Mossman Eats Cozumel Day Three

[Mossman]

It is a personal decision for each consumer to make. I prefer not to eat reef fish unless I can be sure of what I am eating and that it is not threatened or over-fished. Grouper (or what is labeled as grouper) remains a very popular fish to eat and that is unlikely to change soon. I feel it is appropriate to encourage people to be informed, especially divers who have a first-hand basis to appreciate the intricacies of marine life on the reef, but I completely respect each person's right to make their own dining choices.

BTW, at home I do make sustainable choices. My primary protein is fermented organic tofu. Many if not most of the top restaurants in urban areas in California offer many choices for sustaintable seafood; many serve nothing but sustainable seafood.

On vacation this trip, I had decided to try the top restaurants on the island and I had also decided to eat nothing but seafood. Unfortunately Cozumel has a way to go. Kinta, Kondesa, and Sorrisi did not offer sustainable seafood alternatives. They had "catch of day" which turned out to be grouper and they had shrimp which is likewise not "politically correct" to order. I could have eaten chicken or beef, both which also present politically correct dilemmas, stuck with vegetarian cuisine which didn't sound as palatable, or I could have nixed my plan to dine at the top restaurants. As I was only there for a few days, I decided to go forward with my seafood dining plan. That's my excuse, as poor as it may sound, and I'm sticking with it.

I was "moderated" for calling someone a hypocrite who had pointed out how terrible it was for me to eat grouper while that person had no problem indulging in beef, raised using a tremendous amount of water that could otherwise be used for far more efficient purposes, then shipped 3,000 miles regardless of what sort of carbon footprint that entails. I apologize for "name calling" if that's what it was deemed to be.

But, out of curiosity, I do wonder what you eat when you're on the less-than-politically-correct island of Cozumel? Is your only concern the sustainability of seafood and you otherwise stick with organically grown produce when you dine out on the island and no sustainable seafood is available? I haven't seen any mention of what you've eaten on your dive trips so informing me would be a good way to educate me and the rest of the readers here how to eat sustainably, in a politically correct manner, while on a dive trip. I eagerly await your response.

---------- Post added July 15th, 2014 at 11:26 AM ----------

I prefer to be part of the solution and not part of the problem and avoid destroying my environment when I can. Shark fin soup anyone?????????

As I pointed out before I was "moderated", eating Argentine beef shipped 3,000 miles to your dinner plate is hardly avoiding destroying your environment. Was that just an aberration?

 

[jd950]

BTW, at home I do make sustainable choices. My primary protein is fermented organic tofu. Many if not most of the top restaurants in urban areas in California offer many choices for sustaintable seafood; many serve nothing but sustainable seafood.

On vacation this trip, I had decided to try the top restaurants on the island and I had also decided to eat nothing but seafood. Unfortunately Cozumel has a way to go. Kinta, Kondesa, and Sorrisi did not offer sustainable seafood alternatives. They had "catch of day" which turned out to be grouper and they had shrimp which is likewise not "politically correct" to order. I could have eaten chicken or beef, both which also present politically correct dilemmas, stuck with vegetarian cuisine which didn't sound as palatable, or I could have nixed my plan to dine at the top restaurants. As I was only there for a few days, I decided to go forward with my seafood dining plan. That's my excuse, as poor as it may sound, and I'm sticking with it.

I was "moderated" for calling someone a hypocrite who had pointed out how terrible it was for me to eat grouper while that person had no problem indulging in beef, raised using a tremendous amount of water that could otherwise be used for far more efficient purposes, then shipped 3,000 miles regardless of what sort of carbon footprint that entails. I apologize for "name calling" if that's what it was deemed to be.

But, out of curiosity, I do wonder what you eat when you're on the less-than-politically-correct island of Cozumel? Is your only concern the sustainability of seafood and you otherwise stick with organically grown produce when you dine out on the island and no sustainable seafood is available? I haven't seen any mention of what you've eaten on your dive trips so informing me would be a good way to educate me and the rest of the readers here how to eat sustainably, in a politically correct manner, while on a dive trip. I eagerly await your response.

Thanks for your reasonable comments here. On Cozumel and to varying degrees elsewhere in the Caribbean I eat beef, chicken and depending on the situation, pork. The beef is often advertised as Argentinian and in many cases I know it is shipped in from Miami. I will eat mahi mahi/dorado and Caribbean lobster in season. I will eat lionfish gladly. I will admit that I pay little attention to carbon footprint issues, and have no idea of the environmental impact, if any, of eating beef from Florida or Argentina while in the Caribbean.

