Why Wild-Caught Fish Isn't Necessarily Better, The Truth About Farmed Fish, How To Get Guilt-Free, Gourmet Seafood, Delicious DIY Sushi & Sashimi Recipes & Much More!

On this episode of the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast.

This is like what Jacques Cousteau said many years ago. A mark of civilization is a transition from hunting to farming. And we need to do that with the oceans. Our real customers are artists and aquaculture farms who are endeavoring to go against the status quo and find a market that appreciates and values innovation. Quite frankly, we've adapted military technology to industrial scale hunting and we call it commercial fishing. And it's just far too efficient.

Help, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield.

Welcome to the show. All right, folks, welcome, welcome, welcome. Let me ask you a question.

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All right, well, I think I've mentioned this a few times before on my podcast of late, but I've been kind of getting into sushi and it's not like I didn't like sushi before. I love sushi. I love sushi restaurants. I love sashimi. I just, I just dig the idea of eating I I I gu could arguably be called raw fish. I think I had my first bit of sushi when I was, I was pretty old. I was probably like gosh, like 23, 24 years old before I ever even tried sushi. And I remember have going to a sushi restaurant in Coeur d' Alene and then leaving and bragging to all my friends that oh hey you guys, I've had raw fish and I thought it was cool just because perhaps I wasn't as, as cultured growing up as one could be at least to the extent of having ever had sushi before. But nonetheless. So I got into sushi, I got into fish, I got into sashimi. You know, I have a whole pantry full of sardines and anchovies and mackerel and salmon. But lately I haven't been enjoying sushi restaurants, not very much at all. And the reason for that is, well, it's multifactorial. A, I'm aware of the ever increasing issue with like metals and plastics and things like that in the fish food chain. But then be me and my sons and my wife as we've been making our own sushi and sashimi at home. That's just like the most mind blowing, mouth watering, super clean sushi that I've ever had in my life, along with a host of other fish products. And this was sparked by my, my guest on today's podcast who had reached out to me and he's like, hey, I got, I got this box of seafood I want to ship to you. And so he sent it over to me and he's like, you can literally just cut this with a knife and eat it. I'm like, okay, well, you know, a little bit, a little bit concerned about not, not trichinosis, I suppose, which one would get from, from bear or pig, but just rather just, you know, eating raw fish that arrives on the doorstep. But anyways, I got some really good sushi knives. My sons and I began to figure out together how to make everything from like poke bowls to these Tahitian fish recipes, to hand rolls to sashimi, to all these crazy sushi recipes. And in addition to that, we've been cooking up all these crazy bits of the fish that I really haven't had a chance to. Probably my favorite being fish collar, which is this super fatty, luscious bit of fish that just like melts in your mouth. It's amazing. I broil it with a little bit of olive oil and get it nice and crispy. And my guest on today's show, his name is James Arthur Smith. And James Arthur Smith, because it's cool to say someone's name as a three part series rather than just James. James Arthur Smith is a guy who has been researching all these different aqua culture farms for the past eight years and trying to figure, figure out how to basically harvest sushi grade fish and have it shipped almost like a, like a butcher box of seafood to people's homes. And so I got into this and I am officially like hooked. I get a shipment from James, Typically a couple times a month. And I am eating the heck out of this fish. And it's just. It's absolutely transformed the way that I cook. I have a few of his recipes in my new cookbook. I have. I have a. A ton of people who come over to my house who are just, like, blown away by how good fish can be. Even if you don't even cook it. You just cut it with a knife and put a little bit of, like, olive oil and sea salt and lemon on it, and you're good to go. So I want to chat with James a little bit about just like fish in general, this new documentary called Seaspiracy that I personally haven't seen, but that a ton of people are telling me is a highly problematic film when it comes to the fish industry. And I just want to talk all things fishy fish. So, James, welcome to the show, man.

Right on. Thanks, Ben. It's a pleasure to be here.

Yeah. Hey, did you. Did you have fish for breakfast?

I did, actually, yeah.

Yeah, you did? What you would you have. I'm curious what a guy who just, you know, is immersed in the fish industry has for breakfast when he has fish for breakfast.

Well, it's not just me, but me and my. My dogs got to eat some really beautiful salmon this morning. The dogs absolutely love it. In particular, I try to set aside the skins for them. I also appreciate the skins, but I had luscious piece of salmon that was broiled with some homemade kimchi and some egg.

That sounds so much better than the smoothie that I had. I had a pumpkin pie spice smoothie. But honestly, I knew that you and I were going to do this podcast, and I actually don't have any of your fish right now in my refrigerator or my freezer. By the way, folks, it's called seatopia James's fish stuff. And I'll link to it all if you go to Ben Greenfield, fit.com Seatopia Podcast S E a topia seatopia podcast. So I didn't have any seatopia stuff, James, but the. The fish that you had, or the salmon particularly, you got two different forms of salmon that you have sent to me in the past.

The.

I think one's called the Nordic blue, and then the other one is like a king salmon. Which one did you have? If one of those.

I had a piece of Nordic blue salmon, which is Atlantic salmon. The skin on one. I like to cook those ones. I saved the. The skin off one that. Ora king salmon for sashimi and Crudo presentation.

I agree. The, the Nordic blue is the one with that. That is the one with the skin on, right?

Yeah.

So the skin on one. Dude, you told me to just like go skin side down and, and broil that for about like four minutes or so. And so I do that just drenched in olive oil. And I like to put a little bit of dill and pepper and salt on it and then I turn it skin side up for like another four minutes on the broiler. It gets, you know how the skin gets just like slightly bubbly and crispy.

Yeah.

Cracker.

Yeah.

Oh my goodness.

It's so good right there.

I'm jealous about your breakfast. Well, we'll get, we'll get back into Nordic blue and king salmon and some of my other favorite cuts. But I'm just curious for you personally how you would describe sea topia to people. Did I nail it with the butcher box of seafood or how is it that you describe what it is that you do?

Absolutely. I think that's the consumer facing angle is definitely it's the butcher box of seafood. It's a subscription box that goes direct to your home that delivers a blast frozen product that you can put directly in your freezer and keep it for, you know, a month or months at a time or transfer it to the refrigerator to thaw it out and work with it that same day. Everything arrives sushi grade. And one of the things that we're most proud about is that there's no plastic in our packaging. So our freezer bags, those bags that the product comes in, the vacuum seal bags, are actually compostable. The insulation is completely compostable.

