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Letter: On diet: There just aren't enough fish in the sea

Published 20 November 2024

From Sam Edge, Ringwood, Hampshire, UK

Your articles on nutrition brought several strands of information together nicely, although, as with previous round-ups of this, it seems to sum up as “more fibre, less red meat and sugar, more variety” (2 November, p 32).

One theme that I would like to add is that those of us in affluent societies are now encouraged more than ever to consider the food we eat as entertainment and as being an indicator of our chosen lifestyles, rather than as simple metabolic input. The plethora of instructional and competitive cookery shows on TV, which are endlessly rehashed in other media, is indicative and probably causal of this change.

On a separate note, one thing I wish would stop is the recommending of oily fish. We simply don’t have enough in the sea for all of us to eat more fish, and the environmental impact if produced via trawling – or, worse still, via farming – is untenable. I want suggestions of more sustainable sources for the nutrients they contain, such as various beans and squashes.

Issue no. 3518 published 23 November 2024

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