Plant-based fish: The green alternative
The problem: The smell of fish drives many people away from a nutritious food.
A possible fix: Entrepreneurs and scientists are developing plant- and cell-based substitutes that offer similar health benefits but without the bones and offal.
Plant-based fish products seek to offer the taste and texture of fish with none of what some see as the environmental damage.
Good Catch, a privately held company based in Newtown, Pennsylvania, recently secured about $18.7 million in venture capital to develop a plant-based substitute for tuna.
Analysts at Barclays believe the market for plant-based meat substitutes could grow by 1,000 percent in the next 10 years, making an extra $140 billion sales annually.
“Plant-based diets offer all the necessary protein, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals for optimal health and are often higher in fiber,” Harvard University Medical School said in a research report. “Vegetarian diets have also been shown to support health, including a lower risk of developing coronary heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes.”
Ingredients in Good Catch’s tuna substitute include peas, soy protein, chickpea flour, lentil protein, fava protein, navy bean flour, sea salt, sunflower oil, seaweed powder and citric acid. The product is available at Whole Foods supermarkets and at Thrive Market, a subscription food service. In the United Kingdom, and it’s available at supermarket chain Tesco.
The National Fisheries Institute, a trade group in McLean, Virginia, punched back by noting, “Vegan fish is not fish.”
“No matter how artfully prepared, mashed-up beans are still mashedup beans,” the trade group said. “Comparing them to fish and calling them plant-based seafood or vegan fish is nutritional malpractice.”
In the United States, shrimp, salmon, canned tuna, tilapia and Alaska pollock make up nearly 75 percent of seafood consumption, the US Department of Agriculture reported. Seafood catches worldwide are up, and one-third of the world’s supply is “overfished”, a trend the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization called “unsustainable” in its biennial report, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018.
While China is the world’s largest market for seafood, it ranked seventh in seafood consumption per capita at 48.3 kilograms in 2018, trailing South Korea, where consumption totals 78.5 kg per capita, the world’s highest level.
The European Commission’s Joint Research Center said seafood consumption has more than doubled in the past 50 years, further straining sustainability of current fishing.
But for some people, vegetable substitutes can’t match real fish. Molecular biologists seek to solve the problem of overfishing with what critics call “Franken” fish — a reference to Frankenstein, Mary Shelly’s novel published in 1818 about a scientist who created a horrible creature through experimentation.
Finless Foods, located east of San Francisco in Emeryville, California, uses cellular biology to grow fish products in a lab, creating what it calls “sustainable seafood without the catch”. The process is not dependent on conventional techniques that raise live fish in tanks or ponds.
Finless Foods said it acquires high-quality fish cells, feeds them nutrient-rich ingredients and then “structures” the cell matter into fillets for sale to restaurants and supermarkets. The startup recently raised $3.5 million in venture funding to develop cultured bluefin tuna.
“This means no commercial fishing from our precious oceans. No fish farming. No contaminants. Just healthy, high-quality fish at prices we can all afford,” the company said on its website.