Design & Innovation | Can Sushi Be Good to the Sea (and the Earth)? It definitely can at the world’s first sustainable sushi restaurant in New Haven, Connecticut There is always a brief moment of hesitation that catches us just before eating our delicious bite of sushi. Basically, the kinds of concerns that rapidly cross our minds belong to two categories: the fear of ingesting some badly preserved fish and that of contributing to the extinction of bluefin tuna. As for the first problem, unfortunately we can only rely on good luck; yet as for the second one, something can definitely be done, and the work of young American chef of Sino-Japanese origins Bun Lai is there to prove it. Chef Bun is in charge of Miya’s, the first sushi bar in the US, founded by his mother back in 1982 in New Haven, Connecticut – and his cuisine is completely respectful of the sea and of the planet, entirely based on sustainable ingredients. Which is certainly no easy job, since making sushi without resorting to fish from endangered species requires continuous research, creativity and effort. 

Chef Bun chose to make his cuisine even more sustainable by not only giving up bluefin tuna and other endangered species, but also contributing to curbing the dominance of invasive species in our ecosystems, turning them into ingredients for his delicious sushi. While the Atlantic bluefin tuna has been driven to the edge of extinction due to over-fishing, in the U.S. alone there are over 50,000 established invasive species resulting in over $100 billion a year in economic damages. Hence the idea of shifting the human appetite to invasive species - and away from more popular and over-fished species. And this is precisely the philosophy behind some of Miya’s best-selling signature dishes such as the applewood smoked Asian carp ribs, the blue catfish roll with okra, apricots, and black eye peas, the Florida lionfish sashimi and the Kanibaba, Chef Bun’s ‘crown jewel’, an Asian shore crab cross a potato skin stuffed with invasive blue catfish topped with toasted Vermont Creamery cow’s milk cheese

, and lemon dill sauce. Yet Bun Lai’s research in terms of health and sustainability is not limited to fish, because often even other sushi ingredients can be insidious, unhealthy or unsustainable. Sushi rice, for instance, is usually highly processed and sweetened, whereas Miya’s sushi is made from unsweetened brown rice. Fruits and vegetables used at Miya’s come mostly from local organic farms, including their own - especially for the wild plants - cheese is made by cheese makers that promote the best practices in dairy farming, and even  their pickled ginger and soy sauce are homemade and free of food coloring and artificial flavors. cooking sushi rice absorptionAn all-round commitment that earned Bun Lai the well-deserved Champion of Change award from the White House for  doing extraordinary things to make a difference in the community, with the aim of building “a world where the human appetite is restorative rather than exploitative of nature that we depend on to thrive”.youda sushi chef 2 download full version

Author : The Slowear Journal Design & Innovation | WBGARBAGE01-C-20FEB03-SF-CS The debris collection boat Racoon and its crew begin an early morning search in SF Bay for potentially dangerous floating garbage that could endanger shipping. BY CHRIS STEWART/THE CHRONICLE lessBY CHRIS STEWART/THE ... more WBGARBAGE05-C-20FEB03-SF-CS Walt Garrison scrambles across refuse gathered on the Racoon, a debris collection boat that plies the waters of SF Bay clearing it of floating garbage that could endanger shipping. maiko sushi online menu WBGARBAGE06-C-20FEB03-SF-CS Crewman of the debris collection boat Racoon help the crane operator snatch a rotted piling from the Oakland Estuary. sushi conveyor belt rotterdamThe Racoon plies the waters of SF Bay clearing it of floating garbage that could endanger shipping. sushi hong kong ifc

The Racoon plies the waters of SF Bay clearing it of floating ... more WBGARBAGE03-C-C-20FEB03-SF-CS Captain Ernie Carlson pilots the debris collection boat Racoon as it plies the waters of SF Bay clearing it of floating garbage that could endanger shipping. WBGARBAGE04-C-20FEB03-SF-CS A load of wet waste is craned aboard the Racoon, a debris collection boat that plies the waters of SF Bay clearing it of refuse that could endanger shipping. On a sunny day, the San Francisco Bay may look postcard-perfect, with its glistening blue water, bright white sailboats and lounging sea lions. yo sushi delivery bristolBut there's more -- from the dangerous to the bizarre to the downright disgusting - - lurking just underneath.where to buy sushi grade fish in illinois What's the strangest item ever pulled from beneath the seemingly blissful bay's surface?

"I always get that," said Ernie Carlson, standing on the bridge of the Raccoon and steering the 100-foot barge one recent morning. "The first time I got a floating refrigerator was strange to me." Carlson and five other men employed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers patrol the waters Monday through Friday in the Raccoon, removing flotsam and jetsam with their 20-foot-wide nets or a huge crane. They travel about 40 miles, pulling anywhere from 6 to 30 tons of trash from the water each day. The crew finds the everyday garbage: Big Gulp cups, tennis balls, aerosol cans, car parts. They find the accidental garbage: chunks of pier, clumps of dirt, 70-foot-long trees. They find the big garbage: beds, couches, lawn furniture, sunken boats, a Volkswagen. They find the dead garbage: cows, dogs, turtles, even a headless goat. (They're not sure whether the goat was headless when it became submerged, but they never did find the head.) The most common find? "We get a lot of tires," said Paul Milton, 61, of Oakland.

