Original Broadcast: Fri, Feb 3, 2012 -- 9:00 AM

Host: Dave Iverson

Guests:
• Claire Brindis, professor of pediatrics and director of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF
• Fredric Kraemer, professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Gerontology and Metabolism at the Stanford University School of Medicine
• Jo Ann Hattner, registered dietician and consultant at the Stanford School of Medicine
• Robert Goldberg, vice president and co-founder of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and author of "Tabloid Medicine"

More info:
• Sugar: A Sweetener Gone Sour? : from KQED's State of Health blog
• Edible Education 101: Sugar Is Not So Sweet After All
• KQED's Forum: Sugar and Health

As a vegan, it’s easy to eat A LOT of soy. Actually, these days, it’s easy to eat a lot of soy even if you’re an omnivore. It’s in so many things.

A popular source of protein for vegans and vegetarians is, of course, tofu. And while I love tofu and all varieties of it, I am trying to be very conscious of the amount of soy I take in. I know the topic of the health and environmental impacts of soy is controversial and people stand on opposite sides of the issue (and a lot depends on the form of soy in question). But I don't like to overdo anything, and I say, “better safe than sorry.” Plus, I love a culinary challenge and welcome as many ways to take in my protein as possible.

I have become kind of obsessed with hemp seeds lately. They contain all essential amino acids and fatty acids, and are therefore a complete source of protein. In addition, hemp is not a common allergen, like soy or nuts. And, most importantly, they are delicious. They have a nutty, creamy taste. I put spoonfuls on my coconut yogurt in the morning. I make fresh hemp milk. So, I figured, why not make some hemp tofu? Hey, the Italians already do it commercially!

hemp seeds

I got inspiration for this recipe from a few sources, mainly from a forum member on Post Punk Kitchen, named “vegimator” who makes tofu out of pumpkin and hemp seeds, and from a Finnish blog named Mammi who calls the finished product "hefu." I took their advice, combined it with my knowledge of tofu-making, and started experimenting.

This recipe yields a more crumbly tofu than soy tofu. Soy tofu is usually made after straining liquid from the pulp (or okara). I tried this technique with hemp and not enough solids were left in the strained out liquid to coagulate. Using the milk as is, straight from the blender, did work (and a Vitamix helps create a very smooth milk). Hemp tofu is great seared, for a scramble, or a stir-fry, if you don’t mind having rustic, non-cube chunks. Or do what I did: simply drizzle with some sweet soy sauce (equal parts soy sauce and sugar, simmered until thickened) and sprinkle with nori strips. The sweet soy sauce and nori goes great with the creaminess and earthiness of the hemp!

Hemp Tofu (or "hemp-fu" or "hefu")

Total Time: 1 hour
Yield: a few blocks, depending on size of tofu mold

Ingredients
2 cups shelled hemp seeds
4 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoons powdered nigari (available at Rainbow Grocery), which will be dissolved in 1 additional cup of water (Note: I have seen recipes for hemp tofu where a coagulant is not even used, so feel free to skip this part. Although, you may get a more crumbly result.)

Instructions

1. Blend hemp seeds with water for one minute at high speed (I used a Vitamix) to make hemp milk.
2. Put hemp milk in a pot and, partially cover it and bring to a boil. You'll start to seeing curds forming.



3. When it reaches a low boil, turn the heat down to medium-low and boil the milk for four minutes, stirring constantly to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot.

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4. Meanwhile, dissolve the nigari in a cup of warm water.



5. Remove the pot from the stove, wait until the temperature reaches 155F. Add half the nigari solution and stir briskly for a few seconds. Wait until the liquid stops moving. Then add the rest of the nigari solution and gently stir a few times. Let sit 15 minutes.



6. Place a cheesecloth over a colander and strain the curds out.



7. Take an amount of curd that will fit in your press (this recipe makes a good bit of curd), place in another piece of cheesecloth and twist to get ALL of the liquid out. If it’s too hot to squeeze, you can try squeezing with tongs.



