Is there something fishy about sustainable sardines?

Maybe we should just chalk this one up in the “you can never win” category.

Leeann, my partner in urban homesteading crime and soul mate in the never ending quest for well-honed prose, has been trying to fall in love with sardines. Now I think sardines are splendid, always have. And Lily, the crown princess of backyard fowl, thinks they are absolutely delectable (she’s got a carnivorous streak a mile wide, just like the chickens she so adores).

But Leeann, not so much. It’s just that they are so, so fishy. Leeann, in fact, loves fish. She’s is wild about my plank-roasted wild Pacific Salmon. But she has this thing about eating recognizable body parts, or, in the case of tinned sardines, whole bodies. Cue a long-winded discussion about the ethics and spirituality of eating meat. Or peas for that matter.

But back to the sardines. Why would Leeann, or anyone else who gets squicked out by the sight of little fishy bodies all packed together like oily cordwood, want to eat sardines?
Consider the health benefits. According to no less an authority than the NYT, sardines are practically vitamins in a can. “They are high in omega-3’s, contain virtually no mercury and are loaded with calcium. They also contain iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper and manganese as well as a full complement of B vitamins,” Tara Parker-Pope writes.

And, on the all important sustainability front, the Monterey Bay Aquarium gives sardines, Pacific Sardines anyway, a big thumbs up, labeling them a “Best Choice” for seafood lovers. Once one of the most profitable fisheries in the country, sardines took a beating in the 1940s due to “a natural ‘boom and bust’ cycle, which occurs in Pacific sardine populations every 30 to 40 years when a change in water temperature and oceanic conditions favors either sardines or anchovies.” Overfishing may also have played a role as well.

But sardines have come booming back. Who doesn’t love a good comeback story, especially considering the overall state of the oceans and commercial fisheries?

Not so fast. Mother Jones’ Julia Whitty blows a whistle on the play, highlighting doubts about some so-called certified sustainable fisheries. Sardines, she points out, are the linchpin of a so-called wasp-waist ecosystem, which is pointy-headed scientist speak for a system in which a single predator species(the sardines in this case) eats everything below it on the food chain and is, in turn, the main menu item for everything above it. Including yours truly and possibly Leeann (as long as I mash up the sardines and cook them into a fabulous pasta dish).

Seeing as our record of dealing with complex and unpredictable ecosystems is not so hot, societally speaking, there is cause for concern if health conscious eco-foodies everywhere start popping sardines like they were wheat grass shots. Hmm…remember the wheatgrass craze?

Ya, I’d much rather have another shot of espresso too. So maybe we should take it a little slow with the sardines and keep them on the snack menu for now, rather than assigning them staple food status. At least until we know the sardine fishery can handle the demand.

Leeann’s response when I showed her the article? “Well, probably no industrially produced food is sustainable in the long run,” she says in that sardonic style I find so seductive.

That, at least, is food for thought.