Francis: 0:41

and you can also. Reach us at our website@www.restaurant guys radio.com, where we have many of our old shows up there for your listening pleasure. You can also subscribe to us on iTunes podcast, ally or Yahoo's new podcast site. And, uh, many of you do. And we thank you very much. Good morning, mark.

Mark: 0:57

Good morning, Francis.

Francis: 0:58

How are you this morning?

Mark: 0:59

I'm doing great. I love to listen to our old shows.

Francis: 1:02

Yeah, it really bores our friend as we, we have a, we, we have'em on our iPods and as we drive down the road, we listen to ourselves,

Mark: 1:09

Hey, hey, listen to me.

Francis: 1:10

And, and our friends will start to talk and we'll say, shh. It is a good part.

Mark: 1:14

I'm really funny here.

Francis: 1:16

Oh my. Anyway,

Mark: 1:18

so Francis, I, I have to say, I'm reading the newspaper the other day.

Francis: 1:21

Mm-hmm.

Mark: 1:22

And I see that there's a big study out.

Francis: 1:25

Yep.

Mark: 1:26

What drink do you think in the world. Is the best one for your body.

Francis: 1:31

Oh, I know that

Mark: 1:32

you do.

Francis: 1:33

Yes, it's a martini. The only question is Oliver Twist.

Mark: 1:38

No, no, no. That's not it. Try again. I'll give you another guess.

Francis: 1:42

Uh, Manhattan

Mark: 1:44

closer.

Francis: 1:45

What is it?

Mark: 1:46

Uh, the best drink for your body is Shock of shocks. Water.

Francis: 1:51

Yeah.

Mark: 1:52

Water.

Francis: 1:53

Yeah.

Mark: 1:53

It's not Gatorade. Uhuh. It's not Coca-Cola.

Francis: 1:57

Yeah,

Mark: 1:58

it's not. A beer. It's not a martini.

Francis: 2:01

Although sometimes Mark, I think there are just those moments at about

Mark: 2:06

Can I, can I ask a question

Francis: 2:07

end of the workday? Yeah.

Mark: 2:08

What I want is somebody to fund a study that I do.

Francis: 2:11

Yeah.

Mark: 2:12

Which I don't have to study at all. I just know the answer right before I start. Like, okay. Like, like water is, like water is the, the best drink for your body.

Francis: 2:20

Yeah. But though we figured out a way to do it, it's harder to make money off of, uh, water. You know, I mean, because

Mark: 2:26

it's, it's not that hard to,

Francis: 2:27

I, no, you, you can buy water, but also there's no tap in your house where you can turn on the Coke. You know what I mean?

Mark: 2:32

Yeah.

Francis: 2:32

So this, so there's not a lot of marketing on the, on that side of things. I did, I did. I did read this study.

Mark: 2:38

Bottled Water's going crazy.

Francis: 2:39

Mostly because you put it on my desk and said, we're talking about this on the show tomorrow. Read it and then so, um, but one of the things that I thought was so interesting about this study was it said the largest source of calories in an American teenager's diet. And this is different than it was 10 years ago.

Mark: 2:52

Mm-hmm. Not just teenagers from age two to 18.

Francis: 2:56

Oh my God.

Mark: 2:56

Okay, so you're talking about a 2-year-old,

Francis: 2:59

largest source of calories is soda.

Mark: 3:01

Soda in juice.

Francis: 3:02

And that's the other thing that's very interesting to broaden it for just a moment.

Mark: 3:05

I'm sorry. Not just juice. Fruit drinks, like Hawaiian punch counts

Francis: 3:08

right?

Mark: 3:09

As a fruit drink and,

Francis: 3:10

but fruit juice does too, although straight fruit juice is better for you. It's really, it's bad for you as well. It's very high in sugar and it's bad for your teeth as well.

Mark: 3:17

Mm-hmm. The calories, I mean, there's such a tremendous amount of calories in both soda and,

Francis: 3:21

and also acid, which, which really affects your teeth. Mm-hmm. And you know what's interesting is we've really gone through a cultural shift, and this has happened because of advertising. We, you know, you don't think of. I mean, we used to give kids water. Mm-hmm. A lot. I mean, we drink water from the hose, you know, and now. You know, it's like you would, why would you drink water? You know what I mean? There's always, there's all this marketing to get you to do something that's you pay for

Mark: 3:40

even. I mean, I played football in high school. We, what did we have? We had water during breaks.

Francis: 3:46

Mm-hmm.

Mark: 3:47

Okay. Rarely did we have Gatorade. Once in a while during a game, we'd have Gatorade, uh, and only for the varsity. The jv, forget about it. You never had water if you were lucky and you had oranges, actual oranges in the locker room during halftime,

Francis: 3:59

by the way. And just so you know, if you're out there and, and you know, we talk about fresh fruit all the time, and eating an orange is very different than drinking orange

Mark: 4:06

juice. Mm-hmm.

Francis: 4:07

Um,

Mark: 4:07

a glass of orange juice has. 3, 4, 5 oranges in it.