8. Place the ball of curd, still in the cloth, into a tofu press/mold, and press the curd down. Stack a few bottles or cans on top as a weight. [I bought a cheap wooden press for four dollars at Daiso in Japantown, but I think I’m going to invest in a TofuXpress so that I don’t have to worry about stacking cans on the press.]




9. Let the press stay for 30 minutes. Then unmold the hemp tofu and enjoy!

Host: Dave Iverson

Guests:

• Christopher Cook, journalist and author of "Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis"
• Cora E. Lewis, professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Alabama's Comprehensive Diabetes Center
• Lena Miller, founder and co-executive director of Hunter's Point Family, a community-based development organization for at-risk Bayview Hunter's Point families

Original Broadcast: Fri, Dec 2, 2011 -- 9:00 AM

Nutrition, Health, and Diet Related Disease

America’s obesity epidemic was the topic of discussion at the September 27 Edible Education: The Rise and Future of the Food Movement session at UC Berkeley. Dr. Robert Lustig, a neuroendocrinologist who studies childhood obesity at the University of California at San Francisco, spoke along with Patricia Crawford, a UC Berkeley professor who has traced the rise of the obesity epidemic and studies healthy food in schools.

Obesity Growth in U.S.
The most startling information came from Patricia Crawford who showed the rise in obesity in the U.S. over the past twenty years through a series of maps. In 1991 there was less than ten percent obesity in most state populations. But we gradually watched the map of the entire country get washed over in bright red, the color indicating the highest rates of obesity. Crawford says, "We need to create healthier food and activity environments to reduce obesity." She’s been working in the school system to figure out how to achieve these goals. Crawford has found that even Berkeley kids, who live in a healthy food mecca, share similar eating patterns to kids in the rest of the state. Crawford listed four activities that can help to control the obesity epidemic:

• Reduce sweet beverage intake
• Reduce fast food intake
• Control portion size
• Reduce time on the computer or tv

Crawford is working in policy development to reduce obesity by trying to get high calorie snacks out of schools and advocating for zoning policies on fast food restaurants near schools. Following Crawford's obesity maps were the equally startling comments on the toxicity of sugar by Dr. Robert Lustig.

Big Sugar's Nemesis

Robert Lustig’s bracing argument in a recent New York Times magazine article on the dangers of sugar convinced me to quit my own habit. Something about his explanation of the biochemistry of sugar resonates. He explains how sugar can be toxic because of the way it breaks down and overwhelms your liver. Lustig blames sugar for the skyrocketing obesity rates in the U.S. "A type of sugar called fructose is the cause of the current epidemic," says Lustig. “Our entire food supply has been adulterated with the addition of fructose for palatability and removal of fiber for shelf life." Lustig explains how so-called healthy snacks, like low fat yogurt, can be full of sugar. According to Lustig, sugar is even added to hamburger buns and hamburger meat. He ran through several decades of food policy to explain why sugar has become an additive but the main point Lustig makes is that there has been a lot of attention on fat but fat consumption has gone down in the U.S. while our sugar and refined carbohydrate intake has gone up.

Eat Your Fruit Don’t Drink It

Even if you skip the Milky Way and go for something healthier like an orange, you still have to watch out. That orange is much healthier if you don’t juice it. Says Lustig, “A good part of the fruit is fiber but when you juice a fruit you destroy the insoluble fiber. You need it to limit the rate of carbohydrate and fat absorption into the blood stream which gives your liver a chance to catch up. Fruit is good. Juice is bad and smoothies suck.”

Sugar has been linked to not only obesity but other chronic health problems like heart disease, cancer and memory loss. Lustig says the obesity epidemic is responsible for a 65-billion dollar decrease in work productivity and a 50-percent increase in health insurance premiums. Lustig left the audience with a question to ponder: “Can our toxic environment be changed without government or societal intervention especially when there are addictive substances involved? For Lustig the answer may be regulating sugar just like we do with alcohol and cigarettes.

View the video of the entire class:

The 13 week course, which is funded by the Chez Panisse Foundation in collaboration with West Oakland’s People’s Grocery, makes tickets available each Wednesday to the public.