I didn't know that. I thought they were plastic.

They're a laminate of a vegetable and cassava based bioplastic that's certified home compostable. So yeah, you can put that in your compost bin and can go back and look at it in a month and It'll be almost 100 dirt. It's. It composts very, very quickly.

Yeah. Oh my goodness. That totally flew under my radar. I guess if I'm super hungry, I could probably eat the plastic. This wouldn't die, right? Or not the plastic, but this plastic, this faux plastic that you're making. So you, you also said it was you. You didn't say flash frozen. I think you said blast frozen.

Yeah, yeah. It's a big difference.

What's the difference?

The main difference is how quickly it freezes. Because any protein that has water content in it, in particular fish that have Even more water content than compared to say, steaks. If you put it in your home freezer, those water molecules, they crystallize as they freeze. But if it freezes slowly, you get very intricate and elaborate water crystal formations. And those crystals start to cut through the muscle fibers. And if you blast freeze it, bringing it down to say negative 60 degrees as quickly as possible with big fans blowing over it, that's wicking away the heat and wicking away the moisture. There's less, far less crystal formation. In fact, it's just little tiny daggers any water crystallization that does happen. And so there's less of the cutting of the muscle fiber and tissue. And when you go to a grocery store and you buy a piece of fish that is refreshed, which most fish is there, it may have been frozen and defrosted multiple times.

Is that, is that what refreshing means? Frozen and defrosted?

Yeah. Yeah. Most fish that arrives at a grocery store has gone through a supply chain where it's changed hands six, seven times and it's gone through a process of being frozen and in many cases defrosted, and then in some cases frozen again and then defrosted. And, and that, that expanding contraction of water molecules is cutting through those muscle fibers and results in a fish that's really mushy and has lost all of its flavor and quite frankly bland. What we do is we take fish at peak freshness and put it in a blast freezer that has huge fans and is bringing the temperature down upwards of negative 60 degrees. And then, and as soon as it comes out of that, it's kept in a cold chain of a frozen cold chain until it gets to your door. So it's never been gone through a process of freezing and defrosting, and it's only been frozen once at its peak freshness. So when it defrosts, it's still peak freshness. If you're looking at the shelf stability of a product that was frozen at peak freshness and defrosted once, versus a product that was caught fresh, kept fresh, gone through multiple chains of supply chain, sits on a counter and finally gets to your door, our products generally will have a longer shelf life than the quasi fresh stuff that comes through mainstream supply chains.

Why is it that they have to freeze it and then defrost it so much?

Because supply chain for most seafood is designed to move industrial scale quantities of a highly perishable product that may or may not have a home for it. So for example, with wild caught fish, upon which most of the mainstream seafood supply chain is built a giant purse, Saner might come across a breeding aggregation or spawning aggregation of huge, huge school schools of fish that have come together and they're going to catch all of that and bring it back to market. And there's not necessarily a demand for that product. So it's going to get frozen and then it's going to get sold to consolidator and then it's going to get sold to a broker who's going to sell it to another broker and a speculator and then a distributor and then a retailer and then to you. So as it goes through those supply chains, there's times in which it might be sold as a fresh product and then if they can't sell it in the period of time, they might refreeze it and then sell it as a frozen product and then somebody else might defrost it and sell it as a fresh product again. And there's not really regulation in a lot of that. And it's just trying to figure out how to, you know, find a market for a product that was, for example, in excess supply without a demand. And what we do is a lot, lot different. Very, very different. So we're not doing with dealing with any wild caught fish. Not that I'm against wild caught fish, but I just don't not I don't like to condone.

Well, I want to ask you about the farm fish piece because that's actually something I've always just said, wow. And I started getting your stuff and it's like, came from this farm, came from that farm, came from this farm. And I'm like, really? And I didn't think that was healthy, but I'll let you get into that. But before you explain what I think you call an aquaculture, like an artisan aquaculture farm, how did you actually get into this? Were you just like a guy who dug fish and wanted to scratch your own itch? What's the story of Seatopia?

Well, I guess if you wanted to know my story, it goes back to when I was a kid and, and my mom was working at Sea World and I was just really enthralled. I got some, had some kind of unique opportunities to really connect with some of the marine mammals there. And I thought, you know, I want to spend time with these animals. And I was so intrigued with that that as a, an adolescent I was like, okay, this is my path in life, is going to be marine mammalogist to work with Shamu and dolphins. And I started volunteering at an aquarium where I was cleaning the tanks. And we had this huge petting pool with leopard sharks and stingrays and bat rays. And one of the exhibits they had there was a demonstration hatchery project for steelhead that used to spawn in these estuaries where this aquarium's at in San Diego. And that really piqued my interest, the idea of regenerating wildlife, that these fish could be spawned, they could be bred, and they could be reintroduced, or they could be raised and harvested. And that just kind of put a seed in my head really early on on the principles of regenerative aquaculture. And fast forward 20 years, I met some people who were involved in aquaculture in Baja, where I'm at right now in the Sea of Cortez. And I just wanted to get involved. I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to be connected to a business model of regenerating the oceans, of mitigating pressure on the wild stock, and of being able to control what the fish are eating throughout their life cycle and produce, you know, a exceptionally clean product. Like you might see with wagyu beef, you know, somebody's controlling what that animal is eating throughout its life cycle. Or pasture raised beef. You know, you're buying that pasture raised beef because you know that it wasn't, you know, just wandering through landfills eating whatever. You know, it's not a wild donkey, for example. You're. You're eating something that had controlled feed throughout its life cycle. So I got into aquaculture really from the sustainability and ocean conservation and ecology. And then for more selfish reasons, Zootopia was developed to be able to bring that product to my family and to my friends. And, and slowly it's grown. It's grown from what? Well, before Seatopia launched, we had a. We still have a wholesale business that services most of the farm to table restaurants in Southern California. Whole fresh fish. And when Covid closed down that restaurant business, we were able to allocate our energy towards launching this home delivery business with, with which we call Seatopia.