Francis: 4:11

Right. And none of the fibrous parts of it. Correct. You know, so it's really, well, drinking orange juice is certainly not, is not bad for you. It's not the same as having an orange. Mm-hmm. I mean, it has a lot of acid, it has a lot of sugar and, and, and, mm-hmm. We need to be really careful. And again, you know, when you have kids, I know it's very hard. I mean, I don't have kids. What do I know?

Mark: 4:28

you know, tons Francis, don't sell yourself shorts.

Francis: 4:30

I know, but you know, I don't have to deal with like, when they get dirty, I just give your kids back to you. I love your kids. And then. They start to whine and I, I leave so

Mark: 4:38

they don't whine. You come with toys and

Francis: 4:40

I know

Mark: 4:40

candy.

Francis: 4:40

I know

Mark: 4:41

that. Why would they ever whine?

Francis: 4:42

Well, why not be a hero? You, but you've gotta deal with the messy parts. And I know that. But just gotta, we have to be aware that, you know, when I was a kid and I'm, you know, I was born in 65, you were born in 65. Um, soda was.

Mark: 4:53

Right.

Francis: 4:54

A treat. I can,

Mark: 4:54

and, and what they say is one of the best substitutes to, uh, curb all the excess sugar in, in soda and in fruit juices is to substitute milk because they still get some sustenance. A kid doesn't feel like they're just drinking water and they don't get it nearly as many calories.

Francis: 5:10

And check this out, whole milk is probably better for you than skim milk.

Mark: 5:13

Yeah, I love

Francis: 5:13

that they've shown that skim milk when you feed it to, to, uh, animals, uh, hardens the arteries. Isn't that crazy?

Mark: 5:18

Mm-hmm.

Francis: 5:19

Isn't that crazy? Um,

Mark: 5:20

it's great stuff, but one other little fact from this study that I have to share.

Francis: 5:23

Okay, Dr. Mark,

Mark: 5:24

what do you, here's another question for you,

Francis: 5:27

Uhhuh.

Mark: 5:27

What are you not supposed to do for one hour after you have a soda?

Francis: 5:31

Uh, I don't know what I.

Mark: 5:33

It. This is, this was totally antithetical to the way I think

Francis: 5:36

Uhhuh

Mark: 5:37

you. You shouldn't brush your teeth for an hour after you drink soda.

Francis: 5:40

Why is that?

Mark: 5:41

There's a lot of acid in soda, which erodes teeth.

Francis: 5:43

Mm-hmm.

Mark: 5:43

You need to let your body defend itself first and then. Brush afterwards,

Francis: 5:48

because if you brush right away, you wipe away the defense

Mark: 5:50

because if you brush right away, you wipe away the defenses. You right down

Francis: 5:52

with enamel. Interesting. Interesting.

Mark: 5:54

All right. That, that was just one of those crazy things that like, I mean, you think you've had something acidic, you've had something, you gotta get, get it off your teeth as quickly as possible, but that's not the right answer. You gotta, you gotta get your body's defenses to, to act first and then you brush your teeth.

Francis: 6:08

This is all too complicated for me. Let's get one of adult beverages. Did you know that, um, there's a new product out hot on the heels of caffeinated bruise, like Anheuser Busch's B to the e. Yuck, my comment. Uh, Molson Coors Kick comes Nicko shot a new brand from Nautilus, GMBH Laboratories, uh, in Germany, brand that is the world. First smoking cessation beer. Nico shot contains three milligrams of nicotine per can according to the company's press release they showed on January 6th. The nicotine content of Nico shot is derived from an herbal extract of tobacco leaf so you can smoke and drink at the same time, and a non-smoking environment.

Mark: 6:50

You know what they're doing here,

Francis: 6:51

what

Mark: 6:51

they're fighting, all those clubs who say you can't smoke while you can't smoke in a bar anymore.

Francis: 6:56

Yeah.

Mark: 6:57

New York City, this is, this is perfect. Beverage for New York City where you can't drink in bars, can't,

Francis: 7:00

you can

7:01

use,

Mark: 7:01

can't smoking bars anymore.

Francis: 7:01

You can use it for quitting smoking or you can use it to substitute for smoking. You can put your cigarette, you get like grinding up a cigarette in your beer.

Mark: 7:08

We have addiction problems, I think isn't

Francis: 7:10

that great? I really think that's, well, I'll always remember a friend of mine who used to give up smoking occasionally and whenever he give up smoking, I wouldn't see him'cause he wouldn't go to a bar.

Mark: 7:16

Mm-hmm.

Francis: 7:17

Uh, af while trying to quit.'cause he, because he associated having a cocktail with having a cigarette. And I saw him once, he had the patch. When the patch first came out.

Mark: 7:23

Mm-hmm.

Francis: 7:24

And this guy fix, uh, we used to ride motorcycles together, so I'm fixing my motorcycle. I went down to the Harley Davidson shop and there I saw my friend whose first initial is G with the nicotine patch on smoking his third cigarette of the day high as a kite. You know, so we can use these words, you

Mark: 7:37

can get the nicotine double fast. If you wear the patch, drink the beer and, and smoke, smoke a cigarette, you're there.

