Air Date: Week of January 3, 1997

Facts about seafood & fruit consumption last year.

Transcript

CURWOOD: With the new year just begun, let's think about some of the things we consumed last year. We don't know if it's just because people like seafood or if it's just the pleasure of chewing on something that some day might be chewing on you, but in 1996 the worldwide catch of sharks hit an all-time high of nearly 100 million tons. Nearly a quarter of the animals were thrown away dead as bycatch. A bit lower on the food chain, Americans ate more than half a billion pounds of shrimp last year. That's about 2 and a half pounds per person. Some of the shrimp was farmed and some was caught, and as many as 10 pounds of other fish were discarded as bycatch for each pound of wild-caught shrimp. The average American also ate 277 pounds of fruit last year, consuming fewer apples and peaches but more grapes and oranges. About 36% of it was fresh, compared to 32% 2 decades ago. And for this week, that's the Living on Earth Almanac.