Why is a can of fish being sold at a Gen Z concert? Behind the popularity boom of tinned fish

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On a wall of tour merchandise at a concert venue is a laminated sheet of paper with a photo of tinned fish selling for $20. It’s a simple can of Fishwife-brand smoked rainbow trout with olive oil, garlic and salt, but one thing stands out: The box is signed by singer-songwriter Audrey Hobert.

“There’s a whole ecosystem of Fishwife trout in me,” Hobert said in an email.

Fishwife x Audrey Hobert launched in June, after Fishwife CEO Becca Millstein said she noticed Hobert talking about the brand in several interviews, with one calling it her “dream collab.”

“Musicians love Fishwife, and it’s funny because they don’t really post about it, which I wish they would, but the amount that I hear of famous musicians having it in their tour buses, having it in their recording studios, it is so many more people than I ever could have imagined, and everyone brings on tour with them. Why not sell it on tour? No one’s ever done it before,” Millstein said.

Yes, it’s “bunker food,” but the appeal is real, beyond the aesthetically appealing packaging and social media hype; the shelf-friendly protein has also gained popularity for being chock-full of nutrients. Tinned fish are rich in vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids — both of which are beneficial for human health but can be difficult to find in other foods — as well as a good source of protein.

After the launch of the company in 2020, Millstein said, sales have been “cuckoo bananas,” growing more than 150% each year.

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“It’s ready to eat; it’s shelf-stable. I mean, we all know that it’s like bunker food, but at the same time, the product offerings that existed were just not super exciting at all, basically a totally commoditized category, almost all tuna, and didn’t have any of that sort of whimsical beauty.”

Vasco Motta, commercial director of Jose Gourmet, a Portugal-based canned fish company that started in 2015, said the products have seen a worldwide boom since around the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The company and its four sister canned fish brands export their products to more than 40 countries worldwide, and Motta said the US plays an “important role” in the companies’ growth, especially due to social media trends surrounding canned fish.

“I think some interesting trends that came again from United States, like the tinned fish date nights, canned fish dinners. Many restaurants, interesting restaurants with a good position on social media, include tinned fish in the assortment and in the menus,” Motta said.

TikTok trends aside, here’s what you need to know about tinned fish.

Chief among canned fish’s health benefits are those from the omega-3 fatty acids that it provides in spades. Omega-3 fatty acids are unsaturated fats — the healthy kind of fats that the body needs — which reduce inflammation.

“Really, fish is the best source for omega-3s,” said Dr. Bonnie Patchen, a registered dietitian and postdoctoral research fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Patchen studies how omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D — another nutrient that fish is rich in — are associated with better lung function and lower risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and emphysema.

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Fish is also healthy because it provides essential nutrients, like vitamin D, that are less common in other food sources, according to Dr. Nate Wood, director of culinary medicine and an assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine.

Vitamin D and calcium — both in high supply in tinned fish — bolster the strength of teeth and bones.

People may not realize it, but “when you’re eating the sardines, you’re eating the bones,” Wood said. “Because of that, you are consuming a lot of calcium.”

However, consumers should also be mindful of the potential high salt content in canned fish, as well as the amount of mercury in bigger fish like tuna, the experts noted.

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For those concerned about sodium, Patchen recommends swapping fish packed in brine, like anchovies, for fish packed in water, like some canned tunas.

“Some tinned fish is going to be really salty, some tinned fish probably is not going to have that much salt, so that’s something I would certainly look at for people who have high blood pressure or heart disease,” Wood said. He also noted that the sauce that the fish are packed in may introduce additional excess salt.

For those concerned about mercury content, sticking to smaller fish is the best bet.

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“Smaller fish that don’t eat larger animals tend to have less mercury,” Patchen said. “Tuna is one of the higher mercury-containing of the canned fish, but things like salmon, sardines, anchovies actually have pretty low levels of mercury.”

