For today’s Sensible Saturday, I invite you to take a little quiz. It’s only 10 questions, and the answers are at the bottom. It’s on a webpage that I maintain, so, as with everything I do over cyber-space, you don’t need to sign up for anything and your mail address won’t be tracked.
Take the short quiz, How Green is My Seafood?, at http://holyfamilysanjose.org/documents/2014/9/How_Green_is_My_Seafood.pdf.
Our ocean. It gives us beauty, fun, food, jobs, medicine, air, weather patterns, a place to think. In return, we give it pollution, beach erosion, and death to its inhabitants. But with our normal daily activities we can reverse this destructive human trend:
1) Lessen pollution by conserving water and guarding against oil and antifreeze running into the ocean. (The ocean gets more oil from car leaks than from large tanker spills.)
2) Avoid litter–cigarette butts tossed onto the street end up in the ocean, killing sea-life.
3) Ask questions before buying seafood. Was it farmed, thus depending on wild fish as its food source? Where was it farmed—inland, meaning that waste didn’t flow into the ocean? If wild, was it caught in such a way that didn’t also catch turtles, dolphins, and other life that was simply discarded? (For help, print a pocket guide from http://www.seafoodwatch.org/-/m/sfw/pdf/guides/mba-seafoodwatch-west-coast-guide.pdf?la=en.)
It’s not too late—yet—to start taking better care of our wonderful, watery friend.
“They kept me chained up, they didn’t care about me or give me any food…They sold us like animals, but we are not animals – we are human beings.”
This heart-wrenching quote is from a man sold from ship to ship in Thailand, caught in the trap of slavery and forced to work on a boat that supplies feed to the prawns we buy at the grocery store.
The three largest grocers in the world — Walmart, Carrefour, and Costco — were named specifically in a new investigation by the Guardian for selling prawns and shrimp whose production relies upon slave labor. One week later,those companies are still refusing to take two simple steps to rout out slavery from their supply chains — and that’s where we come in.
Human rights activists are demanding Walmart, Carrefour and Costco join Project Issara, a Thai-based initiative to end modern slavery, as well as institute a zero tolerance policy on slavery based on conditions on the ground. Before the spotlight of the Guardian expose fades, let’s raise our voices to speak out against slavery in the prawn industry.
Read more at the SumOfUs website. While there, sign the petition to tell Costco, Walmart, and Carrefour to take concrete actions to end slavery in their supply chains.
“Sea” to it that your food is good to buy. Go to www.MontereyBayAquarium.org, look for “Make a Difference” (on the right), click on “Seafood Watch,” and learn about sustainable seafood. While there, download a pocket guide to refer to when shopping or dining.