Francis: 7:44

We can use these things for good or for evil. We have a guest coming up later in the show. Beth Lowell is an ocean wildlife advocate for a wonderful organization called Oceano, which is protecting the world's oceans. And we, as the restaurant guys are interested to do that so that we can have enough fish to eat and soak in our children. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, Hey everybody. Welcome back. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, mark and Francis. And we have with us today a woman named Beth Lowell. Beth Lowell is with an organization called Oceania, of which Mark and I are big supporters, and, uh, they are into protecting the world's oceans, which needs some protection sadly. And she is an ocean wildlife advocate with Oceania. Beth Lowell, welcome to the show. Thank

Beth: 8:17

you.

Mark: 8:18

Hi Beth. How are you?

Beth: 8:19

Good. How are you all doing?

Mark: 8:20

I'm doing great. I'd like to call myself an ocean wildlife advocate as well.

Beth: 8:24

Great. We can all share my title

Francis: 8:26

and, and we'd like to make everyone else Ocean Wildlife advocates. Would you tell our listeners what Ocean is?'cause we love, I get all your emails and we love your organization. We, we. But will you share with people what it is that you all do and how you're formed and what you're for? Sure.

Beth: 8:39

Oceana is actually an international organization as. You said works to protect, uh, the world's oceans. We work both here in the United States and we also have offices in Chile, in Spain, and in Brussels. Um, here in the US we focus on three major campaigns. The one that I actually work on is to end dirty fishing. Um, another one is to, um. Is to reduce seafood contamination and then also to stop bottom trialing. In Oceania, we really focus on those three major campaigns to get real, um, successes in those areas.

Mark: 9:16

Beth, can you tell us what dirty fishing is?

Beth: 9:18

Yeah. Dirty fishing is where. When commercial fisheries go out to see, not only are they catching their targeted catch, but also catching bycatch. Things like non-target fish, marine mammals, endangered sea turtles. And so, um, we are working to reduce that so-called dirty fishing in our campaign.

Mark: 9:37

What do they do with those things? When they catch'em?

Beth: 9:39

They just throw'em overboard. Sometimes they are, um, injured, sometimes they're dead. Other times they can actually swim away, but that's very rarely

Francis: 9:48

now. But there are ways that, that how do, how do, how does a, how do we allow commercial fishing to get their target species but not kill all these dolphins and sea turtles and other marine mammals and the like?

Beth: 10:00

Um, well actually there are, um, various ways that they actually can do that.'cause we are certainly not against fishermen. We, um. Are for fishing in a way that allows the ocean trees replenish itself, uses responsible fishing gear so that we are reducing the non-target catch of marine mammals, sea turtles, non-target fish species so the fishermen can make their money, yet we can have a sustainable ocean.

Francis: 10:24

You know, I think that's very interesting and people you know who listen to the show know this about us is, you know, we are not. People saying, you know, don't kill animals for food. Mm-hmm. I'm all about that. I mean, you know, I have a gun. I, and I used to go hunting myself. I would kill animals for food myself. But the idea is to don't kill all the animals. Let's leave some for our children. I mean, would you say that that's where, where we're, uh, at in the goal of your organization?

Beth: 10:45

Exactly. I, I'm, I'm absolutely for eating seafood. I grew up in Maine and I love it. So I am, um, I mean I could eat it every day if I, if I was able to, but um, yeah, we are certainly not against fishing, we are actually for fishing, but for doing it responsibly so we can preserve fishing communities. Fishermen can make their money, but we also have fish for future generations to enjoy.

Francis: 11:07

I think your opponents try to paint you and we often as sort of environmental wackos or eco terrorists, I think other, another radio, uh, show host has called us. Um. What can, what is it that we're a, you're asking fishermen to do as far as, let's talk about responsible fishing gear.'cause I think a lot of our listeners don't know that just by changing the fishing gear they use, um, it, there's a little bit of expense to the fishermen, but we can, they can catch the fish that they're trying to catch without killing all these other fish. They aren't even used for food. Can you talk to us about responsible fishing gear?

Beth: 11:39

Sure. Um, in, for one example in the long line fishery where boats go out and set these long lines that have hooks off of them, each have individual hooks, so they catch a big, um, big bill, fish and tuna. And, um, off of, off of these lines, if you just change the actual shape of the hook that is used from mm-hmm. A J to a circle hook, you reduce the amount of sea turtles that are caught and that die on these lines, but you don't actually impact the catch of the actual fish. So by doing simple. Or, you know, just changing some of our, our procedures and our gear that you actually can have, um, a very little impact on the actual amount of fish caught. But yet you can, you can reduce the number of other animals that are hurt in the process.

Mark: 12:30

I, I would think that a fisherman would rather. Not bring up a sea turtle by mistake on one of his lines, that he would rather just catch the fish that he's looking for. Why wouldn't everybody just switch over to these, to this gear?

Beth: 12:43

Well, there's a, the initial cost of switchover of, to the gear, you know, there has to replace all their hooks. So that may be one of, um, the reasons why they, they don't use them now. Um, also one of the things that we have worked on at Oceana is, um. In the shrimp fishery, they use these big t tra nets and they go along the, the bottom of the, the ocean in the water column and they scoop up sea turtles. Um, we've actually worked, and now the US government requires that these trapped doors be in the t trawl nets, so the turtles can just swim right up. And we've actually, with that gear change, have reduced the, the, you know, the deaths of sea turtles in the shrimp fishery. Um. I mean, we still have some ways to go, but we certainly have made some improvements on that.

