Hi everyone,

I'm trying to incorporate more fish into my diet. There was a time that I could only eat fish sticks or delicate white fishes, like sole or cod or halibut. I have recently graduated to salmon. Tuna is still out of the question. I still can't deal with much other than nice-looking filets. Scales, heads and eyeballs put me off.

My question is the following: does fish have a stronger smell if the skin is still attached? I bought some salmon filet from Coop which looked nice but smelled pretty strong once opened. There was skin on the underside. According to the package, it was well within its freshness date.

The smell of fish doesn't have much to do with the skin. Skin on, skin off, same same. The thing about fish is that it shouldn't have that 'fishy' smell. Fresh fish doesn't, and if it does I'd stay away from it while you're trying to introduce more fish into your diet.

The skin on the cut depends on what how you're planning to cook it. I have my own ideas on how a good piece of fish should be cooked, and the less done to it the better.

I have not been too impressed with fish here, even though we're not far away, we're land-locked. Jelmoli food hall has fresh fish and you can buy it pinned, skinned and filleted. I wouldn't buy fish in a Coop or Migros even if I could find it.

Tuna is special, it needs to be treated like a piece of rare beef and should only have its ass dragged through a pan or grill, it needs to be served rare, which is why it needs to be as fresh as possible, otherwise you'll get sick.

Fish like salmon is tricky these days as most of it tends to be farmed. Farmed salmon tastes of what it has been fed (things like corn) and often has a 'bleachy' smell. Go to Jelmoli and pay for wild North Sea salmon. Generally you get what you pay for, but that rule can be broken by supermarkets because they'll still charge you for crap.

You can get what they call Cod (Morue or Cabillaud) Royal. This is a very fine cut of Cod Loin, with thick white flakes that it best done steamed or poached, but it will not disappoint. I have seen this at Jelmoli as well as Sea Bass, very good looking Sea Bass, which was pricy, but I'm not going to get fish at bargain prices. I'm going off on one...

Long story short... If it smells 'fishy' it's not fresh.

Hi Carrie, I agree with most of gooner's comments. I must say I am not a big fan of fish in CH at all. But like Jack's comments in another post - peoples' ideas of fresh vary often according to where they have come from. For example generally in Europe fresh fish means fresh frozen, in other words the fish might be caught on the other side of the world, frozen on the boat, then thawed when it arrives to the fish market in the destination country. To me, this is not fresh, my definition is that it is caught locally that day, and arrives on my plate that evening.

It is a common misconception to believe that the fish in CH is worse than the rest of Europe because we are landlocked. The truth of the matter is that when we go down to a nice seaside town in France or Italy and watch the fishing boats coming in we imagine that when we eat seafood in a restaurant that night we will be eating produce fresh from the boat. Perhaps 20 or 30 years ago this may have been the case, but the fact is that demand for seafood is so high and supply so low that the fish you are eating probably came from a distant part of the ocean. Fish stocks globally are severly strained, and fish stocks around European waters are almost decimated. Sure, there will be fishing boats, but they won't be catching anywhere near enough fish to supply even a small percentage of the demand.

Unfortunately attention is only given to environmental factors that we can see - we see our glaciers melting and our ski seasons getting shorter and shorter - we know about global warming. But we don't see that large parts of our ocean are now virtual deserts with no life in them at all. Huge fishing trawlers scour the ocean, aided by tools such as spotter planes and radar to look for areas where there still may be fish. Since the shallower parts of the ocean are now so severly depleted the trawling nets are going lower and lower to try and scour the deeper (and mostly unknown!) parts of the ocean. Suddenly previously unknown names appear on the dinner plate - "what's that ?" you ask the waiter, he gives you the explanation and you order the fish. Neither you nor the waiter know that this fish lives at 2000m under the surface, and the reason you never heard of it is because until now they've never been caught.

Unfortunately we also give attention to animals we like and that are cute. We protect whales, love dolphins and get passionate about seal clubbing. But each year 100 million sharks are murdered, sometimes in the name of protecting beaches (caught in nets) but often their fins are cut off and the shark thrown back into the ocean to die. Next time you are in a Chinese restaurant and you are tempted to try what is supposed to be a great delicacy, shark fin soup, just say no! Apparently each year sharks kill around 5 humans world wide... Hardly a fair fight.

Some people believe that fish farming is the answer to this problem. Fish in fish farms are fed large quanties of antibiotics due to the crowded conditions they are kept in. Gooner also touched on their feed - fish like tuna eat other fish, so the reality is that we go to the oceans to catch the fish that are fed to tuna in our fish farms. Tuna is big business and demand is high, next time you eat tuna in a restaurant you might not realise that your tuna was fed "by catch", this is what the industry calls all of the other forms of life apart from the fish that they were targetting which are caught in their nets. This bycatch often ends up in generic seafood or fish products such as fish-fingers. Unfortunately since the net takes everything from an area, once it has passed no life remains at all.