"How your tires would get in the water, I don't know. But we get a whole lot of them." They pulled a 5-gallon bucket from the water with a fish flopping around inside. They grabbed a clump of dirt, only to discover a hissing snake hidden in it. "You name it, it's out here," said Dave Whedon, 43, of Sonoma, who has worked on the Raccoon for 17 years. Whatever it is, it's hauled away in trucks to a landfill in Novato, leaving the bay clear for boaters and beautiful for everybody else. Without the crew, it's said, within about five years, people would literally be walking across logs and trash in certain parts of the bay. "It would be like an obstacle course," said crane operator Dan Denofrio, 46, Carlson, 59, of Petaluma agreed, saying, "There would be a lot more accidents. The ferry boats would always miss us -- it just takes one log. And it definitely wouldn't look good. That part of it would start people screaming. The screaming about debris in the bay began in 1942 when Adm. Chester Nimitz, recently appointed commander in chief of the Navy's Pacific fleet, was traveling from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco.

When the seaplane he was aboard attempted to land on the bay, it struck floating debris, ripping it open and sending it under the water. Although Nimitz was fine, the pilot died. The accident prompted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to require its San Francisco district to begin cleaning the bay. Ever since, the Raccoon -- and the smaller, three-man Grizzly, which cleans more shallow parts of the bay -- have been patroling the waters in search of trash. The Raccoon goes as far as Vallejo in the north, Redwood City in the south and the Golden Gate Bridge to the west. Similar clean-up operations take place in four other ports around the country, including New York, Virginia and Seattle. The crew members' workdays begin at 4 a.m. when they wake up in time to drive from all parts of the Bay Area to the dock at Sausalito by 6 a.m. They clean the boat, remove old debris if the nets are full, and put on their jumpsuits and hard hats. No particular degree or license is required, but experience with boats is a plus.

They participate in man overboard drills. They take classes in small boats; one is kept on the Raccoon in case the men need to reach hard-to-get trash. They also take classes in boat maintenance, crane safety, hazardous materials and fire fighting. "This is the only thing we've got to get us home," Denofrio said. "So we've got to make sure it goes out nice and safe and comes back nice and safe." Boaters, ferries, marina owners and others constantly radio the Raccoon to let the crew know about any trash they spot. Carlson has gotten to know so many of them, he recognizes their voices as soon as they begin speaking. The Coast Guard tracks them constantly, and a computer onboard the Raccoon shows a red dot moving around a map of the bay, plotting its every move. Like any job, theirs comes with a downside. It can be miserable patroling the bay in the cold, driving rain, sliding across the slippery deck. (The crew doesn't go out in gale-force winds or heavy fog.) Ships passing by can send huge splashes of water onto their heads, and pesky sailboats sometimes get arrogantly close.

Seemingly innocuous garbage can have dangerous spikes or nails in it. They've also found plenty of 55-gallon drums, not knowing what's inside. They usually phone the Coast Guard to come inspect the drums. "It could be anything, and we have to get it out of the water," Denofrio said. They've had their gallant moments -- rescuing people who have fallen off docks and helping a man untangle his leg from an anchor chain after his boat capsized. They've saved people who have jumped intentionally into the bay. One man pleaded with them to let him die, saying, "Nobody loves me. Let me stay in here." But perhaps the worst part of the job is the occasional discovery of a corpse. Finding humans -- alive or dead -- immediately leads to a phone call to the Coast Guard or police. "You never get used to it," Milton said. "You never get used to retrieving dead bodies. But if you happen to find one, you can't just leave." "It leaves a weird feeling in your stomach," Denofrio said.

Carlson vividly remembers his first day on the job 36 years ago. The crew found a body, and police boarded the boat to investigate. The older men on the crew tried to keep Carlson away from the grisly scene, but it didn't shake him. "I was just home from Vietnam," he said. "They kept saying, 'Keep the young kid away from it.' I was laughing because I'd seen more dead bodies than them." But by and large, the job is a good one, the crew agreed -- especially on a beautiful day. "Getting to see all the sights -- the San Francisco skyline, the Golden Gate -- it's beautiful," Denofrio said. "People pay a lot of money to come out here and see all this." "The bay is heaven," Carlson agreed. "I can't think of one scene that's better than another one. I don't see why you'd want to retire -- all you're doing is going around the bay all day long." As the boat cruised past the Financial District, the men looked at the skyscrapers, knowing that in each tiny window was somebody sitting at a desk, plugging away.