Hacker Cinema
The Fish on My Plate
2017 · Film · 83 min
Directed by Neil Docherty
Paul Greenberg spends a year eating fish at breakfast, lunch and dinner to help answer the question: “What fish should I eat that’s good for me and good for the planet?” The Fish on My Plate chronicles Greenberg as he works on his book, The Omega Principle — and consumes over 700 fish meals in hopes of improving his health through a dramatic increase in his Omega-3 levels. As part of his quest to investigate the health of the ocean — and his own — Greenberg spends a year eating seafood for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
4 positive1 neutralfrom 5 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
6 comments on Hacker News
But has it been double-blinded clinically verified to be as bioavailable as the omega-3 compounds from consuming very fresh canned sardine/anchovies? And, supplements aren't regulated in the US, you really have no idea what's in them and no idea about proper dosage. Supplements in the US are generally a popular, expensive scam with little or zero evidence to back them up.
You also might want to watch The Fish on My Plate, a Michael Pollan-like documentary, because the evidence points to taking fish oil pills in sufficient quantities to have a clinically-significant effect would risk cardiovascular dysfunction and metabolic issues long beforehand, and how, anecdotally, eating small, wild-caught, heavy-metals-free fish on a near-daily basis seems like the best approach without more data. They also go into detail about the horrors of fish farming, pros/cons of wild-caught.
We all (should) know what happens when overfishing occurs. [0]
There's a balance between doing what's optimal for individual health and what can be sustained. Unfortunately, I don't know of any better or equal omega-3 source because plant-based and fish oil capsules are demonstrably inferior. Canned, sustainable-quotaed, wild-caught, extremely fresh sardines and anchovies caught around South America are precisely what were recommended by the documentary The Fish on My Plate. The amount of bioavailable omega-3 content in them is significantly higher than fish oil pills, and was confirmed with blood tests. The thing is, in order to have a clinical impact requires consuming several servings per week or everyday would be a minimum amount.
I think it's pointless diet-shaming and nibbling around the edges to demand everyone become strictly vegan when better alternatives and mixes exist that can improve health.
0. Monterery Sardine Story Richard H. Parrish (2000)
https://swfsc.noaa.gov/publications/CR/2000/2000ParrR2.pdf
There was a documentary where eating quality small, oily fish were order(s)-of-magnitude more effective than fish oil pills. Furthermore, fish oil pills can often go rancid and instead contain more omega-6 than omega-3.
IIRC it was Frontline's "The Fish on My Plate" but it might've been another doc
> Justifying regular animal consumption in any environmental or ethical sense is pretty much impossible
My issue is most people overlook the impact we've had on fisheries. It's much harder for fish populations to get back to where they need to be without massive regulation. Which is extremely hard on a global scale considering the economical impact it can have on some areas. The PBS documentary "Fish on my Plate" (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-fish-on-my-plate/) goes over this a bit in various ways, but one story they highlight is how Peru fixed their anchovy problem.
Never mind the issue of byproduct waste when it comes to line & trolling boats. Raising chickens & cows have an impact, but byproduct kill has an entire ecosystem impact.
If you found this interesting, I highly recommend Frontline's The Fish on My Plate [1]. It chronicles this quirky author's journey into the world of seafood. He does a "Supersize me" like experiment with seafood. I learned a lot and it even inspired me to modify my diet. Mussels not only are delicious, they help clean up the excess runoff from farms.
[1] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-fish-on-my-plate/
The author interviewed in this piece is the subject of a recent Frontline: The Fish on My Plate.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-fish-on-my-plate/
It's about his experiment of eating fish as his only protein for a whole year, as well as an investigation of where our fish comes from, fish farming practices, sustainability, etc.
Aside, it may be a good thing Americans don't eat as much seafood as the rest of the world. I'm not sure the oceans could keep up with the demand. Allegedly very few fisheries are well managed.