Mark: 13:28

How does it work that the turtles can get out, but the shrimp can't?

Beth: 13:32

I, for some reason, the turtles can find the trap door, but the shrimp just get caught in the net.

Mark: 13:35

Those shrimp are stupid.

Beth: 13:38

They just deserve to be on our plate.

Francis: 13:40

We now, we now know that turtles are smarter than shrimp and I'm, and we're discriminating against the shrimp anyway. Who wants to eat turtle anyway? Actually, turtle soup's pretty good, but I guess I shouldn't say that on the air. It's a lot of work anyway. Yeah, it's a lot of work.

Beth: 13:52

Not danger. Sea turtles.

Francis: 13:53

No, no, no. That would be, that would be wrong. No, I agree that, but, but. But, uh, terrapin, soup's pretty, pretty, pretty good. Anyway, um, who's against you? Why would anyone be against this?

Beth: 14:04

That's a good question. Why would, I mean, it, it seems like we are all talking about common sense things that the average person can do to reduce our, um, impacts on living resources like marine mammals and endangered species.

Francis: 14:19

But who's fighting this? Who, who, I mean,

Mark: 14:20

who's interesting? This literally, Francis and I look at each other sometimes and we know who's fighting you. But I, but I think that listeners maybe don't realize that why someone would, would fight against this.

Beth: 14:30

I would say, some of the regulations that we want to see in place, it does come down to short-term cost for a long-term benefit. Um, we see that in, uh, the endangered species world, both land and, uh, marine animals where, you know, you may have a short-term cost for a long-term benefit.

Mark: 14:50

I think sometimes business owners can be shortsighted that way and a lot of business owners in a lot of industries, and I, I see it in my industry, in the restaurant business all the time where somebody doesn't recognize that for what amounts to be nominal dollars in the overall scheme of things can save their, their livelihood for the rest of their lives and their, and their children's lives. And, to not be willing to make that investment doesn't make a Yeah.

Francis: 15:13

But, but here, here's the deal. I mean, frankly, the fact of the matter is a lot of business people are looking at it and saying, you know what? The best way for me to get the best return on my investment is to deplete this resource, sell it out completely, and then move my capital to do something else. It's not about the fisherman. Mm-hmm. Who is, whose grandson is gonna still be fishing there. Hey, our guest. Uh, is from Oceania. Her name is Beth Lowell, and she's an ocean wildlife advocate, and we're talking about the world's oceans and trying to keep the world's oceans full of fish. And we're, we're not talking about not fishing, we're talking about fishing responsibly so that we can have fish on our table and hopefully our children and grandchildren can have fish on their table as well. We're gonna be talking about that more in just a moment. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys,

Mark: 15:47

You're back with the restaurant guys, mark Pascal and Francis Shot. Today we are talking to, Beth Lowell from an organization called Oceana. She's an ocean wildlife advocate, and she's been talking to us a little bit about how we can, uh, fish a little bit more responsibly.

Francis: 16:01

Beth, uh, what you, you talked about one of the things that your organization focuses on here in America is contamination as well. And I remember reading signs when I was a kid on, on certain bodies of water in New York City and North Jersey, things that said, uh. Like on the fence. It's, it's a, it's a, uh, warning, don't eat more than one fish a week from this water. And I remember thinking to myself, there is no way that I would have even a morsel of fish that I could only have that the government says I can have one a week of, um, it's sort of like a sign that says, you know, warning only eat a little bit of arsenic, not too much. But now it seems as though even fish in from unpolluted areas mm-hmm. Are, are, are contaminated. How, what's going on?

Beth: 16:40

Well, it's a real problem with mercury contamination. It's not just the water that's polluted the air that actually then it rains into the water and, and, um, it's contaminating seafood that you wouldn't even think I know up in rivers in Maine, you would think that Maine would have these pristine, rushing rivers would just clean fish. Um, but yet. Can only eat one fish. And some of them, some of the fish species, you can only eat one a month. And it's from, some of the, chlorine plants and the chlorine use and paper processing up there is just containing the environment so much that, that even the fish in the, you know, the wild rivers and Maine, you can only eat one of, it's actually a, it's a very, very, scary issue. And it's one that I'm glad that Oceania works on.

Mark: 17:22

I read a study recently that, that. Studied 22 states fish and all of them were contaminated in one way or another. Most of'em contaminated with mercury. Uh, and I thought to myself, how could we do be doing this to our food source, our sustenance? I don't understand that, how we're doing that kind of damage to the, to the planet and, and to these things that are so important to, to our everyday life. And, and we went from. Another study I read was, if you're pregnant and you eat and, and you want to eat tuna, okay? For every portion of tuna or or deep water fish that you eat in a week's time, you will lower your baby's IQ by seven points. Frightening. That's so scary.

Francis: 18:09

And what's Oceana do to fight this kind of stuff, Beth?