Anyway, there's plenty more I could say on the subject, but it's a little depressing, since this issue occupies such a small space in the collective human consciousness. If you'd like to know a little more on the subject check out the bonus DVD of the BBC's "Blue Planet" - an excellent series about the ocean.

So bottom line - if you'd like to try fish do so now, your kids or grandkids might one day ask you what it tasted like.

But just to give you a little bit more information about eating fish here, my ex-girlfriend used to make sushi. She went to the shop and asked for some tuna, the fish guy asked her what she was using it for. When she replied that she was making sushi he put down the fish in the display counter and went to the back to get another piece. He told her to only come and ask for it on 2 days of the week - the fish market for all businesses apparently operates only twice per week - you can figure out the chances of getting anything remotely fresh from that... This information is a couple of years old, I'm sure Jack can jump in here and correct any errors I've made!

Mark

Never eat fish on Monday's (it's Friday's fish)

BTW - Good post Mark. An interesting book to read - COD, a Biography of a Fish that changed the World.

That applies to pretty much anything in Migros on a Monday morning - if you can get around them while they are packing the shelves on Monday

Thanks, guys, for the words of advice!

Mark, I will definitely be turning down the shark fin soup. a.) because it sounds repulsive, and b.) out of concern for shark extinction.

I did an English lesson last fall about Whale burgers becoming a trend in Japan. Any thoughts about that?

Well I don't know about a trend, as I recall there was controversy because one school (or group of schools) in a particular prefacture were going to put them on the school menu in order to supposedly teach their children about their traditions. As for it becoming a trend - there wouldn't be enough whale meat to allow this to happen, even with their bogus "scientific research" stuff.

Mark

Mark, I just found the lesson again, if you want to read the text.

http://www.onestopenglish.com/Magazi...s/whales_3.pdf

Black and chewy as a description for whale meat makes me want to stick to Migros's frozen Golden Nuggets (made from cod). I don't think I buy anything containing "catch" meat. I just can't hang with ordinary fish sticks that are iridescent on the inside.

That was very interesting. I knew that so the called research meat was sold into the fish markets, but I had no idea that there was so much that it could be that easy to obtain whale meat in Japan! I will ask my Japanese teacher to read that article and let me know if there is any more to that subject.

As for Migros golden nuggets not containing by-catch, I doubt that very much. Firstly stocks of cod in European waters have pretty much all but disappeared, ditto for north atlantic. Beware of fish renaming - often one species is slightly renamed for marketing purposes to one that has been wiped out, but the name is changed slightly to a "newer" sounding variety. There may be some actual fish in there, but I the temptation to use by catch is just too financially persuasive. Exception would be when dealing with a brand where you absolutely know that they have the highest ethical standards, or when dealing with certification marks from a credible, independant body. Supermarket self-certification is not enough to convince me - especially where Migros is concerned!

Reading that article made me think of another point - why are repulsed by the idea of eating whale? Or dog? Or Horse? While I am passionate about marine conservation, I should also point out that whale numbers have recovered significantly and there is good reason to consider introducing quotas - the danger is that the flood gates will open and they would be abused. Yet we focus on things like whales while at the same time we strip the oceans bare of all the other life! I can't see the logic

Interesting thread! I am totally in agreement with Gooner and Mark regarding their comments on eating fish in Switzerland. What I would like to add are two points. First, I am wondering why lake fish are not very often discussed in conversations concerning fish in Switzerland....It seems to me this is often the best avenue to eating fresh fish in this land-locked country....hmmm? Secondly, I am wondering why Carrie wants to incorporate more fish into her diet.... Perhaps nutrition...hmmm? There is no question that eating fresh seafood is good for the diet...especially because of the high quantities of Omega 3. But, did you know you can acquire most of the same nutritional benefits by eating flax seeds (gr. Leinsamen)? Flax seeds are one of the oldest domesticated plants, and they offer very high levels of calcium, iron, niacin, phosphorous and vitamin E...as well as high levels of Omega-3 fatty acids. So...if you are looking for the nutritional benefits of fish without having to deal with the side effects (smell, poor quality, et.al.), perhaps a spoon of flax seeds per day will help - by the way, they are cheap and easily found in all Coop and Migro locations.

Other random thoughts....The book on Cod mentioned earlier (author Mark Kurlanski - also interesting books on Salt and Basque History) is absolutely fantastic - I really didn't know Iceland and England actually had a few small wars concerning Cod - and just in the last 40 years or so...

Here are a couple of links for more on fish:

http://www.fair-fish.ch (excellent info on the Swiss fish scene - only German, but he will answer questions in English if you write to him)

http://www.aboutseafood.com (general information - blog - about fish, but it has some decent research info)...

Happy fishing....
Jack

Hi Jack,

Centuries ago, I was on a very strict diet with a weight loss clinic in California called Lindora. They recommended that when you are in a plateau (stuck at the same weight for a while and unable to continue losing) that dieters eat fish and spinach. It really works!

I never had a problem with breaded/battered fried fish, but it was a big change to eat a healthy piece of grilled fish all on its own. I keep trying to eat it prepared in a healthy way so that I might eventually catch on and like it more.

