It's kind of bizarre that being a food photographer I don't write many food blogs about the industry I work in. I'm around food all the time and see a lot of what goes on behind the scenes so I'm really well placed to get involved. But depleting fish stocks in the one area of my industry I care a lot about and would like to see the health of our oceans and fish improve.
A couple of months ago I read quite a controversial piece in the national press that most of the vitamin supplements we take are quite useless and do very little, if anything, to add to our overall health. Which led me to put two and two together, fish stocks and vitamin supplements, to wonder firstly, do we need take fish oil supplements and just how is this industry impacting on the level of fish in the ocean?
The subject seems a bit of a minefield. We all know fish oil is good for us but the levels certain fish like cod in our oceans is at a dangerously low level so it would make sense buying cold liver oil tablets isn't helping. On the other hand, a lot of the fish oil from these pills comes from sustainable sources like sardines, krill and the like.
It is also interesting to note that fish oil doesn't actually come from the fish naturally it originates from the fish eating marine microbes so farmed fish doesn't contain fish oil and has to be fed it via feed for it to have any. Told you this was a bit of a minefield.
Although the bottom line is that continuing
to over fish our oceans whether it be for fish oil or fish has got to be a bad thing for us and the planet.