In addition, different types of tuna contain different amounts of mercury: Skipjack tuna — often labeled “chunk light” — are smaller fish and therefore often carry less mercury, while albacore tuna are larger fish and carry more mercury, Wood said. Eating a can of any tuna a week probably does not carry enough risk for concern, although people who are pregnant may want to be even more mindful of mercury consumption, he noted.

The benefits of eating canned fish are practically the same as eating fresh fish. The advantage of fish from a can lies in its convenience factor.

“Buying fresh fish or preparing fish can be daunting for some people, whereas the tinned fish is a really easy way to get” the health benefits, Wood said.

“There’s a lot of questions in nutrition about differences between fresh versus frozen and canned products,” Patchen said. “With fish, most of the nutrition is pretty stable across those processes, and in terms of processing itself, the canning process is not generally transforming the fish all that much. So it is a relatively minimally processed food that maintains a lot of the nutritional punch of fresh seafood.”

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Patchen recommends eating canned fish in the same quantities as generally recommended for fresh fish: two to three servings per week.

Wood’s favorite tinned fish is smoked mackerel, but he uses anchovies and tuna most frequently in his own household cooking.

In pasta sauces, “you can sneak in a few anchovies to the pan, and they kind of melt away into the sauce and provide a lot of umami,” Wood said. “That way you can get a few omega-3s in your dish too.”

He also encourages people to try canned salmon and sardines, which can be mixed into salads or tossed with pasta.

But for him, the “classic way” to eat sardines is “on crackers with mustard and hot sauce, which is how my grandpa taught me to eat them.”

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在演唱会场馆的巡演周边商品墙上，有一张塑封的纸，上面印着一罐售价 20 美元的罐头鱼照片。这只是一罐普通的 Fishwife 牌烟熏虹鳟鱼，配料有橄榄油、大蒜和盐，但有一点很特别：包装盒上有创作歌手奥黛丽·霍伯特的签名。

“我体内有一个完整的鱼妇鳟鱼生态系统，”霍伯特在一封电子邮件中写道。

Fishwife x Audrey Hobert 于 6 月推出，此前 Fishwife 首席执行官 Becca Millstein 表示，她注意到 Hobert 在几次采访中谈到该品牌，其中一次采访称这是她的“梦想合作”。

“音乐人们都喜欢Fishwife，这很有趣，因为他们很少在社交媒体上谈论它，我希望他们能多说说。但我听说很多知名音乐人在巡演巴士上、录音棚里都备着它，人数之多远远超乎我的想象，而且几乎每个人都带着它去巡演。为什么不在巡演中销售呢？以前从来没有人这么做过，”米尔斯坦说道。

没错，罐头鱼的确是“军营食品”，但它的吸引力并非浪得虚名，除了精美的包装和社交媒体的炒作之外，这种易于储存的蛋白质食品也因其丰富的营养成分而广受欢迎。罐头鱼富含维生素D和omega-3脂肪酸——这两种营养素都对人体健康有益，但在其他食物中却很难找到——同时也是优质蛋白质的来源。

米尔斯坦表示，自公司于 2020 年成立以来，销售额“增长迅猛”，每年增长超过 150%。

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“它是即食的，无需冷藏。我的意思是，我们都知道它就像是防疫物资，但与此同时，现有的产品种类实在没什么吸引力，基本上是一个完全同质化的品类，几乎全是金枪鱼，没有任何那种奇妙的美感。”

总部位于葡萄牙的罐头鱼公司Jose Gourmet的商务总监瓦斯科·莫塔表示，自2020年新冠疫情爆发以来，该公司的产品在全球范围内经历了爆炸式增长。Jose Gourmet成立于2015年。该公司及其旗下四个姊妹罐头鱼品牌的产品出口到全球40多个国家。莫塔表示，美国在公司的发展中扮演着“重要角色”，尤其是在社交媒体上关于罐头鱼的趋势推动下。

“我认为一些有趣的趋势再次源自美国，比如罐头鱼约会之夜、罐头鱼晚餐。许多餐厅，尤其是那些在社交媒体上颇具影响力的餐厅，都将罐头鱼纳入了菜品种类和菜单中，”莫塔说道。

