As the holidays approach, we can learn a lot about planning low-carbon holiday meals from locals. Lerwick Port, Shetland. There are gray stone buildings stuck together. Houses line the road that curves downhill to meet the sea. They block the cold winds that blow across the northernmost part of the North Sea.
On the first Sunday in October, St Columba Church in Scotland is packed with people bringing groceries, canned goods and large boxes of cereal. A fishing net containing paper-cut mackerel is spread out in front of the pulpit. Plastic fish tanks, shaped like shallow milk crates, are filled with food brought to the front and placed to the left and right of the net.
A woman leading the morning service on Harvest Sunday spoke about mice and people, the story of the field mice who were surprised to see them gathered in the barn and praising God for the harvest with their children. they sang: “Touch the earth lightly, to use it gently, to nourish the life of the world we care for. A great gift of wonder, ours to surrender, a trust to bear for the children of tomorrow.”
carbon trade-off
We also need to touch the planet more lightly to quell the ravages of climate change and cool the planet. The foods we choose to eat vary widely when it comes to the overall carbon emissions that burden the atmosphere. Beef cattle in feedlots are the worst. Producing one pound of beef produces 30 pounds of carbon dioxide.
Pork is better off consuming 4 to 12 pounds of carbon dioxide to produce 1 pound of protein. The value is added when pigs consume food scraps that will decay and release methane. Chickens require 10 times less carbon dioxide than feedlot beef to produce one pound of protein.
A significant portion of the world’s protein diet is fish. Shetland is located at the gateway to some of the best Atlantic fishing grounds, including the Faroe Bank and Home Ground, second only to Newfoundland’s Grand Banks. The Shetlanders were famous for their skills in handling boats on the open seas and for their skills in salting and preserving fish. They spared no expense to obtain the highest quality salt. As a result, Basque fishermen paid a premium to bring Shetland cod to market. With the development of steam trawlers and drift nets, Shetlanders took over the herring fishery and sold their product to Eastern Europe.
North Sea herring and Grand Banks cod fisheries collapsed in the 1970s. Today the Shetland fishing fleet is much smaller. Crabs are plentiful. Trap the lobster, place it in a box slightly larger than the lobster trap, and then set it back. Every couple of days, half a day and half, I pull the lobster box out onto the deck and put a couple of mackerel or sais inside to feed the lobsters.
holiday harvest
A large lobster harvest takes place in December to stock the Christmas markets. Lobsters rest during the winter. In February, fishermen catch whelks, edible sea snails, in five-gallon pots.
two remote cod fishing grounds owned by fishing company A. Sandison and Sons; silver lining and thomas Henry, It was famous for the size of its catch. Today the company makes crates for the salmon farming industry in Lerwick, among other things.
Dr Frances Sandison, a life cycle analyst at the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen, holds a Ph.D. Paper assessing the role of Shetland seafood consumption in providing a smaller carbon footprint. Farmed salmon is the worst for the environment, emitting 4 pounds of carbon dioxide per pound of protein from the food it feeds. A modern mid-ocean trawl fleet that catches mackerel and herring emits an average of half a pound of CO2 per pound of protein.
The most efficient seafood with the lowest carbon footprint Farmed mussels grown on ropesThis accounts for a tiny 0.2 pounds of carbon dioxide per pound of protein. Bermuda has a delicious way to eat mussels. Mussel Pie features a golden brown flaky pie crust filled with mussels, diced potatoes, chopped onions, fresh thyme, chopped parsley, curry powder and a dollop of Worcestershire sauce. Adding a dollop of mayonnaise under the hot pie crust is optional.
Learn from history and change the future
Like the Shetland Islanders, we can develop ways to use more fish, so we can get more protein products and more value from fewer catches.
A climate-smart future means including more seafood in our diets, eating less soy, using only pasture-raised beef, and eating more crab cakes, fish pies and “chowda” to reduce emissions of less sustainable foods. Controlling high carbon dioxide levels.
Let us eat well together to reduce our carbon footprint and “nourish the life of the world we care for.”
Dr. Rob Moir is a nationally recognized and award-winning environmental activist. He is president and executive director of the Ocean River Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a nonprofit organization that provides expertise, services, resources and information not available at the local level to support the efforts of environmental organizations. Please visit us www.oceanriver.org To learn about their work.
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