Host: Dave Iverson

Guests:

• Victoria Colliver, health care Reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle
• William Goodson M.D., senior clinical research scientist at California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute. His specialty is cancer surgery.

Original Broadcast: Fri, Sep 16, 2011 -- 9:30 AM

Twenty years ago Carlo Petrini, founded Slow Food in an effort to resist McDonalds efforts to erect the Golden Arches in one of the most historical areas of Rome. Since then Petrini's work has spawned an international movement aimed at overhauling global food systems that he says are unhealthy and way out of balance. Petrini gave an impassioned lecture at U.C. Berkeley Tuesday night. While he spoke in vivid Italian, food writer Corby Kummer interpreted. Petrini seemed the perfect choice to inagurate the first class of Edible Education 101: The Rise and the Future of the Food Movement. The course is being co-taught by J-school professor, and author, Michael Pollan and Executive Director of People's Grocery in West Oakland, Nikki Henderson. The premise of the class is that food is political. Students and members of the public are given a chance to explore pressing issues such as food access, distribution and nutrition.

UC Berkeley students checking in for Edible Education

Student enrollment for the 13-week course filled up within minutes. The popular classes are also being offered to the public, free of charge and Bon Appétit Management Co. (BAMCO) is sponsoring the webcast on YouTube. In the audience Tuesday night were freshman Bridget Smith and Sarah Branoff. They said they are taking the course because, as undergrads, they don't usually get a chance to take a journalism class at Berkeley. They both like food and baking and have never even heard of Alice Waters. Waters' Chez Panisse Foundation is helping fund the class. David Park is a Venture Capitalist from Foster City. Park, who puts together health and wellness portfolios, says he is always on the lookout for who to hire and who to fund in the food and nutrition arena. Claudia Weisburd, another member of the public, is interested in how the course promises to integrate environmentalists, social justice activists and foodies.

I'm used to seeing these rock stars of the food movement on TV talk shows and not a scuffed up college stage in front of a white screen with no graphics but somehow Petrini kept everyone's attention. The International Slow Food founder talked about how there are two worlds, one where people get too much to eat and another that doesn't get enough to eat. He talked about gastronomy and how recipes are only one small part. Agriculture, anthropology and political economics are all part of gastronomy. What Petrini wants to do is fix the bad parts of the engine of gastronomy. He said right now, around the world, one billion people are suffering from hunger and in the U.S. we are throwing away twenty-two tons of food a day. For many of us with access to food, we have become locked into diets that are making us sick. Petrini says if you understand food politics you can help create change.

Here are some new paradigms he mentioned:

• Strengthen reciprocity -- Community supported agriculture is an example of this. You give money to a farmer and when he, or she, has it, they give you produce they have grown in return. Petrini's Slow Food movement is working to connect local food communities around the world.
• Share community tools. Why should every house have a shovel or a lawnmower?
• Give more value to the people who produce food. Petrini calls farmers the intellectuals of the earth.
• Give more value to food. Don't waste it.

The goal, says Petrini, is a world in which we stop consuming so much but also help those struggling so that they can have more. Petrini told the audience consuming less doesn't mean you will be less happy. "You will be more happy," he said.

Next week's class, which is already filled up, features film and theater director Peter Sellars. He will be discussing Food as Culture: the role of culture and the arts in deepening and strengthening the social and political roots of the food movement.

A new class at UC Berkeley is getting a lot of buzz. Edible Education: The Rise and Future of the Food Movement is all about food politics. In an unusual step, Cal is opening up the 13-week course to the general public. Well, the class was open to all. Three hundred free tickets for the first night were snatched up in less than fifteen minutes. Student enrollment filled up just as fast. Edible Education is being organized, and funded, by Alice Water’s Chez Pannise Foundation. Nikki Henderson, the executive director of People’s Grocery in Oakland, along with author and U.C. Berkeley journalism professor Michael Pollan, will co-teach the semester course.

Michael Pollan. Photo: Alia Malley

Think of the sustainable food movement as a dinner party. Edible Education will take a look at the guest list and topics of conversation. How do the slow food movement and food justice fit together? What does corporate food look like? The class will feature immigrant farm workers telling their own stories. Each week will include a guest lecturer.

