As most of
our Club’s members e