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Celebrating World Ocean Day 2023
It’s no wonder that we often refer to our planet as “Mother Earth.” Being terrestrial animals, we naturally associate our existence with the land we inhabit. However, when considering the vast size and tremendous influence of the ocean, it’s more fitting to call our planet “Mother Ocean.” After all, our world is predominantly a mesmerizing blue expanse.
June 8 is World Ocean Day, and the entire month of June is National Ocean Month. I am reminded of my previous role as senior vice president for the National Aquarium, where we celebrated the extraordinary diversity of the ocean and its profound impact on our lives every day. The ocean acts as a unifying force, a protector, a provider of sustenance, and a regulator of our climate. Moreover, one of its most important resources, a diet rich in fish, helps us balance modern society’s dysregulated omega 6 – 3 balance.
Foods from the ocean remain crucial to many societies and cultures today and have supported Indigenous Peoples in coastal communities worldwide for millennia. In “Why Dental Caries With Modern Civilizations? XIII. Field Studies Among the Polynesians and Melanesians of the South Sea Islands,” published in The Dental Digest, June 1935, Weston A. Price, DDS celebrates the health of residents in the Samoan and Hawaiian Islands who stayed true to their cultural native food practices. In contrast, he exposes the rapid dental health decline of inhabitants of the same islands who had adopted modernized foods (chiefly “white flour and sweetened goods”).
For those of us not consuming enough fish and benefiting from their healthy Omega-3 oils, we’ve included a few of our favorite seafood recipes below. If fish isn’t your thing, supplementation is also worth considering. You can learn more about the benefits of fish oils by reading, “Should You Take Fish Oil?” in our nutrition series, Thrive in 65.
Fortunately, management of protected marine areas by locals is helping to safeguard the ecosystems many of us continue to depend upon. But, action by populations unaffected by these ecosystems is needed as well. At the UN Biodiversity Conference last year, an historic #30×30 initiative was launched to ensure that, by 2030, at least 30% of all lands, waters, and ocean are protected. I hope this is something the entire Price-Pottenger community can support!
While World Ocean Day and Ocean Month are commendable initiatives, we must acknowledge that the ocean continues to face grave challenges and the sustainability of wild fish stocks hangs in the balance. That’s why I urge you to take action during National Ocean Month. Reach out to your elected officials and ask for their support for measures and investments aimed at safeguarding our ocean and its invaluable resources. You can find a convenient “Take Action” link on the World Ocean Day website.
Let us come together and demonstrate our commitment to the preservation of Mother Ocean, and by doing so protect the Indigenous peoples whose ancestral practices depend on her bounty. Your actions in days, weeks, and months to come can make a difference.
Wishing you good health,
Steven J. Schindler,
Executive Director
Long before being compressed into a tin can, tuna has provided vital nutrition to many traditional cultures, such as the native Hawaiians, who preferred to consume this “chicken of the sea” semi-raw, especially in one of their most recognizable dishes, poke. Similar to other raw seafood recipes around the world (like ceviche, which originated in ancient Peru, among the Moche Peoples), poke was traditionally prepared with salt and often would be flavored with ingredients like seaweed.
Despite the continued debate regarding potential health implications due to heavy metals and other complications associated with consuming raw fish, tuna provides a fairly impressive dose of amino acids, such as taurine, which is critical for maintaining proper hydration and cellular electrolyte balance.
Click here for the recipe and video.
Cook time: 20-30 minutes
Wild Cod with Pesto Carrot Noodles
Still a significant international trade commodity, cod first became popular for this purpose in the Viking era, around 800 AD, as a result of the Norwegian practice of drying and salting the cod, which made it easy to transport over great distances. Nowadays, cod can be found on menus around the world in various forms, such as lutefisk, a traditional, and notoriously odorous, Norwegian meal of air-dried, unsalted cod fish.
Although the use of fermented cod liver oil remains a debated topic, cod liver and its oil have historically served a multitude of purposes for many Indigenous Peoples along the northern Atlantic coast. Prized for their nutritive value, cod livers also provided for other necessities, such as lamp oil and soap, and were especially revered by the Scandinavian Vikings, whose oil-making process involved draping the raw livers across birch branches over a kettle of water.
Click here for the recipe and video.
Cook time: 30-45 minutes
One of the most critical biological foundations for many healthy river ecosystems, salmon has nurtured thousands of years of human history and continues to be a primary source of income for many coastal communities, from Russian waters to the Pacific Northwest coast, where salmon is also referred to as the “Alaskan turkey.”
Like other “oily” ocean fish, salmon delivers an impressive dose of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (or PUFAs), particularly EPA and DHA, which have been shown to improve cardiovascular outlook. Introducing salmon as a first food for children (as well as other sources of these essential fatty acids, like sardines) has been shown to reduce the risk of developing eczema and asthma later on in childhood.
Click here for the recipe and video.
Cook time: 2-3 hours