This made me curious about how it was that Clarence Birdseye came to discover the fast-freeze approach that preserves flavor. The answer is surprisingly straightforward - he was a fur trader in Labrador (northern Canada) and noticed when he pulled fish out they froze immediately and were still delicious months later. So if only you could make fish as cold as northern Canada, you could make frozen fish tasty! It was from there that he designed a -45F calcium chloride based belt technique and then a -25F ammonia evaporation driven technique.
https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/technology/item/who-i...
I like that you can still buy Birdseye brand frozen foods in the Grocery store.
Nitpick: the brand is Birds Eye. After a series of mergers it's owned by Conagra, which also owns a dizzying array of brands, including Chef Boyardee and PF Chang's.
Good point, thanks, I figured it must be owned by some large corporation by now. At least the historical branding remains.
Itâs a pretty big, well known brand in the UK :)
Sounds like he was inspired to try that by the food company of the same name
Also, what are the odds of Lou Gehrig contracting Lou Gehrig's Disease? So unlucky.
Sounds to me like he founded the company of the same name.
> Each kilogram of fish sticks produces about 1.3 kilograms of carbon dioxide, which ârivals the climate impact of tofu,â she says. Beef, by comparison, produces over 100 times that amount of carbon dioxide per kilogram.
These estimates vary a lot from one source to another, but even then 130 kgCO2/kg is an unusually high estimate for beef. Common range, I think, is from 20 to 60. For example this estimate is 26 [1] and this is 21 for beef from dairy herd and 60 from beef herd [2].
[1] http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/carbon-footprint-factsheet
This also depends on what you count as carbon dioxide production. For example, cattle produce methane through gut fermentation, which is a strong greenhouse gas. However, it contributes to warming only to the extent the cattle stocks are growing. If cattle numbers are stable for some amount of time, than the methane produced by them does not contribute to new warming, as it forms closed cycle: methane decomposes to CO2 in atmosphere in a decade or two, which is then captured by grass, which is eaten by cattle. The result is a steady state of stable fraction of CO2 and CH4 in atmosphere, and no warming.
What really does contribute to climate change though is emissions that come from fossils, like fuel for machines, electricity for processing and storage, and gas for artificial fertilizer. The variation in reported numbers is caused by agenda, ie whether one wants to accurately assess impact of beef production, or whether they want to paint beef as worst thing ever.
I keep seeing this and I don't understand it because it literally doesn't matter.
There is a total amount of emissions in a year and it leads to a certain amount of atmospheric forcing.
Let's say the algae food amendment works out and cattle methane can be eliminated with it. Some cattle are completely pastured, let's say you can get a 70% reduction in total methane emission from cows, just mandate that lot-fed cattle must receive this feed amendment and maybe subsidize it.
That's huge. That reduces a big source of emissions. It's less atmospheric forcing in total for the year. That's the only thing that matters.
It's an open-and-shut scenario for "shut up and calculate".
There's been some debate on the ways to account short-lived greenhouse gases vs. CO2:
https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/news/2018-news-Climate-Pol...
Firstly you are presuming cattle are grass fed with no fertilizer used. Nitrogen fertilizer and stock feeds use petrochemicals directly or indirectly.
> If cattle numbers are stable for some amount of time
Cattle numbers are mostly static. The amount of methane produced is not trivial, although as you point out not the same class of problem as CO² since CO² is cumulative. Was your 40 year figure the half-life?
For comparison, CFCs break down over many decades (I couldn't find reliable figures) but the ozone hole is still a serious problem (it seriously affects us in New Zealand where I live).
> Was your 40 year figure the half-life?
Half-life of methane in the atmosphere is 9.1 years (Wikipedia).
> methane decomposes to CO2 in atmosphere in a decade or two, which is then captured by grass
But methane is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2, so it's not neutral at all.
You're also assuming that cattle are fed naturally occurring grass rather than industrial livestock feed, which I don't have numbers for but I assume is not carbon-neutral.
But methane is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2, so it's not neutral at all.