So the, the, the deal with these farms versus wild caught fish, that's something that I still don't quite understand because obviously in the health sector, everybody's like, wild caught, wild caught. They'll go near farms, they feed the farm fish. You know, basically the equivalent what you might see, you know, pigs and cows being fed corn and grain on a cafo food lot would get. How is it that you can, you can sustainably farm seafood and have actual healthy fish if they've been farmed kind of like outside of their native habitat.

I mean, it really comes down to the practices of farming. Just like farming beef or chicken or cattle or tomatoes. There's farms that you come to love and trust and you have seen their practices that are, you know, following biodynamic principles. And then there's industrial scale commodity products that are just part of the problem that are poisoning our soil and something that has a demand, but not from people who are really concerned about where their food comes from. With aquaculture, it's the same thing. There are a lot of, I would say the majority of aquaculture, just like with agriculture, the majority of the mainstream is still following the mainstream path of producing as much quantity as possible with as low as risk for their investors. But there are artisan aquaculture farms that are endeavoring to produce the best quality product in the world without the use of antibiotics or hormones or genetically modified ingredients. And those are the farms that we are endeavoring to create a market for, to create the demand for, to support and to condone, because this is part of the solution. There are farms that we're working with today that are absolutely examples of what we should be doing. This is like what Jacques Cousteau said many years ago, a mark of civilization is a transition from hunting to farming. And we need to do that. With the oceans simply expanding, industrial scale hunting is not sustainable. It's short sighted and there's a finite supply. Also, there's increasing problems with the cleanliness of the oceans. And depending on where those fish are coming from, you know, they're bioaccumulating things through the food chain that are frankly unhealthy for us. So in a controlled environment, we can control what goes into the feed and we can control other factors like what comes out of the farm. So. So there are concerns about farming fish, about it being unsustainable or being bad for the environment. So, for example, effluent or fish poop is a significant concern with finfish, fox.

What'd you call fish poop?

Effluent.

So effluent, that's a scientific term for fish poop?

I guess so.

Sounds nice. I'm gonna start calling my own poop my effluent.

So your own poop are my poop? Fish poop. From a certain perspective, that's waste, right? But in nature, there's no such thing as waste. A stream of nutrients like nitrogen is only bad for the environment if it's highly concentrated and does not have a symbiotic partner for that. So in nature, you have a lot of Organisms that are consuming that unless it's being overwhelmed. So monocultures in aquaculture are just like monocultures on land. If you have too many of a living creature in a confined space, you're going to have a problem. But it's not the only way to farm. There are farms today that are pairing fin fish with shellfish and kelps that work symbiotically together because those nutrients from fish poop effluence are highly nutritional for shellfish and seaweeds and mollusks and a whole host of other organisms. In the right balance, you can create an ecosystem that mimics what nature has taught us for years. We just have to get away from the mindset of just producing a largest quantity as possible and the commodification of aquaculture. It's really a reflection of the first aquaculture farms that were developed. But frankly, aquaculture is a relatively new industry as a commercial enterprise. And some of the first farms raised money from Big Ag and they followed that same business model. But that's not the only way to farm. There's a growing demand for artisan aquaculture farms and that's what Seatopia is really about. So, you know, I think your first question is, what is seatopia? It's the butcher box of seafood. But behind the scenes, you know, the less sexy part of it is Ztopia is a market based solution to support regenerative aquaculture. And while, you know, consumers are buying our product, our real customers are artists in aquaculture farms who are endeavoring to go against the status quo and find a market that appreciates and values innovation on sustainable practices. Like, you know, how do you feed the fish these most optimal product, not just the most low cost feed. So if you want low cost feed, you use genetically modified corn and soy to put some sort of oils and fats into the feed. And that's generally accepted in Canada. There's a lot of use also of land based animal proteins. So chicken and beef byproducts. That's just a decision that the farm is making. And they're making it based on the fact that consumers aren't asking what's in the feed? What are my fish eating? Whereas with Seatopia, what we're doing is we're saying we want to support the best available practices and advance the best practices. Omega 3s, for example. Fish don't produce omega 3s. A lot of people don't even realize that if you're looking for an omega rich diet, it's not coming from the fish. It's coming from algaes, what the fish ate. Exactly. It's bioaccumulating up through the supply chain. So algae are the source of most of those omega 3s, and if you're feeding your fish just corn and soy, they're basically just getting omega 6s which are inflammatory both in the fish and causes problems with their digestive tract and also in humans.

Is that actually what they feed to fish on all these fish farms? Is it actually corn and soy?

Yeah. And, and it's not because they're endeavoring to make unhealthy fish, but they're trying to a reduce their impact on wild fisheries. So for example, you don't want to just go and catch all the anchovies and sardines and anchovetas and krill in the world to feed these fish farms. Even though fish convert feed more efficiently than land based animals, you still have to be conscientious of that. And trying to reduce your impact on marine resources. Supplementing with land based sources of oils is a solution to do that. But you don't necessarily want to change the Omega 3 versus Omega 6 components of what the fish are eating to the extent where it's unhealthy for them and unhealthy for us. You know, how do you ensure that you're transitioning to mitigating pressure on wild stock so that we're not depleting resources for the oceans while also optimizing health for ourselves and for the animals? Algae is the root of it all. You know, feeding these fish an algae based diet, a diet that is supplemented that. So a pelletized diet, a controlled pelletized diet that adjusts the ratio of fats to proteins throughout the life cycle. The fish using algaes is one solution that is far better than just corn and soy, for example. But there's a myriad of solutions that are slowly gaining economies of scale as farms, as consumers start to ban these things. So Soldier Flies is another example of an alternative feed using invasive species is another one. I've got a friend who has a project in, in the Midwest that are taking Asian carp, which is innovation species throughout all of the, a lot of the intercoastal river systems that. Have you seen those videos of like somebody going through a river and, and all of a sudden there's like a million fish jumping out of the water and they're like hitting them in the boat. Have you seen that stuff?

I guess I've probably seen like a few little clips of that in nature documentaries before, but I never really understood.