I used to frequently eat grouper and snapper and hogfish while in Mexico or in the Caribbean and I enjoy good fresh fish, but then decided for myself that I could not justify eating these fish after I learned more about the effects of removing them from the reefs in the quantities they are fished. It was my decision, for me, and if I am with someone at dinner who chooses to order grouper I say nothing and certainly would make moral judgments about that person. If I am given an opportunity to make my pitch without making trouble I will and if not, so be it. I was not judging you for having grouper at all, I just saw an opportunity to jump on my soapbox.

It isn't about morality, it is just what I think is the best practice and it does not make me "better" than someone who doesn't share my feelings. Someone else may choose to be vegan or vegetarian or whatever. If I don't know if a seafood item is "environmentally wise" to eat or not, I take my guidance from the "seafood watch" card I carry in my wallet. I miss out on some good meals, but when diving and I see very few grouper, I don't feel guilty.

Oh, and I don't usually eat shrimp or tilapia, because it is almost impossible to know what it is and where it came from. Much of the shrimp and tilapia available to us in the U.S. and in Mexico was farmed under conditions that are suspect and the FDA does not monitor closely for chemicals and contaminants.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/15/world/asia/15fish.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0


Anyway, my choices have nothing to do with being politically correct. I rarely stray into those waters. I just believe we need to do more to preserve the reefs and oceans. I am sorry if it seemed like I was attacking you and in hindsight, I think I should not have used your dinner review post as an outlet for my personal agenda, and for that hijack I apologize.

---------- Post added July 15th, 2014 at 04:26 PM ----------

Jd950, thanks. Your thoughts and knowledge on this matter echo my own. but inasmuch as, you were trying to convince the grouper eaters (or what they are told is grouper), and encouraging those very eaters to do research, this being the internet, it's best to make it easy for people. So I'm pleased with how this turned out.

Good point. Sorry for the continued hijack of Mossman's dinner thread. I will try to stop myself now.

One-quarter of grouper species being fished to extinction

Twenty of World's 162 Grouper Species Threatened With Extinction | Mother Jones

Groupers are being eaten to extinction | Sport Diver

FLMNH Ichthyology Department: Gag Grouper

The fish you're eating might not actually be the fish you think

New Report Reveals U.S. Fisheries Killing Thousands of Protected and Endangered Species - The Daily Beast

 

[Skittl1321]

I just believe we need to do more to preserve the reefs and oceans.

Is there a reason you value the reefs and the oceans over the rainforests? Beef farming is pretty devastating to them. Is it because you can't scuba dive in a rainforest? The Yungas rainforest (since you mentioned Argentina) is being threatened both by grazing cattle and by all consuming soy bean crops to feed cattle world wide. The loss of biodiversity in this environment is no different than the loss of biodiversity on a reef.

 

[Mossman]

Anyway, my choices have nothing to do with being politically correct. I rarely stray into those waters. I just believe we need to do more to preserve the reefs and oceans. I am sorry if it seemed like I was attacking you and in hindsight, I think I should not have used your dinner review post as an outlet for my personal agenda, and for that hijack I apologize.

Apology accepted. I would have been much happier had the waiter informed me that the catch of the day was something other than grouper or if there were other seafood choices available at the time. Hopefully restaurants there will get the "message" at some point, especially since the island economy relies a great deal on diving consumers. If not, my next time at one of the grouper establishments, I'll probably order chicken, optimistically hoping that it's a free-range bird that had a happy life rather than being stuffed in a tiny cage with its beak clipped off and its waste stockpiled and eventually harming the water supply.

Honestly, in a different mood I may have stood on the same soapbox. If someone posted a review of eating shark fin soup, I doubt I would have held my tongue. J won't even let me consider going to Chinese restaurant that has it on the menu which made the pickings slim the last time we were in Vancouver.

---------- Post added July 15th, 2014 at 03:09 PM ----------

Is there a reason you value the reefs and the oceans over the rainforests? Beef farming is pretty devastating to them. Is it because you can't scuba dive in a rainforest? The Yungas rainforest (since you mentioned Argentina) is being threatened both by grazing cattle and by all consuming soy bean crops to feed cattle world wide. The loss of biodiversity in this environment is no different than the loss of biodiversity on a reef.