Beth: 18:11

We are actually, um, working to, uh, there's a few, or more than a few actually. There's these, um, mercury plants, these plants that put out mercury. And we are actually working to, um, to actually have them reduce their, uh, their output of mercury into the environment and really make sure that we are not only saving our environment from mercury contamination itself, but also where it's getting into the fish as well.

Francis: 20:23

Hey, our guest today is Beth Lowell. She's an ocean wildlife advocate for an organization called Oceana. And Oceana works to protect the world's oceans. It's an international organization and it works to, um, and it's not just one of those like, oh, we need to protect the pretty animals and leave them alone. Um, look, mark and I are restaurant guys. We want to eat these animals. Okay. I also want my children to be able to eat these animals, eat them

Mark: 20:43

forever and

Francis: 20:44

ever and ever. And the, and the earth has done a pretty good job of keeping the fish in the ocean for millennia. And, uh, we, uh, stand to be able to screw it up. How bad are the world's oceans? What, what's, how bad is the, the, are the fisheries of the world oceans right now? How dangerous is it for them, Beth?

Beth: 21:00

Actually, um, right now about 90% of the big fish, the large predatory ocean fish, such as tuna and marlin, have been lost worldwide since the beginning of industrialized fish.

Francis: 21:12

Hold on a second, Beth, I think, I think there's a problem with your phone connection. It sounded like you said 90% of the large fish of the world have been lost. Is that true?

Beth: 21:22

Yes. In just the last 50 years since we've actually industrialized and made fishing more efficient, 90% of those big fish are gone.

Mark: 21:31

That's unbelievable.

Francis: 21:31

Okay, listen, everybody, we need to be responsible. We need to realize that we've had a fundamental shift and it's wonderful that we have this great technology. But you know, when men would go out in wooden boats and and fish the whales, we could fish whales.'cause,'cause we weren't driving them to extinction. Mm-hmm. But right now, the way it works is we can use helicopters.

Mark: 21:51

We're too efficient.

Francis: 21:52

With, and we can use sonar and satellite imagery to find an entire school of fish, send a fleet and pick up that entire school of fish and,

Mark: 22:00

and eliminate that gene pool completely.

Francis: 22:02

And the world can't support that. And so what we need to do is be adult and realize that we do have the ability to destroy the world's oceans. And that's a tremendous accomplishment. And now we need to be responsible enough to not. Do it. Have I said that?

Beth: 22:15

Mar France? I think that's actually right on. Uh, we actually, at Oceana, we have a long-term vision as we were talking before about Mercury and who's against us and you know, we have for every plate of scallops. There may be 10 sea turtles that got pulled up in the dredges as we're fishing

Francis: 22:32

and not even eaten. Yeah. And not even, you

Beth: 22:33

just need to look at, you know, long-term vision. And we actually work with commercial fishermen that are, have that vision and do wanna make sure that they have fish. So they can pass their boats on to their sons and their daughters and, keep their business going for generations to come and actually be able to eat the, eat the fish in the ocean.

Francis: 22:51

Well, you

Beth: 22:51

know, uh, we've actually, you know, we work out with, in, in Alaska, one of the problems is, and in the, um. Out on the, in the Pacific is actually bottom trawling where we're just pulling up, you know, the nesting habitats of, of fish. And we've worked with, um, the United Anglers and we've worked with commercial fishermen to make sure that we're protecting the areas that need protecting and then letting the fishermen fish where they can actually, where they can fish responsibly and not destroy the ocean for futures to come.

Mark: 23:19

What's the tenor of the fishermen out there? Do you find that that. People are saying we do need to change the way we do things, or do you think that, that there's still a lot of resistance? Or is it somewhere in between?

Beth: 23:29

I think actually, um, what happened out in the Pacific this past year to recognize and identify sensitive habits, habitat, areas that meet, need to be protected, um, and close to bottom t trawling, where you basically drag things along the bottom mm-hmm.

Mark: 23:43

And

Beth: 23:43

wipes out everything and

Mark: 23:45

tear up the bo the ocean floor and

Beth: 23:46

habitat.

Mark: 23:47

Mm-hmm.

Beth: 23:47

I think the, the fact that the fishermen and, you know, the regulators and the conservation organizations all came to an agreement on this was a big, it was a big fundamental decision that yes, we realize that what we did in the past had big impacts on our ocean, and now we need to work together to make sure that we can still fish, first of all. And then second of all, protect the areas so that we can produce more fish in the future.

Mark: 24:13

Right. Let them, let they have to regenerate.

Francis: 24:14

Let me review here. We just found out that in the last 50 years, 90% of the big fish in the ocean are gone. That's very close to what we call ecologically collapse. There comes a point where there are so few that the population does can't reproduce itself and will never come back and. The paradigm has changed because we are used to, for millennia human beings. We said, okay, well you can go out and get as much food. You have to get as much food as you can because we weren't able to get all the food and destroy everything. Well, now we need to be adult enough to realize that if we go out and harvest next year, as many fish as we can, and we do that for the next 10 years. There will be no fish left.

Mark: 24:51

Mm-hmm.

Francis: 24:51

Okay. And that's

Mark: 24:52

certain, certain, certain species that that

Francis: 24:55

find taste that we eat the most, the most valuable fish for us for eating will not be there. Am I exaggerating even a little bit here, Beth?