What it was, especially in the south and the Midwest, in a lot of the river systems. This species of carp that was introduced that is not native to these regions has just proliferated to the point where they're just consuming everything and they've out competed all the other native species. And there's so many of these fish that now they've been identified as a resource to harvest those and turn that into fish feed. And that could be used as an alternative. So to bring it back full circle is that what we are eating has a lot to do with what we're eating, is eating. And we have. And with Seatopia, we're endeavoring to vote with our dollars every day to support those farms that are advancing aquaculture not just for scale and commodity production, but to, you know, produce the best quality and the healthiest products that are available.

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So on these aquaculture farms, do you have to worry about the same issues that you tend to worry about with I guess fish in general, namely metal accumulation and then also kind of a newer phenomenon you see talked about a lot microplastic accumulation. I know you've told me before your fish are clean and that they don't have that, but I'm curious how you can actually ensure that that's the case.

I mean, that's a really important question. Mercury is bioaccumulating through the supply chain and through the food systems of animals. That is coming from coal fire plants. So coal powered power plants are releasing micro particles of mercury back into the ecosystem. That is then bioaccumulinium back up through the phytoplankton and the sardines and the anchovies and the mackerel. And as it goes up through the species, because it sits in the flesh of the organism, it doesn't digest. As you get further up the trophic scale, highest trophic animals like sharks and swordfish have levels of metals that are unhealthy. And in fact, if you look at the very top of the food chain, like killer whales, killer whales that have washed up on the beaches now have levels of mercury that are coming considered biohazards. That is a very significant problem and we've mitigated that by controlling what the fish are eating and prioritizing them eating a low trophic diet. So if you're feeding your fish sardines and anchovies and mackerel, they're still bioaccumulating because they're getting those mid level trophic species throughout their life cycle. Whereas if you're feeding them bottom of the trophy, the algaes and the anchovetas or what a lot of the farms we're working with do is they are using a supplement of fish meal from byproducts of sardine canneries. So not even getting the full flesh of the fish, getting mostly the head, the carcass and the guts of the sardines and anchovies that don't go into a filleted can. Whatever's left over from a MSC certified cannery that is putting not a whole sardine or anchovy, but just the fillets. The rest of that carcass gets ground up and turned into a fish meal. And so that MSC certified byproduct of a cannery becomes part of a fish meal for a lot of the farms that we work with. And that is mitigating the concentration of the flesh and the mercury and staying as low trophic as possible. And that results in a much cleaner diet that has mitigated concentrations or exposures of mercury throughout the life cycle. But what we do with everything that comes to Seatopia when we're evaluating the farms that we're going to work with is we take a sample of their fish and send it to a laboratory that can do analysis to the parts per billion and quantify the levels of mercury and, and a number of other things. Omega 3s, Omega 6s, plastics, radiation. And we don't work with any farm that has more than 0.1 parts per million of mercury. And then once we start working with them, we do that test with every harvest that comes in. So every lot has a certificate of analysis that quantifies the mercury levels. And then we can provide that information not only to our customers customers, but also back to the farms and let them know if there's any inconsistencies, full transparency. We've had issues where we've seen things change and we've said, hey, apparently you guys made a change in your feed or something changed in the environment. And until this happens, we need to re evaluate this when these numbers are back within our guidelines. So it's one thing to take a farm's word for what they're doing, it's another thing to actually test it. So we work with the, all the farms we work with have a third party certification for sustainability and fair trade practices. But we then take the samples from every lot and get the certificate of analysis that also certifies the cleanliness. So that's how we've done it. And as a result, everything that's in the Seatopia box is certified mercury safe.

Now, what about, what about plastics?

Plastics is a challenge as well. Plastics is increasingly becoming an issue. University, UC Davis put out a test a couple years ago, I think two years ago now, where they went to fish markets all up and down California coast, bought fish that was caught locally, tested it for plastics and found 25% 1 in, in 4 fish had microplastics in it. And a lot of that has to do with where those fish are being caught. There are, there's plastics in almost every corner of the world now, from in Mariana's Trench to the top of the Himalayas, we've found microplastics. And it really, you have to look at the currents and the cycles and the areas in which the plastics are aggregating. So the, the Campachi that we work with, for example, is up inside of the Sea of Cortez. And because they're not getting fed wild sardines or anchovies, everything is in a controlled feed and they're in this area that's sheltered from, for example, the Pacific gyre is spinning in a certain direction and the currents don't spin up inside of the protected Sea of Cortez. You have an environment that is protected from that, mitigated exposure to that. And then we also have been working on getting that certified on a regular basis as well. Because that data is a unique selling point. It is something that you can't really get from wild caught sources that come from a myriad of different environments. So plastics is a concern. I don't really want to be eating plastics. I think we have to pay more attention to this and help drive the industry towards being more open, open and transparent about actually, you know, the cleanliness and the health of the fish. Because, you know, wild caught seafood is beautiful and romantic. But we have to ask deeper questions about mercury levels and plastics and how it was caught and where it was caught and what that fish may have been exposed to throughout its life cycle. And again, I'm not against wild caught seafood. Like I like some of my closest friends are fishermen, but they catch fish with a pole and a line and a hook, not 10,000 hooks over a mile long stretch that is being set for 24 hours and they come back and they pull in whatever bit those hooks. Even with circle hooks, which is an innovation these days, there's still bycatch is a big problem because quite frankly we've adapted military technology to, to industrial scale hunting and we call it, you know, commercial fishing. And it's just far too efficient. There's a lot of things that, that shouldn't be condoned. To just romanticize it as wild caught fish and not ask those deeper Questions is doing a disservice to our relationship with the oceans.

So, so the, this, this new film, Seaspiracy, you know, I, I haven't seen it, but I would imagine that it's probably something you're asked about or, or, or something that's, that's affected you somewhat. How, how exactly did Seaspiracy affect you or what do you think about that, that film as a whole?

