Is your fish dinner a healthy and sustainable option?

I recently enrolled in a weekly lecture series as a University of Washington Alum titled "Eating Your Environment" featuring top professors from around the world on the topics of food and sustainability.  Throughout the last few weeks we have listened to professors from Purdue, Stanford, and NYU.  This week, Professor Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington presented his findings regarding how we can sustainably harvest fish as a means to supplying a portion of the world's protein needs. 

There are mixed views on the impacts that fishing have on the environment, but Professor Hilborn made a compeling case for continuing to fish certain species at current levels rather than make up that protein demand through land based options.  The most eye opening statistic is that we would need at least 22 times the amount of available rain forest to produce enough beef to replace fishing - assuming we stop fishing completely.  Now, take a moment to think about that - there is not much rain forest left and if we cut it down to create land for protein from beef vs. fishing, the ramifications would be devastating.  So, in an attempt to help you make healthy and sustainable options when choosing fish for dinner - here is my distilled version of the lecture along with some additional resources. 

Pros to eating fish vs. beef:

• Fish is much higher in omega-3 fatty acids which help lower blood pressure and risk of heart disease
• Consuming protein from fish contributes significantly less carbon dioxide to the atmosphere
• Less loss to biodiversity (farming eliminates up to 100%, fishing about 30%)

Cons to eating fish vs. beef:

• Currently fishing at/near maximum yields, less than 30% growth available in fisheries worldwide 
• Typically higher levels of mercury and other contaminants, such as dioxins and PCBs
• Fish tends to be more expensive. But overall, cheap protein is not a healthy and sustainable option

Rodale's list of the 7 healthiest fish for you and the planet, All are high in heart-healthy omega-3s and low in contaminants, and are fish whose fishing or farming methods have minor impacts on the environment:

   

1. Albacore Tuna (Canada, U.S.)

2. Arctic Char (farmed)

Steve Mason with British Columbia
King Salmon and Dungeness Crab

3. Atlantic Mackerel

4. Rainbow Trout (farmed)

5. Sablefish/Black Cod (Alaska, Canada)

6. Sardines (U.S.)

7. Wild Salmon (Alaska) 

  
*Not mentioned on this list are shellfish, and since we have abundant opportunities in the NW to eat shellfish - I found that farmed oysters followed by wild dungeness crab and farmed mussels are the best options.I actually followed the lecture with meal of mussels and essential bakery bread!

Additional resources:

 Monterey Bay Aquarium: Seafood Watch also provides a comprehensive and easy to use list of which fish are best to eat and which should be avoided to do your part in restoring global fish populations and consuming only sustainably harvested populations.  Additional resources can be found through the Marine Stewardship Council - Sustainable Seafood Resources.  Finally, most experts agree that the health benefits of eating a moderate amount (2 servings per week) of fish far outweigh the risk of exposure to contaminants.

Are you sleeping well...and enough? (Rule #5)

Many years of research have gone into understanding why we sleep and how much is enough - the verdict?  We still don't know.  But, most experts agree that sleeping between 7 and 9 hours each night is imperative to keep your body functioning at optimum levels and ward off chronic disease. And the purpose, outside of providing the body time to regenerate and recover from the day?  In a recent National Geograpic article, Giulio Tononi from the University of Wisconsin noted that "the sleeping brain seems to weed out redundant or unnecessary synapses or connections. So the purpose of sleep may be to help us remember what's important, by letting us forget what's not."

If you feel that your stuggle to get a good nights sleep is an issue that few deal with, think again.  National Geographic also reports that fifty to 75 million Americans, roughly a fifth of the population, complain about problems sleeping. Fifty-six million prescriptions for sleeping pills were written in 2008, up 54 percent over the previous four years. and the article also places the direct medical cost of our collective sleep debt at tens of billions of dollars. The loss in terms of work productivity are even higher.

So what are the ramifications of not getting enough sleep?

Research presented in the Washington Post states that failing to get enough sleep or sleeping at odd hours heightens the risk for a variety of major illnesses, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity...The analysis of a nationally representative sample of nearly 10,000 adults found that those between the ages of 32 and 49 who sleep less than seven hours a night are significantly more likely to be obese.  A study done at the Harvard University over a ten year period on 70,000 women concluded that sleeping six hours a night was associated with a 18 per cent greater risk of heart attack, and sleeping five hours a night was associated with a risk of almost 40 per cent.
The Gallup Organization also rates sleep as one of the neccessities to keep a clear head and be productive throughout the day, it is like your daily reset button!  "Lack of sleep disrupts every physiologic function in the body," said Eve Van Cauter of the University of Chicago. "We have nothing in our biology that allows us to adapt to this behavior." 

So, what can you do to improve your sleep habits?

