Catch of the Freezer

By ASTRID SCHOLZ, ULF SONESSON and PETER TYEDMERS
NYT

GO local. Eat organic. Buy fresh. Those food mantras continue to make waves among environmentally conscious consumers. But — as is often the case in these climate-conscious times — if the motivation is to truly make our diets more earth-friendly, then perhaps we need a new mantra: Buy frozen.

Several years ago, the three of us — two ecological economists and one food system researcher — teamed up in an effort to understand how to develop sustainable food systems to feed a planet of nine billion by 2050. As the focus of our study, we chose salmon, an important source of protein around the world and a food that is available nearly anywhere at any time, regardless of season or local supply.

We examined the salmon’s life cycle: how the fish are caught in the wild, what they’re fed when farmed, how they’re processed and transported and how they’re consumed.

And what did we find in our research? When it comes to salmon, the questions of organic versus conventional and wild versus farmed matter less than whether the fish is frozen or fresh. In many cases, fresh salmon has about twice the environmental impact as frozen salmon.

(More here.)