Four Fish 5 Flashcards
carageenan
Carrageenan is a common food additive that is extracted from a red seaweed, Chondrus crispus, which is popularly known as Irish moss. Carrageenan, which has no nutritional value, has been used as a thickener and emulsifier to improve the texture of ice cream, yogurt, cottage cheese, soy milk and other processed foods.
emulsifier
a substance that stabilizes an emulsion
emulsify/homogenize
a mixture of liquids
When cow’s milk is not homogenized, its fat separates out, producing a layer of cream on top. Developed in the late 19th century, commercial homogenization is a mechanical (not chemical) process that breaks up the fat globules to such a small size that they remain suspended evenly in the milk, producing a uniform (homogeneous) consistency.
globules
a tiny ball of something such as a thick liquid.
“Initially, the milk duct produces fat as globules, a membrane that prevents the fat from combining into clumps.”
sea lice
a crustacean in the subclass copepod. Sea lice feed on the blood, skin, and mucus of the host fish they attach to.
“none of the polyculture species can do anything about sea lice, perhaps the most pernicious effect of salmon farming.” (72)
copepod
any of a large subclass (Copepoda) of usually minute freshwater and marine crustaceans.
Saint Lawrence Seaway
The Saint Lawrence Seaway is a system of locks, canals and channels in Canada and the United States that permit ocean-going vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, as far inland as the western end of Lake Superior.
“The native freshwater herring runs that salmon had dined on had been displaced by ale wives, a small seagoing fish that had invaded the Great Lakes with the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway.” (75)
chromium
the chemical element of atomic number 24, a hard white metal used in stainless steel and other alloys.(Symbol: Cr )
“The only problem was that Lake Ontario had suffered from persistent heavy metals like chromium to the manufacturing elements of the Vietnam-era defoliant Agent Orange. The fish were dangerously toxic.” (78)
perciform
relating to fishes of an order (Perciformes) that comprises those resembling the perches. This is the largest vertebrate order and includes nearly half of all bony fishes.
“Why we originally chose to eat so heartily from the order Perciformes is connected to evolutionary advancements that date back 250 million years. Whereas more primitive fish must constantly swim to keep from sinking to the bottom, the forebears of the perciforms perfected an organ called the swim bladder, which they inflate with gas to keep them neutrally buoyant in the water column, much as a scuba diver inflates a buoyancy compensator to achieve a state of weightlessness.
buoyancy compensator
a piece of diving equipment containing a bladder which is worn by divers to establish neutral buoyancy underwater and positive buoyancy on the surface, when needed.
positive buoyancy
A positive buoyancy is when something is less dense that the water around it. This will make the object float.
implode
collapse or cause to collapse violently inward.
“Below this depth, water pressure will overwhelm the gas inside the compensator and the device will implode, making the diver sink like a stone. Fish equipped with swim bladders have the same problem and are therefore limited to a certain depth range. Is it a coincidence that the maximum depth to which coastal perciforms can venture is similar to the depth to which a human free diver can swim or an early human’s primitive fishing line can reach?” (86)
turbot
a large European flatfish (Psetta maxima) that is a popular food fish and has a brownish upper surface marked with scattered tubercles and a white undersurface
tubercles
The tubercles are small, isolated, mineralized conical plates randomly distributed in the eyed side of the body.
flounder
noun
a small flatfish that typically occurs in shallow coastal water.
