Ocean – a Source of Food
The ocean has always been a source of food for man. But until now only about one percent of mankind’s food comes from the sea and much of it is fish. Oceans have always been an important and reliable source of food. Besides fish, there are prawns, shrimps, lobsters, and whales are commonly called fish, although they are scientifically classified differently. There are over twenty thousand kinds of fishes living in the sea. We eat only a few kinds. We should try to eat some other kinds, too. To increase the sea’s yield of fish, we will have to start fish farming in the sea. In China, sea weed is now harvested for use both as a food and as a fertilizer. Considering the ocean’s vast size in comparison to land, it is easy to assume that we could never deplete its resources. The importance of seafood in the human diet varies greatly around the world.
Today the world is faced with a growing energy shortage. We need to explore new sources of energy. The ocean’s energy, locked up in the constantly changing temperatures of the ocean currents, is boundless. In France, the energy of the ocean’s tides is being harnessed to produce electricity.
The sea is a huge store of mineral wealth. Salt is one of Earth’s most important minerals. It comes from the rocks in the ocean and can be found nearly everywhere in the world. All the known chemicals and minerals exist in seawater, some in a great amount: yet only common salt, potassium, magnesium, iodine, bromine, and a few other substances have been extracted from seawater. We still follow the traditional method of extracting salt from sea water by evaporation. Iodine is obtained from the ashes of sea-weeds. There is also a great reserve of petroleum and natural gas beneath the sea-bed. Off-shore drilling for oil and gas has already proved productive.
Making fresh water by removing salt from sea water is still a very expensive process. If a good method of de-salting seawater could be developed, huge seawater could be used for irrigation to transform millions of square kilometers of the desert into farmland.
The ocean has always been a source of food for man and fish is one of them. The primary marine food web, which is based on plant productivity, includes many of the sea’s species—but not all of them. There are twenty thousand kinds of fishes living in the sea. But man eats only a few kinds. So a man should change his food habit. There are other deep-ocean ecosystems that are entirely independent of the sunlight energy that kick-starts the main marine ecosystem. The ocean is rich in energy. The ocean is a huge store of mineral wealth. The popularity of seafood has increased in recent years because it is seen as being a health-promoting food source. The sea can be a great source of pure drinking water and irrigation water by desalting seawater. Many kinds of seafood have high levels of a type of fat that is regarded as healthful by medical researchers.