Most cattle in the U.S. are fattened on corn grown in states like Iowa

Not only is this bad for the cow which can't digest corn as well as it can grass, but it increases the saturated fat content and causes a greater incidence of heart disease. Of course it's a lot cheaper to feed cows corn in the bulk quantities of cattle we consume and it makes Monsanto happy. The rest of the corn is used to replace sugar, sweetening just about every industrially produced food stuff we eat, ensuring that all our kids are hyperactive and making Big Pharma happy to medicate them when their parents complain they can't sit quietly in front of the TV for hours at a time like they used to.

Uh oh, I think I somehow got up on a soapbox.

 

[Skittl1321]

Most cattle in the U.S. are fattened on corn grown in states like Iowa

I'm not a big fan of many of the farming practices here either... the US uses way too many antibiotics, for one! And I absolutely hate Iowa's push towards ethanol as a "sustainable" fuel. The only thing it sustains is our coffers. There are too many places in the world that are food poor to use crops that have heavy space and water demands for fuel. But Iowa was not stripped of much beside prairie grass to put those fields in place (and, actually, prairie regeneration is a thing here, because many species were lost to it- but certainly not on the level of the rainforests!) and it was done in a time before we understood the implications. The destruction of South America is being done while the governments are aware of the consequences; just like the reef overfishing.

I eat very little meat, and no fish at all. Just enough to get enough protein to live, mostly free range chicken (which I'm sure is a bit of a misnomer...), since I didn't stay very healthy on a vegetarian diet. The non-chicken meat we do buy often comes from a small farmer who sells us a share of a pig or a cow, and can literally point to the one we are going to get and introduce us if we'd like (personally, I don't want to know their name!).

 

[ronski101]

Last time I looked, beef was a pretty common commodity commercially raised for consumption and not a wild animal like grouper. poaching grouper in a marine park is like going to the zoo or an aquarium at night and shooting one of the animals and then selling it at the local meat/fish market. Many people are ignorant on what seafood they consume (creating the demand) but I would think divers, especially divers that have been diving for more than a few years would know better. Guess I am wrong.
Us humans all live at the expense of other living things and we are breeding like crazy so our impact is only going to get worse. The macro diving in Lembeh is great but only because the 280 million Indonesians don't eat the critters we love to take pics of. Seems to me that it is logical to within reason minimize our impact especially on something that we travel thousands of miles just to look at in it's natural environment. I have talked to old timers who have dove Coz back in the 60-70 and according to them it was a diving paradise teeming with life and compared today it is a desert.....caused by man. it is all relative so I will take what I can get. Too bad, so sad......
I love the Nassau groupers at little Cayman who are so friendly and tame like Benji....Oh, I forgot, he got speared a couple of years back again by poachers ........

 

[Skittl1321]

While I have no doubt fish are poached, I'm guessing reputable restaurants are using legally caught fish.

 

[Mike]

Don't feel too bad ordering grouper, odds are you aren't actually eating it anyway, grouper is one the highest percentage miss-labeled fish there is being served. There ain't enough groupers in the oceans to make all the 'grouper' on the menus for real. How many do you see on the reefs, where do you think all these seemingly endless supplies of grouper are coming from? Last time I checked there weren't any grouper fish farms in Mexico. The FDA routinely finds less than 50% of fish served in the US correctly labeled, in Mexico with almost zero over-sight I'd venture the percentage if anything is even lower. The grouper on the menu in Mexico is probably as real as the Cuban cigars are on the square.

 

[Mossman]

Last time I looked, beef was a pretty common commodity commercially raised for consumption and not a wild animal like grouper. poaching grouper in a marine park is like going to the zoo or an aquarium at night and shooting one of the animals and then selling it at the local meat/fish market. Many people are ignorant on what seafood they consume (creating the demand) but I would think divers, especially divers that have been diving for more than a few years would know better. Guess I am wrong.

Why would you think the grouper was poached in the marine park? Most of the waters surrounding Cozumel are not a marine park. I don't think that grouper can tell the difference.

BTW, it is completely legal for Chinese to take shark fins in most of the waters of the world. Does that make it right?

 

[kixy1]

Fermented tofu?! The cigars aren't Cuban?! Are you trying to scare the children?