Here’s the line-up:
• 8/30: The Global Food Movement, Founder Carlo Petrini with Corby Kummer
• 9/6: Building a Successful Movement, Peter Sellars
• 9/13: The Politics of Food, Marion Nestle, Ph.D., M.P.H.
• 9/20: Perspectives on Race, Place & Food, Alegria De La Cruz, Rebecca Flournoy, Yvonne Yen Liu
• 9/27: Nutrition, Health and Diet Related Disease, Patricia Crawford & Robert Lustig
• 10/4: Corporations & the Food Movement, Jack Sinclair, Jib Ellison, Michael Pollan
• 10/11: School Lunch and Edible Schoolyards, Ann Cooper
• 10/18: Global Economies of Food: GMOs, and Feeding the World, Raj Patel
• 10/25: Agriculture and Social Justice, Eric Schlosser, Greg Asbed & Lucas Benitez
• 11/1: What is an Edible Education? Alice Waters
• 11/8: Food and the Environment, Frances Moore Lappé & Gidon Eshel
• 11/22: Van Jones
• 11/29: Place Based Models of Change, Brahm Ahmadi, Hank Herrera

The class is every Tuesday from August 30th through November 29th, 6-7:30pm (doors open at 5:30pm) at the Wheeler Auditorium at UC Berkeley.

Tickets will be available, free of charge, six days before each class.

Bay Area Bites will provide coverage of the course.

Related Articles:
Nikki Henderson: On the frontlines of edible education by Sarah Henry (Berkeleyside)

A large portion of my childhood consisted of living on a macrobiotic diet. As a kid, I wasn't much of a fan of brown rice, beans, burdock, seaweed, squash, and steamed leafy vegetables. I especially hated kale and after exiting that type of dietary lifestyle I thought that I would never eat kale again for the rest of my life. But something happened. My tastebuds changed and as I became a "grown-up" I started to crave the clean, fresh taste of the ingredients commonly found in macrobiotics. 10-year-old me would not believe it, but I often miss that food from my childhood. Now our pantry is full of seaweed, our vegetable crisper is full of leaves, and we always have a container of umeboshi plums on hand (which is amazing on a steamed ear of corn, by the way). Next to Hungarian food (my obligation by birth), Japanese is my favorite cuisine. And oddly enough, I now love kale.

Kale, as I am sure you have noticed, is all the rage right now, which is pretty refreshing in light of the other recent trend foods out there (bacon, cupcakes, mac 'n' cheese...). It's incredibly healthy, versatile, and hearty.

One of my favorite ways to eat kale is via kale chips. Raw foodists make these by dehydrating pieces of flavored kale (which is how the ones you buy by the bag are made). They are either very simply seasoned, or are smothered in a nut or seed-based sauce before making them crisp. Unfortunately, most of us don't own a dehydrator. But luckily, you can easily make kale chips in your oven! It does change some things. Lightly dressing the kale is very important, so that the oven has a chance to make all the water evaporate -- otherwise you are left with soggy pieces of chewiness. And the oven-variety is best consumed right away -- crisp and even a little warm. It's not really for storing -- but I mean, why would you NOT want to finish a whole bowl in one sitting?

SESAME AGAVE KALE CHIPS
A crispy, sweet, and salty delight.

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 30-40 minutes
Total time: 55 minutes
Yield: one medium-sized bowl of chips

Ingredients:
1 bunch curly kale (curly works well, vs. Dino or Red Russian, since all the curls trap the sauce)
2 teaspoons soy sauce or tamari (or BRAGG Liquid Aminos, or Coconut Secret coconut aminos to make it soy-free)
4 teaspoons agave
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons toasted sesame oil
2 cloves of garlic, pressed
4 Tablespoons hulled (white) sesame seeds
(You could also add a pinch of cayenne for a kick.)

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 225 degrees.

2. Tear kale off of stems and into bite–sized pieces (remember: kale will shrink a lot while baking, so don't make them too small).

