The kipper is having a moment. A new study in the British Medical Journal found that replacing red meat in our diets with healthier so-called “forage fish”, such as sardines, herring and anchovies, could save up to 750,000 lives a year globally. The study found it can prevent Type 2 diabetes and significantly reduce the rates of disability caused by diet-related disease.
Forage fish are small and usually tinned. They sit at the bottom of the food chain, which means there are more of them in the oceans than larger fish. As a result, they’re better for the environment than consuming meat and a lot cheaper too; sardines set you back around 60p in Sainsbury’s, anchovies £1.15, and tinned mackerel 95p. Kippers may feel like a relic, but you can still buy the smoked herring for just £2.
The NHS recommends you only have three portions of red meat a week, and I’d say I have around that. I love bacon bagels; and the occasional Bolognese. Pancetta in my pasta. Then there’s the spicy pork mince I have in my ramen. But, in order to cut my consumption down further, I set out to replace my red meat with these tiny fish for a week.
I started by buying enough fish for two people for the seven days and it comes to £6. I selected two tins of sardines, a large tin of herring and a tin of mackerel. It is cheaper than my weekly meat shop by £4.
Sunday – Kippers
It’s Sunday morning, which usually means brunch. I was at the pub yesterday and now I’m craving something fried and fatty. My usual go-to is a small version of a fry-up, with bacon, eggs and some sort of tomato or mushroom. I look at my tinned fish selection and feel regretful. Reluctantly, I replace my delicious and disgustingly unhealthy bacon with tinned herring. It feels very postwar.
To make this meal less sad, I fry the hell out of it. Lots of butter too. I don’t feel great about this but, next to my omelette and fried buttery tomatoes, it’s actually quite nice. Kippers, another name for smoked herring, are as salty as bacon but with healthy fatty acids (they contain about 0.2 to 0.7 grams per serving) and are very high in vitamins like B-12 and D. Bacon, unsurprisingly, is not.
Priya Tew, director of Dietitian UK, is at least happy with the swap. “The omega-3 fatty acids have benefits for heart health, blood pressure and reducing inflammation in the body,” she says. “It is recommended that we eat two portions of fish a week, of which one is oily. So making a switch from meat to fish on some days could really be beneficial.” The oilier the better.
The rest of the day goes by meatless. It was a late brunch so my next meal was dinner: a Greek-style mezze with aubergine, feta, olives, peppers, couscous and pitta. A success.
Monday – Mackerel
My second day did not go as well. For breakfast, I had some fruit and, for lunch, I ate leftover mezze. Not a fish in sight.
By 8pm, it was time for my weekly ramen. I usually fry some pork mince with chillies, soy sauce and spring onions to pair with my peanut butter-miso-stock broth – but not this week. Surveying my tin selection, nothing was screaming ‘noodle soup’. Would sardines be nice in a ramen? Anchovies would definitely be weird.
It would have to be the mackerel. Mackerel has particularly good health benefits. Studies have shown that those who eat mackerel regularly have lower blood pressure and less cholesterol in their blood and the same omega-3 levels as herring.
Mackerel was a mistake. As it was already pre-cooked and covered in olive oil, I chose to simply submerge it in my broth, as one would do with Tonkotsu pork. But this was not Tonkostu pork. Awful decision. Sure it was bony (not my fault), but I should have put in some effort. Maybe marinate it or grill it at the least? Instead, it sat limp and soft in my bowl. I couldn’t finish it.
Helen Gurnett, a professional chef who has trained at Leiths School of Food and Wine, one of the UK’s leading culinary schools, has a better way of cooking the mackerel. “I absolutely love mackerel,” she says. “I love to cook it with Dijon [mustard] and mashed potato to make a fishcake. People are put off from making fishcakes at home as they think they have to make the bread crumbs and spend a while coating them but you just have to cover the cakes with flour.”
Tuesday – Sardines
Scarred by last night’s evening meal, my boyfriend insisted we have pasta with the sardines. Determined to enjoy my food, I tried to mimic a beef ragu as closely as possible. I chopped up garlic and onions, and then simmered some chopped tomatoes on a low heat with the tinned sardines and chillies. I added fresh herbs. The only difference to the usual meaty pasta was the lemon, capers and olives. A nod to the fishy main event.
It was delicious; much cheaper than minced meat and much quicker too. I’d say it was even nicer than the beef I usually pair it with. I didn’t feel heavy as I often do after red meat. This has the seal of approval from Gurnett. “Beef is very heavy in terms of fat, and how it sits in a stomach and digestion,” she says. “I always find that with sardines, you don’t need as much pasta as it makes you fuller. It is obviously not the same as red meat and it can put people off thinking that they should be similar, but you still have the experience of having a lovely tomato pasta that’s full of protein. It still feels like really nice comfort food.”