Beth: 25:02

Well look at the demand for Blue fin tuna. The bigger the fish, the more money that it brings in when you bring it into port. And we are severely overfishing that species, but yet it still has such a high demand. You know, boats are just still going out there and getting as much blue fan tuna as possible. I mean, I mean, I do think that we need to make, everybody needs to take a step back. Let's put on our long-term vision glasses and look beyond next week's paycheck or, you know, next year and actually plan for having these species around and you know, for our children and if not our children, just me in 10 years.

Mark: 25:42

Swordfish is a, is a fish that, that we no longer serve in our restaurant. And, and the reason we no longer serve in our, in our restaurant is the average swordfish caught today is not, has not gotten old enough and big enough to procreate. So if we keep taking swordfish that never get a chance to procreate,

Francis: 26:02

cause swordfish take a long time to get

Mark: 26:03

there, there, there will be, there will be no more swordfish. Period. You, you,

Francis: 26:06

it's logic, ladies and gentlemen. I mean, is did we hit, did we hit that one right Beth?

Beth: 26:10

I think you hit it right on the nose. And actually I think we are seeing, um, more informed consumers out there because, um, before, I mean, even with some of, um, you know, we'll see the news reports, but doesn't actually always make you do something. But I think with Swordfish and with Chilean Sea Bass. And, um, with some other fish, um, consumers are actually, you know, demanding restaurants not to serve them. Or,

Francis: 26:34

if you're listening out there, I know that that swordfish is tasty. And I used to like swordfish and I do like to taste swordfish, but don't order it. Okay? If you're, if you're listening out there Chilean Sea Best, you go to a restaurant, not only don't order it, say to the waiter, Hey, you know what? You really shouldn't be serving this. Absolutely. Tell the owners that we, that you shouldn't be serving

Mark: 26:50

this. And the same thing with Chilean Sea Bests, which. Which we got a, this nation got a taste for

Francis: 26:54

and we

Mark: 26:55

love about, about 10 years ago. And all of a sudden, because Chilean SeaBus is a very dense fish, that that stays very, very moist, uh, even, even when it's overcooked. Uh, and a lot of restaurants do overcook it, uh. So, so everybody loved this fish and, and we just pounded this fish into near extinction in such a short period of time. It's frightening.

Francis: 27:16

How do we, one of the things I like about your organization is it links to a lot of other organizations where people who wanna consume responsibly, Beth can, can eat. Eat good fish and chefs, we have a lot of restaurateurs and chefs who listen to the show. Um, how do we, how do chefs, restaurateurs, fish buyers and the public determine what fish they should be eating and what fish they might, might need to, to be, to do well to avoid?

Beth: 27:39

Well, one of the good things I must say when I was looking on the stage left website beforehand,

Francis: 27:44

compliments to the host are always

Beth: 27:45

appreciated. Um, wild king salmon. Mm-hmm. Things like Alaska salmon, sustainably caught salmon. It's not farm. Um, raised in pens, contaminating other fish around in the area. It's actually sustainably caught salmon. Um, in addition, we have, um, the, if you've seen the Monterey Bay Aquarium puts out seafood watch cards. That actually list. And you can, you can look at the, you can print out pocket cards, you can carry around with you. You can print'em out by region or just nationally that says your best choices, some good alternatives, and also fist to avoid because they have been, um, caught. And most importantly for consumers, it's just when you go to a restaurant, ask your waiter how something's caught. If they don't know, ask the managers, ask the fishmonger. If your local fish market,

Mark: 28:34

if an, and if salmon doesn't say that it's wild or, or that it's line caught or troll caught or something like that, it's not,

Francis: 28:41

and, and, and you wait or may not know the answer, and that restaurateur may not know the answer, but if he hears from enough of his customers or she hears from enough of her customers that they're asking the questions that. Then that waiter, then that owner, that restaur, that fish monger, will start asking the questions themselves. Our guest is Beth Lowell. She's from Oceania, which is a wonderful organization protecting the world's oceans, she's an ocean wildlife advocate and she works with a lot of restaurant people. Oceania, one of the things I like about your organization is you work with a lot of restaurant people. You work with our friend Rick Moonen and, and a lot of great chefs. Uh, do you, do you find, get a lot of help from the restaurant community, Beth?

Beth: 29:10

Yes, we actually do. It's one of those, you know, sort of long-term vision partnerships that we do with fo um, with others from commercial fishermen, restaurant industry, consumer groups, you know, recreational fishermen, just those that really have the long-term vision of let's preserve our ocean. So it's. There for the future.

Francis: 29:31

And, and we're not people because, you know what I like about Ocean is it's not a, oh, you have to leave the, the oceans alone and you can't touch them at all. It's an organization that like, we, you know, I wanna preserve the environment. I wanna hunt in it, I want to fish in it, I want to eat the food from it. And I want my kids to be able to do the same thing. I, I'm

Mark: 29:46

camping

29:46

it,

Francis: 29:46

I don know Manby pamby, you know, don't touch the, the environment. I just, you know, office buildings have a place and, and spotted Alice have a place. Did

Mark: 29:53

say you're no mamby.

