Little fish in the big pond

Doctors prescribe seafood, but there isn't enough to go around.

As reports of an alarming shortage of seafood have continued to creep in over the past few years, the claim of marine biologists that we may be looking at a world without seafood 50 years from today has inched further home. There are reports indicating that a surge in the consumption of hilsa fish in Bengal could lead to its extinction. One wonders, then — have dietary patterns changed drastically in recent years towards seafood?

More than a shifting dietary trend, seafood is drowning in a vicious circle of sorts. With a sharp rise in the number of people wanting to follow a healthy and nutrious diet, overfishing and pollution are making it difficult to obtain adequate produce.

Fish tops the dietary chart, as a protein-rich product to supplement the diet. Seafood is in demand like never before, among the health-concious. And seafood is not just healthy, say those who are not so tuned in to diet fads, it’s exotic too.

That is best understood in coastal tourist places, be it Kerala, Maharashtra or the Andamans, among others. There’s barely any room for vegetarian fare, because of the fresh prawns, crabs, fish and other seafood. After all, seafood is one of the deciding factors in taking a vacation along the seashore.

At hospitals as well, fish find influential fans in doctors and dieticians, who tell us that fish have quantities of heart-friendly omega-3 fatty acids.

“We recommend a fish-rich diet to patients, especially those with heart-related ailments. But an increased demand in fish depends on which state you are coming from. In the north of the country, with news of dangerously high levels of mercury being found in fish, people starting avoid it. But in Bengali households, it’s just part of the tradition, so its still cooked in every meal,” says Dr Ritika Samadar, dietician at Max Hospitals. So much so that there is supposedly a film called Hilsa in the making, to be produced by Reliance.

Adding to the worries is this fact: as part of the process of increasing production of fish, many batches are being bred in fish farms on a diet of vegetable oil instead of marine-based oil. This has the effect of changing omega-3 fatty acids to high levels of omega-6 fatty acids, which reduces fish’s health benefits to human eaters. It’s a difficult choice for those who are both health- and environment-conscious.