1. Make sleep a priority, focus on going to bed and getting up at the same time each day.
2. Exercise, but not within 4 hours of bedtime. I find that even 20 to 30 minutes of vigorous exercise early in the day improves sleep.
3. Sleep in a dark room and expose yourself to sun light or full spectrum indoor light during the day , click here to learn more about melatonin .
4. Reduce stress and anxiety before you go to bed in order to slow brainwaves: Write down pressing thoughts, resolve issues, take a warm bath then stretch, foam roll or meditate.
5. Have a snack before bed, experts suggest that dairy products (which contain tryptophan) and whole grains are a great option.  I like a bowl of Rice Crunch-ems cereal an hour before bedtime. 
6. You spend a third of your life in bed, find a bed you love.  I sleep on a Tempurpedic Classic, and have literally never slept better and wake feeling more refreshed than I have with any other bed.

Having a Dream... (Rule #7)

Life takes us down many paths, some inspiring, some challenging, some we will try to forget, and others we will make sure we remember, but in the end every step down every path makes us who we are and propels us into the future.  I consider myself a student of life and although I am not wise or enlightened, I have seen the world from many different perspectives and feel it is time to give back some of what I "think" I know!  Today I launch my blog and I see this project as a chance for me to express my perspective on the world to those willing to listen. Please join me as I discuss the connections between personal wellness (finding that balance of health, happiness, and personal fulfillment) and sustainability (the quest to meet the needs of the current generation while taking into account the needs of future generations).  My dream is that you will become a follower and in return provide your comments, feedback, and challenges to my perspective.

To you, in good health! Corey

Making better choices about food. (Rule #4)

A recent article in the Washington Post presents the findings of a new study that obesity is now potentially costing Americans 16% of their health care spending. Previous studies put the estimate at 9%. This should be an even more urgent call to arms for all of us working to educate and make high quality whole foods more readily available throughout society. As an individual who is working to bridge the gap between sustainability and wellness, data like this only becomes a more powerful tool when working with specific groups, schools and corporations on preventing obesity by encouraging behavior change. Starting by offering better food choices and "marketing" those choices while making it harder to pick "bad food" is a great place to start - if you have not read some of the case studies in "Nudge: Improving decision making about Health, Wealth, and Happiness" start by clicking here to see a short story on a simple cafeteria nudge. To read the article in the Washington Post, click here.

Your health may depend on where your beef comes from! (Rule #8)

Often times, we make a decision to purchase a particular food due to either its health or environmental ramifications. Is the food high in calories and nutritionally deficient? Was the food produced locally and organically or oversees by individuals that do not think twice about how their practices impact the health of the environment? There has been a lot of talk about grass fed beef lately, and I found a great study that promotes eating it not just because it is better for the environment and our health, but because it could change the amount of calories consumed - even by those that are not aware of the differences between beef from grain and grass fed cattle.

Because meat from grass-fed animals is lower in fat than meat from grain-fed animals, it is also lower in calories. (Fat has 9 calories per gram, compared with only 4 calories for protein and carbohydrates. The greater the fat content, the greater the number of calories.) As an example, a 6-ounce steak from a grass-finished steer can have 100 fewer calories than a 6-ounce steak from a grain-fed steer. If you eat a typical amount of beef (66.5 pounds a year), switching to lean grassfed beef will save you 17,733 calories a year—without requiring any willpower or change in your eating habits. If everything else in your diet remains constant, you'll lose about six pounds a year. If all Americans switched to grassfed meat, our national epidemic of obesity might diminish.

Click here to read the whole article and additional resources.

While changing over to a 100% grass fed beef diet may not be realistic for most (financially, accessibility) and changing this behavior alone is not the panacea of the obesity epidemic, it is a great step in the quest to being more sustainable in your overall wellness!

"It's better to go on vacation than to buy a new couch." (Rule #3)

Is basically the idea behind and New York Times article by Stephanie Rosenbloom titled "But Will It Make You Happy?" and validates #3 on my list. A few excerpts:

One major finding is that spending money for an experience — concert tickets, French lessons, sushi-rolling classes, a hotel room in Monaco — produces longer-lasting satisfaction than spending money on plain old stuff.

Spending on leisure activities appeared to make people less lonely and increased their interactions with others...spending on leisure and services typically strengthens social bonds, which in turn helps amplify happiness.

One reason that paying for experiences gives us longer-lasting happiness is that we can reminisce about them, researchers say.

Besides the fact that the article promotes Wal-Mart's sale of "experiences" via buying goods to create these experiences, this is an example of the mainstream recognition of integrating the principles of sustainability with the enhancement to personal wellness. For more research on the impact that "experiences" have on happiness, see the Financial Wellbeing section of "Wellbeing: Five Essential Elements" published by the Gallup organization.