First, it's worth saying that those guys are really good filmmakers. They're compelling storytellers. They've previously made a handful of other films that were equally as effective in, in achieving their objectives. Cow Aspiracy was their most recent film prior to that, which was just really talking about how we shouldn't be eating meat. And it's, in a sense it's, it's vegan propaganda. And I think everybody, I think their, their intentions are good. But what did they do? They brought to, they brought some really good storytelling and filmmaking to, to real issues about overfishing, about issues of indentured servitude and slavery that happens overseas, about issues of plastics, about issues of bycatch. And these are issues that for years have been told, albeit perhaps not by as good of filmmakers, but there are some really good non profits out there trying to bring this, this information to the mainstream. And those guys did an incredible job of doing, getting people to, getting mainstream conversations, conscientious of the challenges and problems with the seafood industry. They also brought to light issues with farming, issues with salmon farms for example, that are following that industrial scale monoculture model of packing as many living creatures as you can in a small space and you know, inundating them with antibiotics to try to mitigate against disease. And if you have a loss, that you have a loss, but you have so much production that you know you're moving on. That is, yeah, all of that was addressed in the film and they did an excellent job of, of, of really tear jerking and conveying, you know, how horrific a lot of that stuff is super valuable. What they didn't do though is they didn't address a single optimistic story of the good work that is happening with ocean conservation, with plastic mitigation, with organizations that are endeavoring to create marine protected areas and having tremendous success in establishing marine protected areas and allowing nature to do what it does best and regenerate and create these abundant environments. And they didn't look at any of the beautiful stories of aquaculture or multi trophic aquaculture, regenerative aquaculture. There's so many examples of farming and the evolution of how our relationship with the ocean can be, how we go back to following nature's example. I mean, farming seafood is not a new thing. Industrial scale farming it is. But farming seafood goes back to China, goes back to the Hawaiians. That it's, it's been an integral part of, of many cultures for many years. It's just that we have to be, we have to do it mindfully.

So. So you said it's basically like vegan propaganda. That's how you describe conspiracy.

Yeah, I would, I would describe it as vegan propaganda and really good filmmaking that addresses the, the doom and gloom, but completely missed their. You know, they had this amazing stage, you know, one of the top rated films on Netflix for a minute and they didn't put any spotlight on the examples of regenerative aquaculture that you know of marine protected areas that are working. There's, there's a site here in Baja called Cabo Pulmo that has been designated as a marine protected area for the last 20 years because they over 50 and because the industrial scale longliners from China came in and decimated these reefs and that the local community came together, they banded together and said this isn't working. We can't just keep trying to fish. We've overfished it. There's nothing less left. Let's as a group designate this as a marine protected area. And then international organizations came to support them. And today, 20 years, years later, that site is one of the most well regarded diving sites, ecotourism sites in the world. Because nature has the ability to regenerate if we give her a chance. So marine protected areas, ocean conservation and regenerative aquaculture is happening. I feel like that film missed the opportunity to celebrate a lot of the beautiful things that are happening. And it's my perspective that, that I like to focus on telling those stories. And that's one of the things that Seatopia does is we're actually allocating a percentage of all sales to helping create marine protected areas and support marine protected areas. Because those marine protected areas need a marine protected area that's not well managed. It's not a marine protected area. For what it's worth, I thought that that film missed their opportunity. It wasn't their objective, but their objective was just to tell people not to eat animals. I personally, personally feel better when I eat animals. I just want to be very conscientious of what I'm eating, how I'm eating, you know, Itatakemasu. I want to thank this animal that I'm eating give recognition and respect for everything that went into that, everything that that animal ate, everybody who was involved in the process of raising the animal, the sunshine that went into the algae, the whole process. Taking that moment to respect that, I think is healthy. And respect, respectful. And, you know, I've personally, I've been involved in the harvesting and hunting of animals myself. And I think that anybody who eats animals should have that experience, I think instills an intimate respect when you've, you know, you've taken the life of an animal and respectfully said, this is, this energy is now coming into me that I completely believe is important for humans who are going to eat animals to have that understanding and respect. I don't think it's necessary for us to all become vegan in order to change our relationship with the oceans.

No. Kind of like farming, it's all about the way that the animals are treated. It's about the regenerative farming practices, about a lot of the stuff that kind of seems similar to when it comes to farming, the type of aquaculture farms you describe for fish that you're sourcing your fish from 100%.

It's not the cow, it's the how.

It's not the cow, it's the how. We just got to figure out a way to make that rhyme for fish, right? It's not the fish, it's the let me know fish, it's the wish. I don't know. Well, we'll get to that later. But anyway, so I'm taking notes here. I'm going to put them all for people@bengreenfieldfitness.com Seatopia Podcast it's sea Topia podcast, but I would love to talk a little bit more about the actual fish themselves. Like, it's kind of food porn time here, James, because, like, you know, we could talk about metals and plastics and.

Conspiracy till we're blue in the face.

But I just like to eat amazing fish. And, and the first fish I tried that you sent to me, I'd never had before. And you mentioned a few minutes ago called kampachi K A N P A C H Y. It is like the most buttery, velvety, amazing, flavorful fish. Like, I like to broil the collars, like I mentioned a little bit of olive oil. I kind of broil them almost like I do with that skin side down, skin side up Nordic blue salmon recipe you were talking about, where I'll just like take the fish collar, drench it in olive oil a Little bit of salt and pepper, a couple of spices, and then just broil those bad boys up till they get crispy. And it's just like the. Is it from the neck of the fish, those fish collars?

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

So good.

Yeah, that's, that's right behind the gills before you get to the belly. Normally it has just a little bit of the belly meat on it and there's so much fat on there, it's so luscious. And that's one of the most beautiful things about these farms, is that you can control the feed and optimize the ratio of fat and muscle fiber that these animals are raising. I mean, it's the same thing with a chicken or a cow. You have your wagyu beef. It doesn't get that naturally. It's not just genetics. It also has a lot to do with the environment. And, and so feeding these fish, like a Campachi, for example, is almaco jack Sediola rivoliana in Florida. And in a lot of places, these fish, when caught by sport fishermen, for example, are considered kind of a trash fish.

Because the kompachiar.

