With its reputation as a superfood, fresh fish is highly sought after - but how it is sourced is also important, writes Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent
When BBC television broadcast Trawlermen, last year's series on the harsh life of four Scottish fishing vessel crews, it proved to be so popular that audience figures outstripped those for Big Brother. What's more, countless viewers also swore in letters and e-mails to the skippers, that they would "never complain about the price of fish again".
It's a sentiment similar to that expressed here in early January when seven fishermen lost their lives off the southeast coast, on the Dunmore East vessel Pere Charles and the Kinsale-based Honeydew II. Irish whitefish vessel owners have been finding it increasingly difficult to stick with a hazardous occupation which is beset by shrinking quotas, uncertain fuel prices, and changing weather patterns.
The sinkings, which occurred within 14 months of the loss of another five lives off the southeast, on the Rising Sun lobster boat and the Maggie B beam trawler, proved once again that, in spite of radical improvements in safety equipment, the sea can never be taken for granted.
Yet for those who do stick with it, the demand for seafood has never been greater. Every other week, it seems, there's a new report on its nutritional benefits. Recent research published in The Lancet, for instance, attempted to resolve a dispute which has divided British and North American scientists over the impact of fish in the diet of pregnant women.
Official US government advice had been that consumption of seafood should be restricted during pregnancy to 12 ounces (or 340 grams) a week to limit exposure to mercury.
However, a study of almost 9,000 families participating in the Children of the 90s project at the University of Bristol, found that pregnant women who ate more than the recommended amount of seafood had children who were more advanced, both mentally and physically.
A recent conference in University College Cork (UCC) also heard how the omega 3 fatty acid, a key constituent of fish oil, appears to have anti-depressant properties, although the results of an extensive study on this had not yet been published. However, there was also some upset in the scientific world last year, when research published in the British Medical Journal found no clear evidence that omega 3 fatty acids protected against the risk of heart disease.
Fish is already defined as a "functional food" - the buzz word for foods which provide a health benefit beyond meeting basic nutritional needs.
A recent Marine Institute foresight study, prepared in advance of the State's new seven-year marine research strategy, pointed out that the marine environment is also recognised as a source for other bio-active compounds apart from omega 3 oils, including essential minerals and vitamins, antioxidants, peptides, proteins and enzymes. Ireland's location, on the edge of one of Europe's largest sea areas, represents a "development opportunity", it argued, as the international market for "functional food and functional ingredients" was expanding rapidly.
All in all, it would take a lot to shift the perception that fish is one of our best known superfoods. Three portions a week of fish, particularly the oily variety (mackerel, salmon, tuna, sardines) is believed by nutrionists to be far better than substitute supplements, partly because eating should be regarded as enjoyable, whereas swallowing large and often expensive capsules is not.
Price, however, is not the only factor influencing incorporation of fish into everyday diets. Availability of supply is a key factor,while processors like Birds Eye and large retail chains like Marks and Spencer and Asda are also tapping into ethical concerns about methods by which fish are caught, and traceability.
Marks and Spencer announced in January that all of its fish would come from sources verified by the British Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) or other independently verified sources by 2012. In the same month, Birds Eye also affirmed its commitment to sustainable fishing and to working with the MSC.
The supermarket giant Asda aroused a storm of protest within the British fishing industry in early February, when it announced that it was banning the sale of monkfish from all its outlets to help save stocks. The Scottish Fishermen's Federation questioned the science on which the decision was based, and accused Asda of attempting to create a "green image" which was "misleading" and had "nothing to do with sustainable fishing".
A recent joint study of 70 fish products by the Marine Institute, BIM and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, found Irish fish to be among the best in the world - disproving allegations in the British media of high dioxin levels of fish sourced here. The key challenge for both the industry, and for the consumer out trying to find some fresh Irish fish, is meeting supply. Last year, a research paper published in the respected journal, Science, caused headlines all over the world which predicted that the world would "run out of seafood" by 2048.
However, Dr Paul Connolly of the Marine Institute has challenged the sensational media coverage. Writing in Inshore Ireland, published with the Farmers Journal, he criticised the focus on one aspect of the paper by Dr Boris Worm and his research team, on the impact of biodiversity loss on ocean ecosystem health. He noted that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has described the predicted aquatic apocalypse as "unlikely", labelled the report as being "statistically dangerous" and said that "such a massive collapse would require reckless behaviour" by all industries and governments for four decades, and "an incredible level of apathy of all world citizens to let this happen".
Apathy is certainly not the theme of the Government's new €600 million strategy for the seafood industry which was published by the Taoiseach Mr Ahern in January, and the separate seven-year Marine Institute strategy, Sea Change published in mid-February. The seafood plan, which is to be implemented by former Bord Bainne chief, Dr Noel Cawley, will involve some radical restructuring of the whitefish fleet, and renewed emphasis on supporting aquaculture as a viable alternative.
The report recommends a new €212 million aquaculture development programme, to meet continued demand for seafood which should be implemented by BIM in partnership with Údarás na Gaeltachta. It places emphasis on funding "local collective actions" by fish and shellfish farmers which are environmentally sustainable.
Significantly, it recommends that a sustained "fact-based" communications effort should be undertaken by the State, with industry support, to engender greater acceptance of aquaculture as "a sustainable and legitimate activity" by other stakeholders in the coastal zone.