Seafood: Simply, The Perfect Food by Sara Ann Harris, Louisiana Seafood Board (NAPSA)—Makingfood selections during your weekly grocerystore run can be confusing these days. Is it a healthy choice? Is it low in calories? Low in saturated fat? Low in cholesterol? High in omega-3’s? What’s a concerned shopper to do? Good news! Thereare foods that meetall of these criteria. Perfect foods. Guilt-free foods that make grocery shopping a snap. Seafood is a perfect food. Fish and shellfish are superb high-protein foods. Healthy? Yes. Low in calories? Yes. Low in saturated fat? Yes. Low in cholesterol? Yes, almost all of them. High in omega-3’s? Yes. Yes. Yes. Plus, seafood is easy on your system, easy to digest. If you’re among the growing number of consumers who also wonder if the product is environmentally friendly, you don’t just want seafood, you want Louisiana seafood. According to the most current available fishery science, harvesting Louisiana seafood is no threat to other aquatic critters or to the seafood species themselves. The tuna are dolphin-safe. The shrimp are turtle-safe. And whetherit’s red swamp crawfish, down-homecatfish, blue crabs, plump oysters, or jumbo shrimp, Louisiana’s wild stocks are alive and well. In science parlance, these are all sustainable fisheries. None of these Louisiana seafood stocks is in danger of being overfished. That is to say, Louisiana commercial fishing has been regulated for a century and today the seafood stocks are still reproducing up to scientific standards. In the most recent report to the Louisiana Legislature on the status of coastal fish like black drum, southern flounder and sheepshead, fisheries scientists concluded these are also sustainable. In the latest National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) report to Congress on sustainable fisheries, Louisiana’s deep-bluewater fish also did quite well. So, you can take your pick of Gulf-of-Mexico yellowedge grouper, wahoo, lane snapper, swordfish, yellowfin ‘ie Louisiana seafood: nutritious, environmentally friendly, and great-tasting. tuna, shark, or mahi-mahi and enjoy your dinner, guilt-free. Although newsarticles sometimes report that globally our oceans are overfished, what they don’t always explain is that fisheries science never deals in such broad strokes. Scientists are very clear that fish and shellfish numbers (which depend on local environmental conditions and varied fishing pressures) can only beestimated locally. What sets Louisiana apart is a massive band of coastal wetlands, home to the most expansive estuary on the continent. It naturally supports a diversity of aquatic life found nowhere else in North America. NMFS data ranks Louisiana as the country’s top producer of shrimp, oysters and crawfish and the number three producerof crabs, for example. Now, for a more traditional question, because some things never change. According to food market researchers, what shoppers really want to know is: does it taste good? And, frankly, Louisiana seafood’s longstanding reputation for exquisite flavor speaksforitself. Nutritious, environmentally friendly, great-tasting. Louisiana seafood. It’s simply the perfect food. Start with the Main Ingredient, Louisiana Seafood. For recipes, visit www. louisianaseafood.com.
