Exhibition watch: Coral Reefs, Natural History Museum

Exhibition name: Coral Reefs - Secret Cities of the Sea 
Where: Natural History Museum, South Kensington, London
Open: 27th March-15th September 2015
Visited: 28th July 2015
Paid: £10 (£4.50 for concessions)

When I saw that a coral reefs exhibition had opened this year at the Natural History Museum in London, I knew it needed to be paid a visit! The Natural History Museum is somewhere I certainly remember loving to visit as a little, hyper and overexcited child, enthralled by the dinosaurs. The museum is wonderful as it is free to enter the main building (donations accepted) and then you can choose to pay a fee if you wish to visit special exhibitions like that of Coral Reefs.

Lots of samples of coral and sea creatures

I was immensely pleased with what the exhibition had to offer. It catered for both the old-fashioned exhibition-goers and also those who love interactive and visual learning. A vast amount of the information on show was similar to what we had learnt in our marine biology lectures during our biology degree. This shows how much you can learn from visiting an exhibition like this. 

My favourite part of the exhibition was the brightly-coloured fish tank full of a plethora of coral and fish species (see photo below). It was beautiful, even with the 'reef' being housed in an electronically lit up tank in the middle of London! Next to the tank, it was great to see a sign stating that all creatures seen were 'sourced sustainably, confiscated by UK customs or from coral research tanks at the Horniman Museum and Gardens'. This shows that they are taking care to look after the environment as well as educating the public about the problems facing coral reefs.

The exhibition's beautiful coral reef tank

The exhibition spoke about how many coral reefs are experiencing a change from mainly coral species to algae and seaweed. In our lectures we heard about this being named 'the slippery slope to slime'. This can be seen as an indirect effect of overfishing, as if the abundances of certain fish species reduce, the amount of grazing of algae on coral reefs will also decline dramatically. This means that algae can become more and more abundant and begin to smother corals.

This is something that many people will not think about when they hear about a rise in the prevalence of overfishing. But, this 'slippery slope to slime' is a reason that we must be careful how we fish, how much we fish and where we fish in order to prevent the imminent decline of beautiful underwater coral 'cities' across the world's oceans.

Overall, I definitely believe this exhibition is worth a visit. The only drawback is that it is quite a short but sweet exhibition. I however do not think that this is a problem as there are copious other parts of the Natural History Museum to explore once you have finished learning about coral!

Our health and fish sustainability CAN go hand in hand

For years we have heard the benefits of consuming omega-3 found in oily fish. In junior school I remember the craze for parents to give their children Eye Q fish oil capsules to perhaps 'improve their brain and eye health'. In our previous post we discussed a channel 4 TV programme that revealed fish rich in omega-3 are in fact a superfood.

Anyfin is Possible has researched a number of seafood species and graded them across various categories to see whether their sustainability and health-related ratings deem them good to eat. This included studying their sustainability ratings according to the MCS's Good Fish Guide (see explanatory post) and calculating a rough omega-3 value for each species*. We found the omega-3 information very interesting, as some of the seafood we would not usually think of as particularly healthy, actually were. 

* We used the http://nutritiondata.self.com/ website to calculate values for omega-3. 

Mussels (http://shop.lochfyne.com/files/images/1872_large.jpg)

For instance, mussels came up high in the rankings for both categories. Firstly, they have an MCS sustainability rating of 1 due to the fact that they can be farmed easily with no food input and also aid the marine environment by filtering sea water. Secondly, they also have a high value for omega-3 of 483 (mg/100g), compared to that of cod with 195 (mg/100g). This suggests that it is preferable to tuck into 'moules frites' whilst holidaying in France rather than traditional cod and chips in the UK.

New product on the market:

The sustainable omega-3 herring caviar by Tom Oliver Nutrition

“Bringing sustainable and all natural products to our customers is what we do at Whole Foods Market. Tom Oliver Nutrition’s ‘Omega 3 MOPL Herring Caviar’ is the UK’s first environmentally friendly phospholipid Omega 3 supplement and we are happy to support it in our stores.” - Andrew Ragatz, Health & Beauty Associate Coordinator, Whole Foods Market UK.

Tom Oliver Nutrition has grabbed our attention through the launch of an intriguing product in Whole Foods Market stores across the UK. They have released omega-3 MOPL herring caviar, which may sound incredibly fancy but it is simply made from the roe of Norwegian herring. 

The window display at the High Street Kensington Whole Foods Market

Usually, omega-3 fish oils are derived from krill but there can be serious sustainability issues surrounding the use of it. Therefore, using herring instead could prove highly beneficial, as it would take the strain off depleting krill populations. We were very pleased to see that the sustainable herring roe is sourced from an MSC certified fishery and is friends of the sea certified. This product is not only sustainable, but it is great for our health too! The herring caviar is said to benefit heart function, brain health, eye health and fat metabolism. Must be worth a try....

Could fish rich in omega-3 be the new superfood?

I'm sure we have all heard of the health benefits of Omega-3 and how eating oily fish can prevent many health problems. I recently watched a TV programme on Channel 4 'Superfoods: The Real Story' where oily fish were being discussed and were concluded to actually be a superfood.