抛开TikTok上的流行趋势不谈，以下是关于罐头鱼你需要知道的一些知识。

罐装鱼最主要的健康益处在于其富含omega-3脂肪酸。Omega-3脂肪酸是不饱和脂肪——人体必需的健康脂肪——能够减轻炎症。

“事实上，鱼类是omega-3脂肪酸的最佳来源，”布莱根妇女医院的注册营养师兼博士后研究员邦妮·帕琴博士说道。帕琴博士研究omega-3脂肪酸和维生素D（鱼类富含的另一种营养素）如何与更好的肺功能以及降低慢性阻塞性肺病和肺气肿的风险相关联。

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耶鲁大学医学院烹饪医学主任兼助理教授内特·伍德博士表示，鱼类对健康有益，因为它能提供其他食物来源中较少见的必需营养素，如维生素 D。

罐装鱼中维生素 D 和钙的含量都很高，这两种营养素都能增强牙齿和骨骼的强度。

伍德说：“人们可能没有意识到，但当你吃沙丁鱼时，你也在吃鱼刺。正因如此，你会摄入大量的钙。”

专家指出，消费者还应注意罐装鱼中可能存在的高盐含量，以及金枪鱼等大型鱼类中的汞含量。

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对于那些担心钠摄入量的人来说，帕琴建议用盐水浸泡的鱼（如凤尾鱼）代替水浸泡的鱼（如一些罐装金枪鱼）。

伍德说：“有些罐头鱼会很咸，有些则可能没那么咸，所以对于高血压或心脏病患者来说，这一点尤其值得注意。”他还指出，鱼罐头里的酱汁也可能含有额外的盐分。

对于担心汞含量的人来说，选择体型较小的鱼类是最好的选择。

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帕琴说：“体型较小的鱼，尤其是不以大型动物为食的鱼，汞含量往往较低。金枪鱼是罐头鱼中汞含量较高的品种之一，但像鲑鱼、沙丁鱼、凤尾鱼等鱼类的汞含量实际上很低。”

此外，伍德表示，不同种类的金枪鱼汞含量也不同：鲣鱼（通常标有“低汞块”）体型较小，因此汞含量通常较低；而长鳍金枪鱼体型较大，汞含量较高。他指出，每周吃一罐金枪鱼可能风险不大，无需担忧，但孕妇应更加注意汞的摄入量。

食用罐装鱼的好处与食用鲜鱼几乎相同。罐装鱼的优势在于其便利性。

伍德说：“对一些人来说，购买新鲜鱼类或烹饪鱼类可能令人望而却步，而罐装鱼则是一种非常容易获得健康益处的方式。”

帕琴说：“营养学界有很多关于新鲜、冷冻和罐装食品之间差异的问题。就鱼类而言，大部分营养成分在这些加工过程中都相当稳定，而且就加工本身而言，罐装过程通常不会对鱼的营养成分造成太大改变。因此，罐装食品是一种加工程度相对较低的食品，能够保留新鲜海鲜的大部分营养价值。”

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研究发现，两种健康脂肪失衡会影响过早死亡风险。

Patchen建议罐装鱼的食用量与新鲜鱼的食用量相同：每周两到三份。

伍德最喜欢的罐装鱼是熏鲭鱼，但他在自己家做饭时最常使用凤尾鱼和金枪鱼。

伍德说：“在意大利面酱汁里，你可以偷偷加几条凤尾鱼，它们会融入酱汁中，带来丰富的鲜味。这样你还能在菜肴中摄取一些omega-3脂肪酸。”

他还鼓励人们尝试罐装鲑鱼和沙丁鱼，可以拌入沙拉或与意大利面一起食用。

但对他来说，吃沙丁鱼的“经典方式”是“放在饼干上，配上芥末和辣酱，这是我爷爷教我吃沙丁鱼的方式”。