Could Tofu Save the World’s Oceans?

Our world’s oceans suffer a huge problem with overfishing, and when you look at the fish caught in the wild every year, most experts estimate that it adds up to between 1 and 2 trillion tons of fish caught every year. This doesn’t include the fish harvested on fish farms. One of the ways that we can stop fish from being overfished is by choosing alternatives like tofu to help us save the world’s oceans. 

Can Tofu Make a Good Alternative to Fish?

 When looking at where tofu could mimic fish the best, you see it do particularly well with breaded fish, fish fillets, and cubed fish. 

Choosing tofu for a fish alternative, you would want to pick extra-firm sprouted or regular tofu to copy the flaky texture. 

One thing tofu can’t mimic is the same nutrient benefits that you’d receive from fish. Unfortunately, fish does have more nutrients with it being a rich source of protein and containing essential omega-3 fatty acids, which help with heart health. 

Tofu contains less protein, and it lacks the omega-3 fatty acids. To put this into better perspective, salmon contains 150% more protein than tofu at 20.5g of protein. For vegans who can’t have fish, tofu still gives you 8.5g of protein making it one of the better sources of protein for vegans. 

Can Tofu Realistically Save Our World's Oceans?

If we eat tofu in combination with many of the other things like smart legislation, eliminating plastic waste, and avoiding products that directly harm our aquatic undersea wildlife, we could start to make a difference by putting less pressure on the demand for real fish. 

Over time, as veganism grows, this will become an increasing alternative that puts less pressure on our ocean fish. One of the keys here isn’t that you’ll absolutely be saving the world’s oceans, but you won’t be contributing to the demand that has destroyed some of our ocean’s ecosystems from overfishing. 

Another thing is that as our technologies continue to get better, we may find it easier to make vegan food products that will taste the same as fish. 

Right now, when cooked with the right chef, you can get fish tofu that tastes reasonably close to the same as fish, but you need to cook it right or it won’t mimic the flaky texture of fish.

What About Other Alternatives to Fish?

Maybe you’ve tried tofu and didn’t like it as a fish alternative. I can understand that, but I would recommend first trying to find a vegan chef who truly knows how to mimic the fishy flavor with tofu because it can be done incredibly well. 

Besides tofu, you can use other alternative choices to fish like:

Marinated Carrots to Mimic Salmon Meat

I know this one may sound funny, but you have to admire the spirit of vegan creativity. At first glance, carrots have nothing in common with salmon—until you prepare them. Preparation is the key. You begin by cutting the carrots into thin strips and marinating them in a mixture of vinegar, oil, algae, and liquid smoke. All of this is done to resemble the flavor and texture of what you’d experience when eating salmon meat. 

Plant-Based Tuna Made from Tomatoes

When you fillet, pit, skin, and marinate the tomatoes in the right spices, the tomatoes will start to take on the flavor of tuna. However, this tuna has the added benefit of being rich in Vitamin C and Vitamin B. Tomato tuna works particularly well for sandwiches, sushi, salads and other dishes. This is a great alternative as well because tuna are one of the overfished fish populations. 

Vegan Caviar from Algae

This vegan alternative contains no real fish eggs, and it’s a tasty alternative that you can make with algae. Like with regular caviar, you wouldn’t want to eat this one all by itself, and instead, it was intended to be more like a side dish to the other dishes at your table. This also matters because caviar is rife with overfishing, and there are many questionable fishing operations surrounding it that you can avoid contributing to.  

Fish Fillets and Fish Cakes with Seitan and Jackfruit

Seitan works because like with tofu, it is neutral in flavor and you can marinate or season it in many ways. You would use seitan for fish fillets or fish burgers. Jackfruit, on the other hand, you would use for vegan fish cakes. Jackfruit works well because of its fibrous consistency. 

Final Thoughts

One of the other benefits of going with a plant-based alternative to fish, besides the fact that it reduces the pressure on our world’s oceans, is that you can sidestep all the harmful pollutants found in fish like microplastics, mercury, and dioxins. 

Going with a plant-based alternative is simply a smarter choice that will help you to save our world’s oceans. Tofu by itself won’t save our oceans, but with each person who stops eating fish, they will make a small but growing difference.