Yeah, it's crazy, right? And it's primarily because in the wild their diet is, is not imparting as much fat into the skin, A and B, they end up accumulating a lot of parasites and worms. So because they're being raised on a pelletized diet, they're not getting live sardines and anchovies that have sardine or that have parasites in them or could have parasites in them that then get into the fish. A lot of amberjack, Alamoco Jack, excuse me, Alamoco Jack. Are not eaten sushi grade when caught wild because people don't have the ability to distinguish whether or not there's parasites in it or destroy those parasites. So FDA guidelines on destroying parasites, side note is to blast, freeze it, keep it at that negative 20 degrees for 48 hours and then, then keep it below negative 15 degrees Fahrenheit for another. I think it's another 48 hours. So freezing to kill parasites of wild caught seafood is a FDA regulation for sushi grade products with farm products. Because they're getting that pelletized diet that has the optimal ratios of fats. They're not, they don't have parasites. So you can eat everything sushi grade. You don't have to cook it just to kill stuff. You cook it just to give it the texture that you want. The contrasting textures of the luscious fats to the crispy Skin. You know, I love the idea of food porn because really at the end of the day, the whole sustainability thing and health conscious and you know, no mercury, the, that stuff doesn't get people as excited as really having that thing that resonates with us on a genetic level when there's the natural salts and the crispy skin and the luscious fats of these fish. So the collar has all of that concentrated and then it's kind of like the clavicle or the collar is right below the gills and right above the belly. And because there's a concept, a couple of bones in that, in that cut that are shaped kind of like a V, it protects the oils and when you cook it, it holds those fats in there and then it's imparting the, the flavor from the bones. And you know, just like with the, with beef, you know, or chicken, the flavor is richest, closest to the bone. And because the collar has the bones that are protecting the meats and the oils and it's still like you almost can't overcook and it's always going to have that lush, beautiful fat inside there. Yeah. So the colors are amazing. Kampachi are really special fish. Amongst all the different white fish that, that are out there. It's one of our favorites because it has a high fat ratio. It has a firmness that you don't see in a lot of other whitefish. It's, you know, oftentimes, you know, compared to like a yellowfin tuna, Kampachi is, is a really, you know, beautiful whitefish that are raised here in the Sea of Cortez in these turquoise waters. And it has that mere war, that flavor of these waters here. And it's, you know, it's raised in these pristine conditions and quite frankly, I almost never cook it other than those collars, I almost always just eat it raw as a crudo is my personal favorite. So just Italian style sashimi essentially.

Well, you eat, you eat the collars raw or you mean the compound? Because you should me both the collars. But then I also get a compost you fillets. I love to eat the fillets raw. You know, I cut those with a sushi knife. And one of my favorite recipes, you sent me the recipe, I think this is one of the first recipes you sent me was for Tahitian crew where I just take it and I cut it into little cubes, I put it in the fridge, a little lemon juice and olive oil. And then I make myself like this bowl of coconut milk and chopped Tomato and chopped avocado and chopped cucumber. And then I take that kind of like ceviche style compacci that I've got in the fridge, put it back into that, and then serve that over sushi rice with some like, some, some low metal nori wraps and wrap them in nori wraps. Oh, my goodness. My sons and I and my wife, we love to punish that recipe. It's like an upgrade on, you know, on like a poke bowl.

I've got an upgrade for you on that one. It's probably not something that you can procure locally, but if you ever come across young coconuts, the whole coconut, because I think you have a traeger, right? So take the fresh young coconuts, cut it in half. So you drain the water out, but you still have that layer of the soft meat inside of the coconut. Put those on your Traeger and smoke them. Not for very long, but long enough to impart the smoke into the coconut. Coconut meat. Then take them off, pull out that coconut meat, blend it with the water and make your own coconut milk that's been smoked. So it's smoked coconut milk. And then make your poison crew throwing in the cubed rock kampachi that is going to take it to another level. And then you get to serve it back in the half coconut shells.

Wow. Oh, my gosh. I love it. Okay, so kampachi is one that if people haven't tried kampachi like that alone is worth grabbing a seatopia box because that stuff just knocked my socks off. I'd never had it before.

A lot of people are familiar with hamachi at the sushi restaurants. Kampachi is a cousin, Cereola revoliana and Cediola quinta. I forget the scientific name, but they're relatives. In Southern California, there's a species, Sedial lalandi. It's our local yellow tail. And then the kampachi is a relative of that. Each one has slightly different fat ratios. A kampachi is firmer than hamachi, a little bit less fat than hamachi, more than the local yellowtail.

Okay, so another one we talked about the Nordic blue and the Atlantic king salmon. And both of those, they're just like, they're salmon, but they're really good salmon. That Nordic blue with the skin on it. I mean, that's, that's the way to go in my opinion, for, for cooking. And then that, that king salmon just, just for, for, you know, using again on a, on a crude oil or like thin slicing and just eating by the slice, a little salt and lime juice and olive oil on it is so good. But then you've got this trout, it's called a Chalk Stream trout. And what's cool is when I, when I get your fish, it's got these QR codes on it where I can scan the QR code. I've got this sick sexy video that walks me through the whole thing farm, which makes it super exciting to eat. Like I like to watch the videos before I eat because I feel this intimate, almost like cinematic connection to my food. But then the QR codes, when you scan them, they give you recipes too. And the Chalk stream trout, it's one that'll go back and forth. Sometimes I'll do like a sashimi with it, sometimes I'll cook it up. But what does that mean that it's Chalk Stream? Is that like the area of the world that it's from or, or what's that refer to?

Yeah, each of the farms that we work with are detailed in the packaging. So the QR code on every packaging links directly to that farm and you can read about those farms. Chalk Stream is a unique, it's actually a river system in the uk we're working with farms all around the world. So the king salmon is being raised in New Zealand, that, that's oraking salmon. The Nordic blue is a different farm that's in Norway in one of the most unique fjords in the world. It's fed by a fjord that is renowned as having the most powerful tidal fluctuations in the world. It literally has these huge tide pools or maelstrom, what's the word for it? It's almost unnavigable when current are changing through there. The chalk stream comes from a place that is renowned as one of the most, I guess, classic fly fishing places throughout all of Europe. And these river systems have unique meroir. So everywhere, especially with fish, you have a lot of water content in the fish. And so it's picking up the subtle flavors, the minerality of that particular environment. And the Chalk Stream river systems are renowned for having these, you know, these world class fly fishing streams and rivers. And the flavors and minerality of those particular fish are reflective in the maroir of that river. And so that's where those, that particular trout is coming from. So every farm has not only a unique story, but unique flavors and waters and that affect the Mario of those. And I personally don't do that one crude oil very much. It has so much minerality. I like to put it against some really strong herbs. I Like the dill and any sort of very pungent herbs, I think create a beautiful contrast in the minerality of that particular chalk stream trout.