It is worse, but it doesnât matter: as long as cattle population stays at constant levels, so will the amount of methane in the atmosphere that resulted from cattle emissions. You only get climate change from growing amount of greenhouse gases.
> You're also assuming that cattle are fed naturally occurring grass rather than industrial livestock feed, which I don't have numbers for but I assume is not carbon-neutral
In fact, Iâm not; I explicitly mention artificial fertilizer, for example, which is typically not used to produce hay. The point is that to assess the effect of cattle on warming, you should focus on fossil inputs into it, not on methane. I think is quite likely that methane production from gastric fermentation in North America these days is lower than, say, in 1500s, where 60 millions bisons alone roamed the plains, along with another tens of millions of deer and other ruminants.
> These estimates vary a lot from one source to another, but even then 130 kgCO2/kg is an unusually high estimate for beef. Common range, I think, is from 20 to 60
Still, we'd be much better off, had we stopped eating beef (and other ruminants) and instead switched to pork, poultry and fish.
Another thing British and Americans have a different name for. We call them fish fingers. If you ask for fish sticks in the UK you will probably get the pinkish crab sticks that donât have breadcrumbs
Fish fingers sounds funny to me as an American, but actually it's more consistent. Chicken fingers in the US are the same product but with chicken instead of fish.
As an aside, I grew up with âchicken fingersâ everywhere, on restaurant menus, etc. but now I canât think of the last time I didnât see them called âchicken tendersâ outside of one regional fast food chain where I am now. I live in a different region now so I wonder if thatâs a regional thing or just an overall trend
Indeed, I had never heard of a chicken tender until I started reading r/WSB; they've always been chicken fingers or buffalo wings.
Northeast? I see "chicken tenders" on a lot of menus. I can see the difference being that "chicken fingers" having a childish connotation. And it goes without saying, "boneless buffalo wings" is a complete fabrication of reality.
I wonder if Alton Brown has more sway than I thought. He's done a whole series of rants over the years on his show about how chicken don't have fingers. Then, in his last live stage show, he told a hilarious story about how he made chicken feet for his daughter when she insisted that chicken do have fingers.
I believe the chicken tender is a specific cut/part of the breast. I would guess itâs being used inaccurately for marketing/trendiness purposes, but originally it was probably not just a regional variation of âchicken fingerâ. See related: Chilean Sea Bass as a renaming of the less glamorous âtoothfishâ.
Indeed. Although I'm mostly aware of the American equivalents of British terms, in this case it caught me off guard. Seeing the headline I had no idea what it was talking about, and I thought it might mean "fish sticks" as in fishing using spears! I wonder what my American counterpart might have thought if the headline used "fish fingers" instead... maybe that the article was about the unlikely evolutionary success of vertebrate fingersâ˝
Chicken prepared in a similar manner is called chicken fingers in the US, and at least in Canada, "fish fingers" sounds entirely natural and is not something I would even blink at. I don't even know what they're labelled as on packages; probably a mixture of both.
If you go somewhere upmarket in the UK, they will be cod goujons, and will be an artfully irregular shape.
Had a chuckle that the local Asda (owned by Walmart until late last year) might be considered upmarket!
They have cod goujons, and they are indeed respectably artful in their irregular shape.
> pinkish crab stick
interesting, these are Japanese Surimi, no?
Yes
Above all I find fish sticks convenient.
I can take only as many as needed out of the box and put the rest back into the freezer for next time. They only take a few minutes to fry and go well with a variety of side dishes which gives flexibility. I do not even mind putting them on burgers instead of patties when I am not willing to make some (I usually cook freshly and do not like pre-made patties at all) (-> flexibility again).
Such an improvement over fishbricks:
> Birdseye developed a novel freezing technique...but when used on fish, the method created large blocks of intermingled fillets that, when pried apart, tore into âmangled, unappetizing chunksâ .... The fishing industry tried selling the blocks whole, as fishbricks. These were packaged like blocks of ice cream, with the idea that a housewife could chop off however much fish she wanted that day.