3. Wash kale in a big bowl of water. Drain, and dry as well as you can (preferably in a salad spinner).

4. Whisk all other ingredients together and pour over kale a little at a time. Massage the sauce into the kale pieces so that they are well coated. You may not use all of the sauce. Only pour enough to JUST coast the leaves. You don't want it dripping.

5. Lay the kale pieces out on two parchment-paper-lined cookie sheets in a thin layer.

6. Bake for 30 – 40 minutes, turning the pieces once or twice while baking. Ovens vary so you may want to keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t start browning (which would make them bitter).

7. Once crisp, remove from oven and serve in a bowl. Eat right away.

A full-service grocery store may finally come to the people of West Oakland. It looks like the People's Community Market, a long-anticipated mid-size retailer in West Oakland, may be a step closer to raising the capital it needs to break ground with the announcement today by First Lady Michelle Obama about a new food financing initiative designed to increase access to healthy, affordable food in underserved communities in this state.

That's the local take away from a White House press conference Wednesday, where FLOTUS announced that The California FreshWorks Fund, a $200 million public-private partnership loan fund and a project of The California Endowment, will help bring healthy grocers to food deserts or areas that lack a grocery store. The endowment, a private statewide health foundation established to expand access to affordable, quality health care for communities in need, has been joined by prominent investors on the project, including NCB FSB, Kaiser Permanente, and JP Morgan Chase.

The goal of the fund is to provide loans at or below market rates to encourage new stores in Californian food deserts and it is expected to create or retain some 6000 jobs in the state. The First Lady also announced commitments from large chain retailers, including Walgreens and Walmart, to open or expand 1,500 stores in food deserts around the country. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates, 23.5 million Americans-- including 6.5 million children--live in low-income neigborhoods that lack stores likely to sell affordable and nutritious foods.

"The FreshWorks funding is so applicable to what we do and it's a real acknowledgement of the work we've done for nine years in the community to be invited to this event," said People's Grocery executive director Nikki Henderson, who was summoned to the White House for the announcement. Since 2002, People's Grocery has provided food education, training, and access to residents of West Oakland, including cooking classes, nutrition programs, urban agriculture instruction, a mobile grocery truck and a CSA delivery dubbed the "Grub Box."

The loans will be available to food retailers of all sizes and types. That includes independent stores such as People's Community Market, which is in talks with investors to raise $3 million, said Brahm Ahmadi, People's Grocery founder and the CEO of the People's Community Market, which was spun off from the group's educational arm last year. Current plans call for a 12,000-square-foot full-service, environmentally-friendly retail space serving low-income residents in an abandoned 1950s-era shopping center at the corner of West Grand and Market Street. West Oakland, which has some 30,000 residents has no full-service grocery. By comparison, the affluent Oakland enclave of Rockridge has one such store for every 4,333 people.

Henderson and Ahmadi are confident of securing significant assistance from the new initiative.

"FreshWorks is a good fit for our nonprofit, community-based model," added Henderson. "It's not enough to just locate a grocery store in an under-served community -- you have to engage people in a deep way about how to have a healthy community and that's what we do. This kind of funding can go a long way to solving both food access and food insecurity issues, which are not the same thing."

The organizations are well known to The California Endowment.

"We're very familiar with their operations and programs and the great work they do in their community," said Tina Castro, director of mission related investment for the endowment. "While they still need to go through the application process like everyone else this is just the kind of creative, innovative business approach we want to support."

Castro added that the Bay Area is a hot bed of ideas and activities to address food access issues and that other local organizations are also applying to FreshWorks.

Eliminating food deserts from the U.S. landscape in seven years is a major goal of the First Lady's Let's Move! campaign, which began after the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity identified improving access to healthy, affordable foods as one of the keys to ending childhood obesity within a generation.

Mrs. Obama's announcement closely follows widespread coverage of a large study on food deserts and food access published last week in the Archives of Internal Medicine. In the study of three cities, including Oakland, researchers collected data on the grocery shopping habits of more than 5,000 people for 15 years and concluded that greater supermarket availability wasn't generally related to the quality of dietary intake or the consumption of fruits and vegetables.