By the way, you've mentioned the crudo a few times before. Are you just referring to taking the fish, putting on like a small cracker or slice of bread or something like that?

No, crudo, I am referring to the kind of Mediterranean style presentation of fish. So I think sashimi generally is associated to more of a Japanese style raw presentation that might be paired with a little bit of soy, for example, a soy soy sauce or a tamari. Whereas with a crudo Mediterranean style, it's going to be paired with olive oil, citrus and a bit of heat. So I generally, as a guideline, just want to hit it with a little bit of heat in the form of some sort of chile, a little bit of citrus, any sort of citrus, even just the zest of an orange or a lime and then a really nice olive oil and some nice flaky salt. And that to me, the crudo always evolving with what ingredients are available. What's at the farmer's market? Different citruses, different chilies. Yeah. For me, crudos are just so simple and so elegant and it's a nice way to. And also, I think, you know, coating it with lots of olive oil. I love using different olive oils and just coating it and then it somehow it can kind of just sit on the plate with that like coating of olive oil and protects it, as in just enjoying it, slowly savoring it.

Yeah. I'm part of the fresh pressed olive oil club, in addition your Seatopia club. Now it's like I'm part of all these clubs or I guess I've shifted my houses. It's so great. But yeah, the, the, the. A good olive oil with a lot of these fish and a good knife, like a good knife that you can draw through the fish with one slice so that you don't get it all kind of like, like, you know, if you, if you saw at the fish, it just kind of tears it apart. But like a good sharp knife where you just draw through the fish. It's so easy. Oh my gosh. Okay, so you've got chalk stream trout. I mean, I could talk to him blue in the face about all your, all your different options. Got the aura king salmon, the Nordic blue salmon, the kampachi, which we talked about. You also have a rainbow trout, which I, I think that is the chalk stream river trout, right? It's a rainbow trout.

Yeah, we Keep evolving through. You know, there's different farms that some seasons will, you know, will have. We had some steelhead in there. We, we had the scallops from Peru. The cultured scallops that are being raised in these hanging lanterns instead of, you know, the scallops that are bottom feeding in the sediment sometimes have grainy kind of finish to them, whereas these ones are in these hanging baskets in the midwater column. And so they're filtering, drink super clean water, and when you eat them, they're just pristine. And those, those are coming from Peru. Unfortunately, right now there's some challenges with logistics and getting things from Peru with COVID They're having a lot of problems right now.

The scallops are so good though. Like, like, I, I didn't think I even could cook scallops. And I literally just got them, patted them dry with a paper towel, same as I do with the fish. Like the skin. I pat everything dry with a paper towel because I get this nice, crispy, crispy flavor and cook when I do. But the scallops, yeah, just pat them dry with paper towel. I like to use a little butter or olive oil. I do about, gosh, 60 to 90 seconds per side. Finish them off with a, with a, just a pinch of salt and a little bit of lime. And those, those little bags of scallops that kind of pop up like bonuses in the boxes I get from you. Like, I'll just pop a few of those on along with the fish. I, I mean, like, like they barely take anything to cook and they taste like a, you know, like a restaurant grade appetizer scallop recipe. It's, it's, it kind of makes it easy because I can impress my friends who come over for sushi now and, and you know, I don't, I'm still learning what I'm doing, but, you know, nobody's gotten poisoned, fortunately. But, but anyways, the fish is just so clean. It's just so clean. It's like, I'm not even worried at all. You know, I'd be remiss not to also ask you about something that my wife and sons made the other day. We just did a very simple, like a curry stir fry with it. But these, these shrimp, these shrimp, they come from like this. I think he said it's like some kind of a recirculating aquaculture site in, what are they? Florida.

Yeah. Yeah. So we've, we've been working with a farm in Florida that is raising shrimp in a closed system on land. So recirculating aquaculture systems. It's a form of aquaculture where essentially a huge aquarium where you're recycling all the water so water goes through filtration systems and you're never, you're not wasting water and you're not putting dirty water back out into the environment. That's a recirculating aquaculture system or RAS system. And their shrimp actually is certified to have, having never had any disease outbreaks in that environment. So they're raising these shrimp on a super clean, sustainable diet. And it's, you know, again, it's a sushi grade product. The scallops are sushi grade. You don't have to cook either of them. You can use them in crudos, you can use them in ceviches, and you're not, you know, condoning the sort of destruction of mangroves, which is a big problem with farming shrimp in some parts of the world, or wild caught shrimp, which, you know, has enormous issues with, with bycatch. So, yeah, they're coming from this farm in, in Florida, sun shrimp. And they harvest them and blast freeze them and put them in our vacuum sealed bags and we put them in this utopia box. And they're lovely. I've been searing them, I've been barbecuing them, I've been making tacos with them, I've been steaming them.

It's funny, James, because every time I get a box from you, I'll text you and be like, hey, how'd I cook this, bro? And you'll send me videos and texts and obviously you got that QR code. And your website's just chock full of recipes too, which is great. But sometimes I like to just abuse the fact that I have your number. And I'll just text you and be like, hey, you know what? I'm gonna feel way more confident about this recipe if James says I cook it like this. So the thing I'd love to ask you though is like, if you had to choose one, like all your compote, your scallops, your salmon, your shrimp, your trout, what would be your top recipe right now? Aside from having salmon for breakfast before you podcast with me and feeding the skin to your dogs, what's like your what's what recipe pops to mind, is like the top one you'd share with people right now?

Well, I think it's worth noting that I don't give them all of the skin because I appreciate and love the skin.

I share. I am the guy who grabs the skin off of everybody's plates, who set it aside when we're having fish, because I'll eat more skin than I will fish. Just like when I'm having chicken, I'll eat more of the knuckles off the bones than I will the actual chicken flesh. I'm just the garbage disposal. But go ahead. What's your top recipe?