What a world.
Funny that we have certain collective nouns that don't cross meat types.
-- Fish sticks
-- Chicken nuggets or fingers
-- Shrimp poppers
And beef / pork don't seem to ever fall into those. (pork sticks?? Beef nuggets??)
Maybe because beef, pork seem worthy of preserving identity as a piece of a distinguishable reputable whole parent, while fish, chicken, are sometimes almost.... um, extruded and need a noun of their own after such process?
Fwiw - in Ireland & UK, they're fish fingers, not fish sticks.
Interesting -- for the US "fingers" is reserved for breaded frozen meat that appears to be hand-formed (that is, not rectangular, but still likely machine-made at scale). Chicken fingers and fish fingers are commonly available.
What's a sausage if it's not an extruded pork stick?
I think the secret sauce for fish sticksâ success is tartar sauce.
By themselves fish sticks are meh, but when dipped in tarter sauce, the taste is sublime.
The shape and consistency of fish sticks make it easier to dip in tartar sauce.
Tomato ketchup is also pretty good - even if broadsheet journalists might dismiss it as "a bit childish":
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/dec/15/how-to-...
The extra bite from HP sauce makes it preferable to normal tomato ketchup here: the real sophisticateâs choice. ;)
I was always a fan of cocktail sauce (ketchup with horseradish).
There is a fine line between genius and madness, and i regret to report that you crossed it a long time ago.
A 50/50 Mix of Tomato ketchup and Sriracha is IMO better than straight ketchup
New York semi-recently discovered korean ingredients so Gochujang and ketchup is the new hotness for the western world.
I like fried battered fish with tartar sauce, but cocktail sauce (ketchup and prepared horseradish) is better IMO and malt vinegar is several factors better.
"The fishing industry tried selling the blocks whole, as fishbricks."
Now that sounds unappealing.
But fishsticks were always great as a kid.
I don't know why it isn't mentioned that they were good for dipping. You could dip them in tartar sauce, inferior to british fish and chips, but kids didn't mind, they were even amenable to ketchup or mayonnaise.
> Each kilogram of fish sticks produces about 1.3 kilograms of carbon dioxide, which ârivals the climate impact of tofu,â she says. Beef, by comparison, produces over 100 times that amount of carbon dioxide per kilogram.
That's fascinating. I wish they'd explain why.
I've mostly seen statistics about water usage for dairy milk production, but it takes a lot of water and food to raise a cow to maturity. Fish (if harvested sustainably) care for themselves until caught, so it makes some sense to me that planting, growing, harvesting, and processing soybeans into tofu would have similar impact to fleets of ships traveling the ocean catching fish.
A few years ago I read and enjoyed the book "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. The author follows three different meals from farm to table as completely as possible given the nature of modern food production. It's a great read for someone who wants to know more about where food comes from and how it gets here, and it's definitely made me think about what I'm eating.
But presumably the fish still does need to eat, which you'd need to keep in mind for the calculation?
I don't think so, unless there is a significant amount of carbon released due to the way the fish's food grows. It's certainly not the same as running all of the machinery required to process and transport livestock feed. There has been some interesting back-and-forth about the role of the fish themselves as a natural carbon sink[1][2]. I don't pretend to understand the science or math involved in these calculations though.
[1] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/44/eabb4848 [2] https://sustainablefisheries-uw.org/big-fish-sink-blue-carbo...
Not for the purpose of making a carbon footprint calculation I believe.
That beef number is going to vary widely. The low end might be grass-fed beef on rotational grazing regenerative grassland fed a methane suppressing supplement versus beef raised on factory farmed corn grown on land created by burning down the rain forest.
I thought the methane from decomposing grass was net generated whether it passed through the cow or not?
You are correct. It's one of many sleight of hand tricks used to exaggerate the impact of beef. For some reason, certain parties don't want harm reduction policies on these issues, they want you to stop eating Beef altogether.
Most beef aren't fed grass, they're fed corn or barley or other grains.
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