Available from Channel 4 on demand : Episode 4

Omega-3 has been linked to a reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure and even arthritis. The programme talked about CVD and how omega-3 had anti-inflammatory properties and that this is what caused the reduction in heart disease. Chronic inflammation in arteries can stop the flow of blood to the heart and cause major problems, Omega-3 stops the white blood cells from sticking to the walls of the arteries and causing a blockage, stopping plaque from building up and therefore reducing the likelihood of heart disease.

It is recommended that we eat at lease 2 to 3 portions of fish a week to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. However, which of these fish that contain omega-3 and are also sustainable?

Some well known oily fish

White fish such as Cod, Haddock etc store fats and therefore Omega-3 in their liver (hence cod liver oil tablets), so their flesh is not classed as oily and not high in Omega-3. Some of the fish high in these essential oils are:

-Anchovies

-Arctic Char

-Herring (Kippers) 

-Mackerel

-Salmon

-Sardines

-Trout

Herring are classed as sustainable on the MCS Good Fish Guide (see previous post) and provide a cheap alternative to other fish such as salmon. Herring smoked over wood chips are turned into kipper, these fish are coming back into fashion recently and one kipper can provide almost double the daily recommended allowance of Omega-3. Kippers are also inexpensive. In a leading supermarket, kipper was being sold for £5/kg, whereas the cheapest salmon we could find was for £10/kg; double the price!

Delicious kipper, traditionally eaten for breakfast

So next time you are looking to boost your health in a cheap sustainable way, maybe opt for tasty kipper for breakfast!  

How to: The MCS Good Fish Guide

View of the MCS Good Fish Guide main page

The Good Fish Guide by MCS: http://www.fishonline.org/information/Pocket+goodfishguide

We wanted to write a blog post on this helpful tool as it is incredibly useful and could be easily used by those shopping in the supermarket via the mobile app. This guide launched by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) is particularly excellent as it has a tool where you can type in the name of any edible seafood species and it will show you its sustainability rating. It is easy to use and to read and we believe it will highly benefit not only fish stocks over the world but also will change people's perceptions of which fish species they should be eating according to their sustainability rating.

The guide gives ratings from 1 to 5 as follows:

1= The most sustainably produced seafood (fish to eat)

2= Good, but some aspects of its production/management could be improved (fish to eat)

3= Should probably not be considered entirely sustainable at this time (should be eaten only occasionally)

4= Seafood is some way from being sustainable at this time (ideally seek alternatives)

5= Fish to be avoided (fish vulnerable to exploitation and/or overfished and/or caught using methods detrimental to other fish species or the environment).

The only drawback of the Good Fish Guide is that it can sometimes come up with a a large range of values for one fish species. 
  For instance, if you type 'cod' into the fish finder then it'll show you the values between 2 and 5, depending on where the fish is caught (see below). This is something that cannot be altered very easily and certainly isn't MCS's fault, as there will be a range of the sustainability of different cod fisheries around the world. This is why extra care must be taken to check the location in which the fish was caught. For example, if the cod you were looking to purchase was caught in West Scotland by a trawler, then this is given a value of 5. Whereas, if you were to purchase cod that was caught in Iceland by longline, this is given a rating of 2. 

This shows how complicated fish stocks are and that even if you think a particular fish is sustainable, its sustainability rating by MCS is completely dependent on the method of fishing and the area in which it was caught.

We think that this is a highly useful tool that anyone can use whilst shopping for ingredients for their favourite fishy suppers! It can quickly and simply suggest to you which fish out of those available to you are the best to eat and which should maybe be avoided.

Plastic: hidden in our facewash

You may not know what we mean by plastic microbeads. But they are found in many of the products we use every single day. They are mostly seen in the form of the tiny smooth round balls found in face washes and exfoliators. I know I've used these products without realising what the products actually contained. I don’t know what I thought they were made of, but I seemed to be shocked to find out they were tiny plastic balls!

Plastic Microbeads in beauty products. Image source: http://www.elliotlakestandard.ca/2015/03/24/ndp-passes-motion-to-ban-microbeads-from-personal-products

There has been a lot of buzz around these ‘microplastics’ in the last few years, with many companies pledging to remove them from their products and phase them out. In fact, almost all big brands have agreed to stop producing these ‘exfoliating balls’.

But why? These plastics get used in the shower, or sink and washed down the drain. They are so small that sewage treatment works aren't able to remove them, meaning they are released into the environment and eventually end up in the oceans. 

These beads are actually of a similar size to plankton, meaning they end up being eaten by marine life as they are misjudged to be tiny food particles. Copepods (see picture below) have been shown to ingest these beads. The plastic has no nutritional value and cannot be digested, this reduces the feeding and growth rate of these animals. Mussels have also been shown to uptake these microbeads, which can stay in their bodies for 40+ days! Ever eaten a mussel and found something hard and crunchy? Maybe you were chewing on some plastic yourself!

Copepod - a marine zooplankton at the base of the food web. Ingested plastic marked fluorescent green. Image source: https://marinelitterblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/microplastic-ingestion-by-zooplankton/

In addition to this, the plastic has been shown to stick toxins from the environment onto its surface. These toxins are then ingested by the animals along with the microbeads and can cause adverse effects from endocrine disruption to cancer, having the potential to adversely effect whole marine populations and food webs.

So, even though the major companies have pledged to remove microbeads from their products, most of these pledges have not yet been fulfilled. Us as consumers have a part to play, we have a choice of which ‘face scrub’ to buy. Next time look at the product and see if it contains plastic, and if it does, perhaps buy an alternative instead...