But as Henderson, food access and food security advocates, and even the senior author of the study have explained, plopping a supermarket or two in a neighborhood that has long gone without isn't going to change residents' eating habits overnight. Education, encouragement, outreach, and training are all vital to help people raised on a fast food or junk food diet make the switch to more healthful eating, she said.

Of course, it's tough to compete with fast-food joints, corner stores, and gas stations that peddle cheap fried food, sodas, and highly-processed sweets and snacks. But Ahmadi points out there's a misperception around demand for healthy food in historically overlooked urban areas.

"People who aren't familiar with West Oakland or its residents assume that people here aren't interested in eating good quality food," he said. "They think these residents just want to eat junk. But what we see and hear is that people do want healthy, affordable food choices like people have in middle-class or suburban communities. Just because there's a lack of fresh food doesn't mean there isn't demand."

While small, health-oriented stores are beginning to find homes in West Oakland, including Mandela Foods Cooperative, an owner-worker grocery, and the recently opened Produce Pro, there remains a thirst for more than one mid-size retailer to set up shop in the area before it can shake off its food desert designation.

Today's announcement may mean that West Oakland will feel a little less parched in the near future.

New Fund to Help Merchants Sell Healthy Food -- Brahm Ahmadi interviewed

Up until a couple of recent events, I'd almost given up consuming seafood in this country, saving my shellfish and finfish feasts for my annual visits back home to Australia, where eating sea creatures seems somehow less loaded and certainly more local.

Then in May I was fortunate to attend the Cooking for Solutions Sustainable Foods Institute, a media powwow hosted by the Monterey Bay Aquarium (creator of the Seafood Watch pocket guide). At the event everyone from fired up media mogul turned bison farmer Ted Turner and actor-activist Isabelle Rossellini to chef Cindy Pawlcyn and author Paul Greenberg -- along with Seafood Watch scientists and sustainable fishing advocates -- schooled me in the latest research and thinking on eating fish.

That two-day sustainable seafood cram session was followed by a visit to Omnivore Books in June to hear Seattle-based seafood chef-writer Becky Selengut joke about how she caught crabs on assignment for a magazine and, more seriously, dish out advice on how to buy and cook local seafood in her new cookbook, good fish.

Seafood consumers and home cooks should consider this post a companion piece to my Bay Area Bites colleague Denise Santoro Lincoln's sustainable fish primer from February, which is full of good tips and reliable resources on this very subject. Check that post out and then come back here. I'll wait.

Okay, let's get the bad stuff out of the way, shall we? Buying fish is confusing and challenging because you're concerned about species extinction, pollution problems, bycatch issues, and health concerns, right? And you should be. While seafood is an excellent source of lean protein and heart- and brain-friendly omega-3s, it can also be laden with mercury, which can do a nasty number on the brain and nervous systems of vulnerable populations (think nursing women, children, and the unborn). Add to that persistent organic pollutants (also known as POPS) which, despite the cute acronym, are hormone-disrupting neurotoxins that can wreak havoc on humans, and it's a wonder you're not hungry for a slab of farmed salmon or wild tuna cooked quickly on the grill.

Then, of course, for the ethical environmentalists among us, there's the sad realization that we're coming to the end of the line seafood-species wise. We've done a good job globally of depleting fish stocks to worrisomely low levels, with Atlantic cod and bluefin tuna on a fast track towards extinction. Throw in the real problems with certain farmed fish businesses (think waste-disease-pollution) and the anxiety around GMO-salmon and the dreaded Frankenfish, and it's enough to make a seafood lover switch to some other protein source.

Enough with the horror stories from the open seas. There are still ways to get a seafood fix, it just takes a little education, thought and planning. But if you've read this far you're probably willing to go the extra mile for mussels or work a bit harder for halibut. Chances are, you've likely already done that as far as fruit and vegetables are concerned (local, organic, seasonal) and meat (grass-fed, humanely-raised, thoughtfully slaughtered).