Yeah, I mean, that's where the healthy fats are. That subcutaneous layer of fat directly below the skin is where so much of that the beneficial omega 3s is at. And for me, though, I just resonate with. I feel great when I'm eating products that are overly cooked. So if I'm cooking it and I want that crispy skin, sure, I'll get that crispy skin. But I like to leave the middle rare. I want the full chain Omega 3s not to be cooked. I want them to be fully bioavailable. So if I'm going to cook it, I'll go that way. And I've been experimenting with. And some chefs are going to roll over in their graves even when I say this, but I've been experimenting with cooking products from frozen, because broiling it or high temperature cooking, the correct pork thickness of a piece of fish that has a skin on so that the outside sears but the inside is still rare, is totally fine, and can be delicious. And then if I'm doing something and I just keep it really simple, frankly, I like to just get that contrast of crispiness with the juicy goodness of that raw flesh on the inside. But then the other half the time, I'm just keeping keeping it so simple. I take the kapachi or the oraking salmon or the steelhead or even the scallops, and I slice it with a really sharp Japanese single bevel knife. And that's a really important thing, is just super thin so that you're not pushing down on the meat. You want to just slide it through as thin as possible, hitting it with the olive oil. The good, I like spicy olive oils, too. Little bit of flaky salt, a little bit of zest from some citrus, and that's it. That is my jam. Pair it with some pickles or some kimchi and I'm happy.

Yeah, I dig it. That's the thing is with like a good protein, you go super minimalist on it. I mean, even like a wonderful, wonderful, like ribeye, it's like thyme, salt, pepper, a little rosemary, and, you know, do a reverse sear, some butter, you know, same thing with these fish. Like, like minimalist is the way to go. Especially when the flavor of the actual protein itself is such a standout, such a star. See, I've watched MasterChef a couple of times. I'm slowly learning. I'll link if people go to BenGreenfulFitness.com Seatopia podcast. I'd imagine this isn't rocket science, but because you got me signed up for a box, I didn't have to go sign up myself, but kind of like a, kind of like again like a butcher box does for me. You can just go to your website and pick whatever size you want. I think you got like small boxes, medium boxes, boxes, large boxes and you just kind of ship them out each month.

Yeah, we're a little bit quirky in that we don't ship on a regular calendar. We ship on the lunar calendar. Other than that. Yeah, you just choose what size you want. The small boxes is a nice way to get introduced to it, but it's more cost effective to get the larger box both on shipping and cost per serving. You know, it works out to be $10 a serving. You get the big box. Everything comes once a month in this 100% compostable cooler. Literally. The insulation is non toxic. You take this stuff, put it in your, under your sink and pour water over. It just dissolves down the drain. Those vacuum seal bags that you've been getting, Ben, those go in your compost bin with, with all the other compost. It's home compostable.

Yeah, I haven't been doing that but now, now I'll start.

Yeah, super important.

Why the, why the lunar calendar, dude?

Because we're trying to be a little bit more mindful of, of nature's rhythms. I mean it's, it's quirky and challenge us on this. Rayleigh. Like why, why do you have to be so weird? There's a lot of reasons related to paying attention to nature's rhythms that has different benefits if you, you know, hit. Historically, fishermen are constantly aware of the moon phases and the tides. And there are certain times when fishing is going to be more appropriate depending on the moon. The same sort of things with biodynamic farming. You're planting and harvest cycles depending on the moon. And for us just to pay attention to that and to bring everybody's focus back to the lunar cycles is important and, and it's really, for me, it started as something that was important for me personally and was fun and it seems to be really resonating with our community. One of the coolest little pieces of feedback that I get from customers every now and then is like, hey, we saw the moon is getting bigger, the moon is waxing. We know that our Uctopia box is coming. And I just love that everybody on the full moon is receiving this box and they're getting these same recipes and the same fish and we all are essentially sharing a meal under that same moon. And it kind of brings us together. And occasionally we've done these Zoom and Instagram live cooking classes that we've done also on the full moon. So everybody has that product. We get to come together. And because we started during COVID it was just another way to bring, bring everybody together and create the community. Because that's what we're trying to do with the Seatopia Collective is bring people together to vote with their dollars for a new food system. And food systems in general are not that sexy. But it really is important for us to be conscientious of where we're voting with our dollars because three times a day we're making decisions on food systems. And either it's industrial scale monocultures or it's, you know, artisan farms. And we're trying to vote for the.

Latter kind of hippie dippy, the whole lunar calendar thing, but, you know, I can totally get behind that. And so that's the first thing. Second thing, it is pretty cool that I can get an entire box of seafood to my house that basically gives me about, I would say anywhere from four to six meals for the same cost as it would cost me to take my family out to sushi. Once you do need to eat some sake though, you gotta, gotta toss some sake and maybe some seaweed salad in there eventually. And then, you know, the, the, the, the other cool thing is just the, the idea that, you know, you know, you just totally changed my mind about farm fish and just about how good fish can take in taste, taste in general. And then just this idea of me no longer being afraid of like getting out a sharp knife and just cutting off a slab of fish, squeezing lime on there, a little salt, pop it in my mouth. Oh my gosh, dude, it's, it's amazing. And if anybody's listening in, I mean, if anything, try some compachy collars, a few of those scallops, and maybe like a nice slab of chalk stream trout. It's just like I'm in love with, with, with you, James and Nctopia. It's so good. I'm, I, I, I don't even remember who introduced us, but either way I ain't complaining, so I will. That was the bait what's that?

That was Nate. Thanks to Nate.

Yeah, it was Nate. That's right. Nate Schmidt, my carnivore buddy down in la, he called it right. He knows what I like. So I will link to all this. I know we've got some deals for people to be able to sign up. You were just interviewed by Forbes magazine and I'll include a link to that in the show notes as well. Great article. Where they picked your brain about a lot of this stuff. And so that's all going to be@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Seatopia podcast it's s E a topia podcast. I've been excited to interview James for a while just because like, like I, I, I love it when I can connect my audience with the same type of amazing food I'm eating at home. Same stuff I, I feature in my cookbook too. And anyways, it's all going to be there. BenGreenPofitness.com CDOPIA podcast James, thanks so much for being like the, the ultimate healthy fish hunter on the planet and shipping this stuff out. I, I really appreciate what you're doing, man.

Man, it's a pleasure to share it with people who care about these things. So thank you for, for taking the time to educate your audience and yourself and really, you know, care about where your food comes from.

I dig it. All right, folks, well, I'm Ben Greenfield with James Arthur Smith signing up from BenGreenfieldFitness.com get yourself some fish, enjoy it and have an amazing week.

Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything, everything that I mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful Ben Recommends page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode help to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the show notes. Use the promo codes that I generate because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.