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Why Americans Don’t Eat Seafood
Three reasons stand out above all others
When you swim the seafood beat, certain notes get played again and again. Perhaps the loudest one of all is the lament of marketers throughout the nation that Americans don’t eat more seafood. Unlike many laments of people in marketing, this assertion turns out to be true. Over the course of the last century, in spite of the fact that we control more ocean than nearly any other country on earth, we have remained a country fixated on landfood. In all Americans eat over 150 pounds of beef, pork and chicken per year. Fish and shellfish, meanwhile have languished in the 10–20 pound range for pretty much the entirety of the last century (2020, the last year for which there’s data, Americans ate 19 pounds). This in spite of the fact that fish, compared to land-based protein sources tends to be lower in saturated fat, lower in overall calories per unit of weight, higher in omega-3 fatty acids and, here’s the kicker, generally speaking, resulting in fewer carbon emissions per pound of food consumed.
The question of the unconsumed American Catch has been on my mind for quite a while. Of course we shouldn’t expect Americans to scarf fish…
