Food Sustainability Around The World | Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted | National Geographic

Take what you need; respect the land. Treat it, bless it; it will look after you.

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Twins Emily and Amanda Gail are accomplished local boat captains. These ladies have an endless knowledge of Florida fishing, and they're going to lead me to the most iconic ingredients of the Keys: stone crab.

"There you go! Good job!"

"So we, uh, empty the trap. Crabs go in. Well, you can't keep the whole crab; you have to harvest the claw and then keep the claw and put the crab back."

"Hold on a minute. So you take one of the claws off?"

"That's correct. We can only harvest the claws. We just take one to leave them with another. Even in the wild, if the crab gets in a fight or in a messy situation, they will voluntarily release their claw and they'll regrow."

"Gotcha. I mean, in terms of sustainability, that's great. I've never seen..."

"For sustainability? Wow!"

"Snapping off the claw to the average Joe, it would look like it's doing it harm, but it's actually a really smart way of not killing the crab."

"Yes, uh, no. Oh, seriously, that's a no! You lucky little bastard!"

Lionfish are invasive predatory reef fish that have become a terror in the waters of the Caribbean. They are voracious eaters that devour everything in sight and leave behind a path of destruction. Shielded by their venomous spines, which in humans can lead to painful swelling, heart palpitations, and on rare occasions, death, they have no natural predators to keep them in check.

"Lionfish are evasive, incredibly detrimental to the ecosystem, but more importantly, not really featured here on menus."

"Right, not very..."

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"My fish may be tiny, but I like to think that when it comes to lionfish, size doesn't matter. The fact that I got one is all that counts. There's a dual dimension with this lionfish at the table in the final cook: they're evasive, they need to be eaten, and so I'm going to bring a little bit of heat, a little bit of sourness, a little bit of sweetness to this fish and sort of blow their minds."

"There's a very rare ingredient in Ireland that I'm told you'll only find in Kanamara: Abalone. It's endangered in the wild. The high demand for this rare mollusk has left the Abalone population in a steady and serious decline."

"I'm meeting a mother and daughter who are using aquaculture to grow them sustainably."

"Welcome to the farm."

"Thank you so much! Um, first of all, what a great idea!"

"And they originate from Japan?"

"Japan, yes. Wow! Back in the late '70s, they were brought over, and we're dealing with all the offspring."

"Yes, when they start off, right there, a little tiny dot is when they start off as a larva, a little seed. And how old is this one here now?"

"Let's check that. Okay, so this is 7 and 1/2, almost an eight, so you're looking at a four to four and 1/2-year Abalone there."

"Wow, it's quite rare, right?"

"It is! Here in Ireland, we're the only Abalone farm across the island."

"Yes, yes, wow!"

"In the wild, their numbers are dwindling and then environmental changes that are happening as well, like ocean acidification, rising temperature, you know, in the sea; that's all causing stress."

"Globally, these things would never survive in the wild, but here, um, they're produced in a sustainable way. That's quite rare."

"The land just keeps giving; it gives and it gives and it gives. Take what you need. Only this place is alive."

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