fresh vs frozen, which is best for the environment

article from new york times

December 9, 2009
OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS
Catch of the Freezer
By ASTRID SCHOLZ, ULF SONESSON and PETER TYEDMERS

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.

The reason: Most salmon consumers live far from where the fish was caught or
farmed, and the majority of salmon fillets they buy are fresh and shipped by
air, which is the world's most carbon-intensive form of travel. Flying
fillets from Alaska, British Columbia, Norway, Scotland or Chile so that 24
hours later they can be served "fresh" in New York adds an enormous climate
burden, one that swamps the potential benefits of organic farming or
sustainable fishing. (Disclosure: A nonprofit subsidiary of Ecotrust, the
North Pacific Fisheries Trust, lends money to sustainable fisheries.)

Fresh fish is wonderful and healthful, and if it's driven a reasonable
distance to market, then its relative environmental impact is low.
Fortunately for conscientious diners, when fish is flash-frozen at sea, its
taste and quality is practically indistinguishable from fresh. More
important, it can be moved thousands of miles by container ship, rail or
even truck at much lower environmental impact than when air freighted. If
seafood-loving Japanese consumers, who get most of their fish via air
shipments, were to switch to 75 percent frozen salmon, it would have a
greater ecological benefit than all of Europe and North America eating only
locally farmed or caught salmon.

Is the future full of fish sticks? No. But when it comes to eating seafood
from halfway around the world, we need to get over our fetish for fresh.
With the challenges facing the world's oceans mounting, buying frozen is a
powerful choice that concerned eaters everywhere can make.

Astrid Scholz is the vice president of knowledge systems at Ecotrust in
Portland, Ore. Ulf Sonesson is a researcher at the Swedish Institute for
Food and Biotechnology. Peter Tyedmers is a professor at Dalhousie
University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

i've never seen any evidence that remotely persuades me that the energy used by
transport and industry has any effect on climate, though there seems to be some
people who believe this.

but if you accept this for the sake of argument, i imagine moving something
by plane would use less energy than operating a freezer and moving it
by boat and or train, as well as the energy to freeze and thaw it?

plane transport is far more energy consuming than train or boat

so i suppose the question is how long is it in the freezer for?

i dont want a global warming debate - what i really want to spring a debate on is fresh fish verses frozen

say the prices were to increase even more for fresh fish via more carbon taxes due to energy etc. would you still be buying it over frozen in terms of taste

of course in an ideal world we would be catching our own

tell us then how much energy does it take to move say a kilogram a 1000 miles by air vs by boat?

don't really buy your argument that we should all go back to hunter gathering isn't there
something to be said for hospitals and roads and universities and stuff?

i remember when i lived in Perth, smoked irish salmon was cheaper there than in dublin

I’m afraid that this discussion has no end nor conclusion. I've heard arguments from both sides of the story long before. If you want to go to this level of detail you need to take in to the account also how much energy is required to actually manufacture a plane, a boat or a freezer. Not mentioning how much energy is needed to maintain the thing, etc, etc - all that per pound of salmon or better per calorie absorbed by human body.

@corbyeire, you will get in to global warming debate quite easily once you mentioned “carbon-intensive form of travel”. Environment wise, I wouldn’t worry about carbon dioxide at all, I would worry far more about unsustainable way of harvesting global oceans, which is causing real damage.

To answer question in the topic: IMHO fresh is better for the environment. Why? Cause it kind of ensures that there actually is something fresh out there. Let’s take example of blue fin tuna. Soon enough there will be thousands and thousands of tons of frozen ones with non left alive in the ocean.

give me fresh anytime i wont eat fish even if its left overnight in the fridge dont mind frozen. but what tommy says is right
that program end of the line answered a lot of questions i had growing up where have all the fish gone? wev killed eaten
and poisoned nearly all of them .suit them so called experts better to find out what the carbon footprint of that is because
our oceans which we know very little about is about to kick us up the arse if we wipe out any more species of fish the ocean as a food source is finished i think id rather die from harmful uv rays than die of starvation the complete wipe out of cod off new foundland should have been a huge warning but we as a race have not learned anything we just moved on to the next species our chidren for generations to come will bear the blunt force of our greed and stupidity