Francis: 29:54

Alright. I'm a little mamby mamby, but I still like to hunt and fish. Anyway. Anyway. Um. You know, I wanna talk just briefly, you sent out what and why people should go to oceania.org and sign up for the newsletter is just, there's a, a font of information. This, this website. And recently you sent out a bunch of information that I followed very closely on what's been going on with the Endangered Species Act. Can you talk to us about the Endangered Species Act and, uh, United States Representative Richard Pobo?

Beth: 30:21

Sure. Well, you know, first we should just look and see that the Endangered Species Act also has a long-term visit vision. It's actually been a successful law that's enjoyed broad public support for about 33 years now. Um, and then recently in Congress, Congressman Richard combo, who doesn't always seem to be a fan of endangered species in two weeks, pulled the plug on one of our key environmental laws. That has been a success.

Francis: 30:47

now how did he pull the plug? What did he, he passed, uh, house, house Resolution 38 24. What did that do?

Beth: 30:53

Basically, uh, that bill undermined some of the very key aspects of the Endangered Species Act, and rather than now protecting and recovering. Endangered species. We'll just be making sure that the last few ones that are left survive, but they're not actually gonna recover. Um, one of the

Mark: 31:11

things, so they'll be in a zoo, right? And that's, that's all pandas will be in zoos around the world.

Beth: 31:16

We'll protect the five acres where a species lives now, but we'll never give them more land that they can move into. And I think it's a pretty. Common sense idea that you think that in order to survive species need to have a home.

Francis: 31:29

Well, and what, what this house resolution did was it, it removed the habitat protection provisions of a lot of the, of the Endangered Species Act, which says that, you know, if you need to protect the habitat of certain animals so that they stay existant on the planet Now, um, representative Pombo, he's the chairman of the House Resources Committee, but he doesn't really put a lot of value on well. The resources of the country, does he

Beth: 31:53

country? Um, I think that's a good assumption. Congressman Pabo,

Francis: 31:57

we're not big fans.

Beth: 31:58

Congress are a little over 10 years. He came to Capitol Hill with the intention of repealing the Endangered Species Act.

Francis: 32:07

Oh. And so of course we should put him in charge of it.

Beth: 32:09

Exactly. Um. Great minds have worked together to put this man in charge. And he, um,

Francis: 32:15

he looks, by the way, if you look in the, on the, on the ocean website or on his website, he looks a little like Sonny Bono.

Beth: 32:21

Yes.

Francis: 32:21

That's, he

Beth: 32:22

does.

Francis: 32:22

That's, uh, that's really unfortunate for him. Maybe that's why he's so mad. Sorry. To the fa to Sonny Bono's family

Mark: 32:30

Bono was married to Cher, so

Francis: 32:32

he was way outta way. So

Mark: 32:33

quiet down you,

Francis: 32:35

but Pombo iss not. So tell us more about, about what's going on with endangered species now and where we stand.

Beth: 32:40

Well, right now where we are is Congressman Pombo has kind of smoothed his rhetoric over the years, and now he just talks about improving and, and protecting species. Although once you look at the bill, you see once it says, when you read the words repeal critical habitat, you know, it's probably bad. Um, so where we are now is that his awful bill has passed the house, a representative,

Francis: 33:02

and it has not yet passed the Senate

Beth: 33:04

and has not yet passed the Senate.

Francis: 33:06

And is

Beth: 33:06

it, they're optimistic that Mr. Bobo's bill would not be able to pass the Senate. Um, but that's one of the things that Oceania is working to make sure is that this awful piece of legislation does not come into law

Francis: 33:19

and it's house resolution 38 24, and it's not even on the floor of the Senate. Right.

Beth: 33:22

It's No, no, it has not even been interviewed on the Senate.

Francis: 33:25

Okay? You listen to me, everybody out there, and listen, Orlando, in every state that you're in, you have two senators. You don't, you know who they are. Like I like in the House of Representatives, sometimes you don't even know who your representative is. You got two senators from your state. You get on the phone and you call them, you send them an email and you tell'em you think. Richard Pobo is a dork, and his, his stupid bill should not be brought up before the Senate and you're for the Endangered Species Act. If you do one thing this year that you, you, you get on the phone or you send an email, okay, that's House Resolution 38 24. We're gonna put it up on our website. Don't let this get to the Senate.

Mark: 33:58

I I'm really

Beth: 33:59

also, you can visit oceana.org, which is Ocean with an a.org. Um, and sign up for our Wavemaker e activist alerts because we certainly send them out about, um, the Endangered Species Acts and other issues we work on. And we do have information about the Palm Bill on our website, any information you want. And if you do need any additional information, feel free to contact myself

Francis: 34:22

and let me tell you something else

Beth: 34:23

you need.

Francis: 34:23

And lemme tell you something else. A lot of people shy away from the term activist. We are talking about co a common sense organization that's working for common sense causes. And they send very intelligent emails and I, and we get them ourselves. And it's where we get a lot of, we cop a lot of information.

