Home » Food & Drink » From Field To Table » The Oceans: where it all begins.

The Oceans: where it all begins.

© Bob Ewing

The Internet is a fascinating place, One of the many things that you can do, while surfing the Net, is listening to radio stations that you would not ordinarily receive. Yesterday afternoon, as I was reading a news clipping service from the CBC, I came across, CBC Radio One, Yellowknife, GNWT> The program was about wind energy. I'll look at wind, sun and other forms of alternative energy in future articles.

This week we'll visit the place where it all begins, the oceans. If we are to understand the functioning of the food chain or food web, we need to look to the oceans, where some of the largest animate beings on the planet live and feed. Plankton sits at the base, if there is actually such a thing, within a web, of the food web. It is the primordial food of some of Earth's early evolving life forms.

What are the consequences do incidents such as oil spills, toxic waste dumping and the waste from cruise ships have on this elemental food? We have all read or heard the news reports about needles and other medical wastes ending up on beaches. Do we know what chemical or other effects this dumping of hazardous waste has on the life within the seas? I don't believe that we do and that quite possibly we are allowing ourselves to be fooled into playing a game that is akin to Russian Roulette.

I think we need to educate ourselves about what is actually happening and what effects this is having on the food web that all Life relies upon.

I am a vegetarian, a fact that I have previously mentioned. One of the reasons that I became a vegetarian was my concern with the quality and safety of what I am eating, especially seafood. How do I know what toxins, that lobster, that I am about to put into my body, has consumed? I am willing to grant that a non-organic vegetarian diet gives us little cause for feeling safe, but what this brings us back to is how important it is to know where your food comes from and how it was produced.

The copyright of the article The Oceans: where it all begins. in From Field To Table is owned by . Permission to republish The Oceans: where it all begins. in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.