LAUSR

B foods, including wild or cultivated foods from marine and freshwater systems, have garnered widespread interest from scientists, nutritionists, and policymakers for their potential to contribute to mitigate worldwide hunger and provide human nutritional security. Consumer demand of blue foods is predicted to increase significantly in the coming decades. Human food choices have critical implications for climate and global environmental change dynamics, and the behavioral and reputational dynamics of blue food industries are important to consider, especially when evaluating what factors limit their sustainable development and growth (Figure 1). In theory, blue foods have enormous potential to be a sustainable, low-carbon footprint food source. Novel approaches involving low-trophic species such as algae, blue mussels (Mytilus edulis), and potentially mesopelagic species have all emerged as potential food alternatives to farming large predator species, which still require substantial use of wild fish for fishmeal. In general, blue foods are diverse and sourced from thousands of species, including large predator species such as farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) that have been successfully reared, for decades, in countries such as Canada, Norway, Scotland, and Chile. However, recently blue food production systems have faced intense scientific, political, and legal scrutiny over their unsustainable use and development practices. Such scrutiny has focused on pollution emissions, pathogens, and negative effects on biodiversity and wild fisheries. Likewise, this also reflects the social and food security ramifications of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and unsustainable and unethical fishmeal production. When conducting fair and thorough risk assessments to upscale sustainable blue foods, the total consequences of