This may become a permanent replacement, especially as I am in danger of eating over my weekly red meat portion. “Over-consuming red and processed meat is something we know has an impact on our health and the risk of chronic disease,” says Tew. “It is recommended that red meat is limited to 350-500g a week.”
Not only has red meat been proven to increase the risk of bowel cancer, eating 50g of processed meat a day (such as bacon, ham and sausages) increases the risk of coronary heart disease by 18 per cent. Unprocessed meat, such as minced meat, increases it by nine per cent. I tuck into my sardine ragu with no regrets.
Wednesday – Sardines
I was working from home and wanted to make a healthy lunch. I opened my cupboard and found chickpeas. I also had a bag of mixed grain and vegetables from M&S and some more sardines after last night’s ragu. A fishy salad?
I fried it with paprika and threw in some olives and feta for good measure. It was very nice. I would have usually thought about adding in some Greek-style chicken, but the sardines were a delicious substitute – if a little bony. Later, I pulled the tiny bones out of my mouth one by one.
Bones aside, sardines are better for me than herring or mackerel: they contain close to 100 per cent of the recommended daily intake of omega-3 fatty acids. Whereas herring and mackerel have 2g of omega-3 per 100g, sardines contain 2.2g. Tuna comes in at 1.6g.
For dinner, I continued the marine theme with grilled seabass and orzo.
Thursday – Anchovies
The problem with this ‘forage fish diet’ is that I feel limited to an arsenal of Mediterranean-Italian cooking. I didn’t fancy my chances with an anchovy curry. A mackerel stew would taste as bad as it sounds. But Gurnett reassures me that cooking tinned fish doesn’t have to mean a Mediterranean palate.
“It doesn’t have to be that kind of that kind of flavour profile,” she says. “Fish lends itself really nicely to Asian flavours. That sweet, salty and kind of acidic profile works really well because it’s strong enough to balance out the strong flavour of a fish like herring.”
But it was pasta again. After seeing friends, I was home later than usual and I wanted a very quick dinner. I decided on pesto from a jar. On a regular evening, I would pair this with fried mushroom and pancetta. I subbed out the pancetta for tinned anchovies in olive oil.
It was far nicer than my usual go-to. The anchovies took the same amount of time to fry as the meat and added depth I didn’t expect to the cheap Tesco pesto. I believe they call it umami. While the anchovies didn’t bring much in the way of crunch, it was the perfect flavour substitute for pancetta. I will be having it again.
Saturday – Sardines
I felt smug. On Friday night I went out for dinner and had an anchovy and olive pizza instead of the spicy nduja sausage I usually go for. I had a few wines and was yet again craving bacon. I would usually reach for a bacon bagel with avocado, but I was left with the remaining sardines. I decided to make the most of it.
I pair the bagel with some harissa paste and fry the fish to death with some garlic. The sardines are crispy and delicious. I add some capers too. After one bite, I feel reassured that this oily fish will contain my hangover. It’s crunchy, fatty and salty.
When cooked well, this fishy diet has been just as flavourful as my red meat meals. It takes slightly more creative thinking to pair the fish with something appetising, which does mean my meals are limited: I’m still not sure how I would replace the lamb in my saag curry. But for quick midweek dinners, tinned fish is just as tasty, and a cheaper alternative. I barely missed it.
Before I bin my minced meat for good, Tew reassures me that red meat can still be part of a healthy diet. “This is not to say that red meat should not be eaten at all,” she says. “It also has nutritional benefits, being a good source of iron and protein. Replacing some meat with fish in your week is a good idea, especially fish such as sardines and herring as these are oily fish.”
Helen Gurnett’s forager fish recipes
Mushroom and anchovy stew – to replace beef Bourguignon
“If you add a few anchovies into that, it completely changes the umami profile and makes it taste much more meaty,” she says. “It also takes around 40 minutes to cook, whereas the beef would take hours.” Cook it with onion, parsley, tarragon and vegetable stock.
Sardine tomato pasta – to replace Bolognese
“This is certainly something my kids would eat. Make a tomato, garlicky sauce. Maybe throw in a few capers because the sardines are quite oily,” says Gurnett. “If you want more of the meaty texture of a Bolognese, I would add lentils.”
Herring Thai salad – to replace beef
“Herring is the strongest flavour so I would make that in an alternative to a Thai beef noodle salad,” she says. “I would make a beef Thai dressing in the same way, but add the fish at the end because the fish will break up too early and become dry. Add some fresh leaves, coriander and some rice noodles. Then some roasted peanuts and you have a balanced nutritious meal.”
Mackerel and black bean burger – to replace a beef burger
“Adding black bean and chickpea will make this feel more like a red meat alternative in terms of texture. Just substitute the mashed potato for either the chickpeas or black beans. Put it all in a blender to coarsely blend. The mistake people sometimes make with bean burgers is that they mash the beans into a purée and then it’s quite sloppy.”