Some suggestions for making healthier, more sustainable seafood choices, gleaned from the experts above:

• Think small: Americans are conditioned to thinking bigger is better. Not necessarily so when it comes to fish. Sardines and anchovies, those little, oily bottom feeders of the sea, revered in other parts of the world, are delicious, nutritious, and affordable, and carry a lower risk for toxins than big fish like tuna.
• Buy seasonally and diversify: Would you expect to buy great tasting, local, organic tomatoes in January? Apply the same sensibility to your seafood shopping and pick shellfish and finfish during their peak time for freshness, taste, and price. Dungeness crab is harvested in the fall and winter, for instance. When in doubt, ask. Most Americans who eat seafood choose salmon, shrimp, or tuna. Check out Arctic char or Pacific halibut for a change.
• Reconsider frozen and farmed fish: A properly frozen fish (landed gently, bled, and quickly chilled preferably at sea) can be a high-quality, carbon-foot print friendly option, if handled well, says Selengut. While hook-and-line wild fish is a better bet than seafood caught by dredging or trawling, which can produce a lot of bycatch (accidentally caught species unintentionally killed in the fishing process), farmed fish are a wise choice in some circumstances, adds the cookbook author. Farmed fish may be a more sustainable choice for fish lower on the food chain that are either vegetarian or require only small amounts of fish protein to produce flesh. Find an example of a farmed fish that may be gentler on the environment in a recent Time magazine story on a western Massachusetts-based outfit farming barramundi, a fish much loved in my homeland.
• Find a fishmonger you trust: Local picks include the year-old San Francisco-based online sustainable seafood supplier i love blue sea, co-founded by Martin Reed, a panelist at the recent Sustainable Foods Institute. I love blue sea doesn't sell any of Seafood Watch's red-listed fish and ships via FedEx across the country. (Bay Area residents can pick up directly, avoiding the expense and guilt associated with air freight).

  Newcomer Siren SeaSA founded by Anna Larsen, offers a CSA-like option for seafood lovers: For six Saturdays starting July 16, subscribers can pick up an assortment of seasonal, sustainable seafood in San Francisco or Petaluma. Catch of the day may include wild king salmon from Bodega Bay, squid from Monterey, wild-caught Pacific sardines, Miyagi oysters from Tomales Bay, and hook-and-line caught black cod. Limited to 100 members for its trial run, a six-week subscription is still available at a cost of $255 for seafood portions calculated to feed four people. Larsen plans to continue the program beyond this initial summer launch.

  A Community Supported Fishery (CSF) program is also running this summer out of Half Moon Bay. And a very new online resource Local Catch, promises connections to CSF members via a zip code search function.

• Frequent seafood restaurants with a sustainable seafood rap: Top picks from San Francisco's "Good Fish, Bad Fish" story by Erik Vance this year include The Basin in Saratoga, Flea St. Cafe in Menlo Park, Nettie's Crab Shack, Nopa, and Tataki Sushi and Sake Bar in San Francisco, Revival Bar & Kitchen in Berkeley, and Zazu in Santa Rosa. See how 18 other big name Bay Area restaurants fared on the sustainable seafood front in the magazine's story.

Learn more about sustainable seafood:

Read Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg, which documents the tenuous outlook for salmon, sea bass, cod, and tuna.

Follow the reporting of sustainable seafood writers such as former Gourmet scribe Barry Estabrook of Politics of the Plate and freelance food writer Clare Leschin-Hoar.

Watch Isabelle Rossellini's entertaining, educational, and amusing Green Porno series, which documents the plight of sea creatures and other animals.

See the seafood documentaries The End of the Line and Red Gold.

Cook Find Mark Bittman's simple recipes for serving white fish fillet a dozen ways in the New York Times. Check out acclaimed seafood chef and National Geographic Fellow Barton Seaver's new cookbook For Cod and Country or Selengut's good fish, which features fifteen types of Pacific Coast sea creatures (including clams, crabs, char, cod, salmon, scallops, squid, and sardines) in 75 recipes. Check out the instructional online videos from the private chef and cooking teacher, who also blogs at chefreinvented.

Got a sustainable seafood resource to share? Add your voice below.