Mark: 34:36

And listen, I'm against exterminating anything that isn't polio. Okay? Uh, why do we have to exterminate species on on our planet? Why can't we allow a little bit of. Of space. I mean, we talk a lot on this show about open spaces and, and preserving some of those things and why we need to preserve them. Well, what happens? Our rivers become polluted. Our rivers change direction. Certain species of fish can't survive. Salmon won't be able to go through certain parts of the river. So they can become extinct. We're just using common sense here. And look, I, I'm not against. Laggers. I'm not against taking trees for wood and paper products and all the things that we need them for. but I'm against taking an entire forest and, and completely leveling it. we need to use our common sense.

Beth: 35:21

And one of the things we have to realize is, you know, it's once these species are gone, they're gone forever, they're extinct. They don't come back. You can't go back and say, oh, we made a. Stake. Let's just redo that plan. Well, Beth, they're gone forever.

Francis: 35:33

I love Jurassic Park.

Mark: 35:34

Well, Beth, we hope that you will come back.

Francis: 35:36

Yeah,

Mark: 35:37

exactly. And, and be our guest on another show.

Francis: 35:39

Beth, we have to run. I wanna thank you for taking the time out to, to be on our show and we're gonna link everyone to, to your site, on our site.

Beth: 35:44

Great. And I actually lived in New Brunswick for a year and a half and I never got to visit your restaurant.

Mark: 35:48

You,

Francis: 35:48

shame

Mark: 35:48

on

Francis: 35:49

you. You're in a lot of trouble. We'll send you an email. You're listening to the restaurant guys, Hey, you're back with the restaurant guys, mark and Francis. We had a great guest, Beth Lowell from Oceania. You can visit'em at oceania.org. They have a lot of really great information. And remember, we only wanna preserve the species of the world here at the restaurant, guys, so that we can eat them. Okay? So we're not really, you know, those pie in the sky liberals. We just want to eat the,

Mark: 36:08

I'd say we fall squarely in the middle somewhere of the two activist groups.

Francis: 36:12

We are pretty center of the road. Again, we just want to taste them anyway. Um, you have a story? Yes. We we're opening here. Everyone should know. We are, we're, here's a little shameless plug. We're opening an Italian restaurant. Our, our restaurant stage left is a contemporary American restaurant, uh, in downtown New Brunswick, New Jersey. And you should really come if you're ever gonna be in the area. But we're opening Catherine Lombardi restaurant, which will be an Italian American restaurant based on. The recipes of Mark's grandmother, and it's gonna be fabulous. But one of the things we've done for the last year or so is we've eaten at every Italian restaurant, Italian American restaurant at any acclaim in, in New Jersey, Brooklyn, Staten Island. And, um, we've had some mentioning

Mark: 36:48

experiences and some with no acclaim whatsoever,

Francis: 36:50

some with undeserved ala.

Mark: 36:51

I I recent, I went to one actually that just, uh, this weekend,

Francis: 36:54

we gained 30 pounds each,

Mark: 36:55

right? Yes, exactly. Uh, but I, but I went to one of these, these restaurants and, and there seems to have been this. Change in the last 20 years where everybody who works in Italian restaurant, they have to look kind of Italian. So there's this kind of Mexican, south American population that's replaced the Italian population as the waiters in these, in these restaurants. Mm-hmm. Well, frequently. Their Spanish accent is, I guess, is close enough to an Italian accent where people,

Francis: 37:24

where your average white Anglo-Saxon Protestant doesn't know the

Mark: 37:26

difference. Exactly. So,

Francis: 37:28

well, I also, I know for a fact I have a friend had an Italian restaurant that would encourage his, his Mexican waiters to fake an Italian accent.

Mark: 37:33

Right? Right. As a matter of fact, we do know somebody who did that and I, so you go, I go into this restaurant and my, my. Spanish waiter or, or South American waiter doesn't speak English very well, but he speaks Spanish. He also doesn't speak Italian very well, so he's, he's kind of neither

Francis: 37:50

Right.

Mark: 37:50

So, so, uh, he, he comes to the table and says, yes, we have a, a spaghetti. We, you can have that with the, uh, hotter sweet, the sauce. And I, and I'm thinking hotter sweet sauce on spaghetti. Okay. And then he says, another special that you can have with hotter sweet sauce. And I'm thinking. I think he means sausage. Do you mean sausage? Yes, yes, yes. Sausage. And then he is talking about the oodles, the oodles

Francis: 38:14

cutlets,

Mark: 38:15

the veal cutlets. Oh boy. This is tough. Then, then I order fuce because I happen to be a, a Fu Sealy fan. I like the way that the Uhhuh spirals hold the, the sauce inside it.

speaker: 38:26

Right.

Mark: 38:26

And Jamele comes out and I say ex, excuse me, uh, I ordered the Sili. Yes, yes. That's fusili. Um, this isn't ly. Yes. Yes, that's the ly. Okay.

Francis: 38:41

All you'll win tonight. This will be ly the

Mark: 38:44

ly. It is spectacular.

Francis: 38:46

Oh my goodness. You spent another hour listening to the restaurant, guys. You hope that you've enjoyed yourself, and we hope you'll come back tomorrow. I'm Francis Shot.

Mark: 38:52

And I'm Mark Pascal

Francis: 38:53

are the restaurant guys, central Jersey 1450. The time is 12 noon.