Eat Up, Countrymen

A line has been cast to get more Mexicans hooked on sardines. Strategies are being devised by the Cámara Nacional de la Industria Pesquera y Aquicole (National Chamber of Fisheries and Aquaculture) to beguile Mexicans into devouring more of the nutritious sea-minnows — and by the ton, since the 80,000 tons caught in the waters off Ensenada are exported annually to markets outside the country, principally to the USA, Japan, and Thailand.

Martin Gutiérrez Garcia, president of the chamber, wants Mexicans to take advantage of the food resource and will use a countrywide promotional campaign emphasizing their nutritional value, their high protein content, and their relative inexpensiveness. Mexicans, he said, avoid eating sardines because they think “they smell bad and taste bad,” a perception that Gutiérrez hopes to sink.

¨We are second-ranked as a country worldwide for having the fattest kids, and we are now in first place for having a bad diet in general. Eating up all those sardines can improve both situations,” he added.

Source: La Segunda