If not fish, what?

Because of the vastness of the overfishing crisis facing the world, I frequently chide countries and citizenry that eats lots of fish on their overconsumption of the already-overfished fisheries.  And unfortunately, there are certain things about seafood that make it desirable as a dinner dish, such as:

1. It tastes good, frequently;
2. It looks good, frequently;
3. It's good for us, frequently (except for the mercury), and
4. Tradition.

Now, I am not advocating and end to eating fish.  What I'm advocating, just as I advocate energy conservation measures IN ALL THEIR FORMS, is eating LESS fish.  A modest reduction in the amount of seafood consumed in this world could go a long way toward restoring the beleaguered fish stocks. 

And note that I have NO problem with eating seafood that is not overfished, and some that should be overfished, like lionfish and Asian carp.  Barramundi looks like it could be a good choice, likewise for tilapia and catfish.  And  hatcheries seem adept at raising and releasing trout.

So we could change patterns of consumption quite readily, and help out the fish that need help, such as the dangerously overconsumed tuna.  The EU is taking steps that need to be taken, realizing that the path they're on is unsustainable. (It'd be nice if they also went more for nuclear energy, because renewables aren't going to cut it unless we come up with amazingly better batteries, but that's  another article).

The subject of this is what we could replace the fish with.  And I have three ideas:

1. Turkey - My meat of choice. Turkey is not consumed nearly enough, even though just about every deli has smoked turkey breast available.  But other than that, we see it as a holiday food.  Turkeys are big, raised to be eaten, and taste superb.  What's not to like?  According to some stats I looked up quickly,
turkey is the #4 choice of protein for Americans, and consumption has doubled since the 1970s.  If we could only make it taste more like tuna...   But here's the thing.  Americans eat about 7.3 kg of turkey per capita, Canadians 4.2 kg,  and Europeans (see below) 3.6 kg.  We need to get the Euros to eat more  turkey, and we need to eat more...

2. Rabbit - Europeans eat about 8 kilograms of rabbit per year, a lot more than us in North America.  And there is a lot of rabbit out there to be eaten.  Rabbits reproduce famously well, they can be barbecued (just ask Katniss  Everdeen), and it also goes well in stews and meat pies.  And they don't take much to feed.  If we could come up with genetically engineered rabbits with  omega-3 fatty acids, we'd be in REAL business.

3. Scallops.  OK, yes, it is technically a seafood.  However, scallops are  not free-swimming, net-caught, pelagic fish.  Scallops are picked as a Seafood Watch "Best Choice", because farm-raised scallops are pretty benign to the environment.  They taste great, are profoundly easy to cook, are low fat and  high in protein.  Plus, many of the wild types are also a best choice  (despite the bottom dredging for a couple of them). 

So there we go.  Cut back on the fish a bit, eat more turkey, rabbit,  scallops (plus as much lionfish and Asian carp as you can stuff into yourself), turn the Asian carp into fishmeal for fish farms for some of the more desirable farmed fish, and we ought to be able to satisfy  the world's appetites and rebuild the fisheries at the same time.