I know how healthy fish is for heart attack prevention and keeping weight down, etc... So I don't know if substituting flax seed can do all that. I'm all ears, though.

I do enjoy fish - however, my favorite recipe at the moment involves baking it curry style with coconut milk. I guess I will always be a fattie at heart!

I saw an example of new mystery fish that Mark was talking about. I was shopping at Coop and there was "Fisch-Filets à la Provençale." I thought it odd that it didn't say what fish it was...... So I flipped it over and kept reading.

They tell you the name on the box and that it comes from the South Atlantic, but I'd never heard of it. They even described its flavor as "delicate and refined". I don't remember the name of the fish, but it looked like the Latin specie name.

I couldn't bring myself to buy it, even though "Provençale" sounded good.

Hello Carrie,

I don't know much about the Lindora diet, other than it is similar to the Atkins diet... I'm not a nutritionist nor a big fan of 'fad' diets, and I always become skeptical when I hear the details of a diet preaching excessive consumption of one item and dramatic cutbacks on other itms. I believe that most of these diets can be effective in the short-term, but they rarely work in the long-term - which I gather is your primary focus. I think diet and losing weight is mostly a simple process of managing your caloric intake....If you consume more than you burn, then you will gain weight. If you burn more than you consume, then you will lose weight (this is at least true for most people...others should consult a doctor or professional nutritionist). I think the best approach to weight loss program is to focus on a balanced food plan - lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, various meats and fish a few times a week, and lots of whole grains. Your food plan should also include an increase in exercise activities (this can be fun). And finally, try to avoid excessiveness in diet or exercise...

Actually it can! Flax seeds do have high levels of Omega-3, which is what fish have and have proven to be valuable in fighting bad cholesterol, which plugs the veins and arteries... I add one spoon to my müesli in the morning (my God...did I really just write that?....I guess I'm turning Swiss!).... One word of caution on flax seeds..... for some, consumption of flax seeds can lead to escessive use of a certain room in the morning

Jack

I just thought I'd update this thread with an attachment - a little card called Seafood Watch. It contains fish you should avoid and fish that are considered to come from more sustainable sources.

The list is slanted heavily toward US-based consumers but I thought I'd post it anyway.

Thanks, Mark. You're right, it would be better for it to be geared toward us living in Central Europe, but it's still good info. I might take my fish-eating self to the States in the coming year or so.

Halibut was one of my first fishes - I'm not counting fish sticks as real fish.

Jack, I've hit the flax again!

Hi all,

I have some useful information to update this thread. I just wanted to mention Jack that I checked out those links you sent. The first one was interesting, but it concerns more "human" fish farming and a code of practice for fisherman (e.g. fish must be hit over the head after being caught) rather than anything to do with the exploitation of the oceans. The aboutseafood site is run by the "National Fisheries Institute" and calls on people on their front page to "Eat more fish"... Not sure that this might be an impartial site for ocean conservation!

Anyway, I did a bit more digging and found something very interesting. The website of the Marine Stewardship Council has a listing for Switzerland. Just browse to http://www.msc.org and select the link "Where to shop" and then pick Switzerland from the list.

I was impressed when I saw a listing of all the supermarkets in Switzerland and a listing of each product their carry which is endorsed by the MSC! A useful resource indeed!

As a side note I also checked with my Japanese teacher and he confirmed that yes, whale meat is widely available in Japan

I'll leave you with a little bit of info I found on the MSC website:

Thanks for that link Mark...Very useful!
Jack

Add tuna to the list! I am slowly but surely becoming a grown-up!

I was brave enough to try spaghetti with tuna-tomato sauce at one of my end-of-the-year parties! And someone even made vol-au-vent-esque thingies with a homemade, low-fat tuna paste!

Anyone who wants to PM me their favorite tuna recipe, go for it!

*Jack, I just read an interesting ad last night in my favorite mag (Psychology Today) about Udo's DHA Oil Blend.

www.florahealth.com/DHA

Seems like a good thing for people adverse to fish oil (vegetarians or people not keen on ocean-borne contaminants or those concerned with global overfishing).

Flax seeds contain ALA as the Omega 3 acid. ALA is hardly converted to DHA and EPA which are the most beneficial Omega 3's. Or, put differently, you need DHA and EPA as well as and the former two are found in marine life such as algae and fish.

Most important, however, flaxseeds are estrogenic and should be avoided by women with estrogen sensitive complaints such as endometriosis, and flaxseeds should also be avoided by women with estrogen receptive breast cancers. Lastly, they are goitrogenic and should be avoided by people with hypothyroidism.

However, flax seed oil is not estrogenic and is probably safe. It can be found in 250ml bottle at Manor.

Thanks for the tip, muse7! Are you a specialist in this field or just knowledgeable?

A friend of mine has also suggested adding a few drops of evening primrose oil to a tablespoon of flaxseed oil - to help out with acne and other feminine hormonal imbalances.