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bout an hour west of St. Louis in Foristell, Missouri, is Triple J Farms – a well-kept cluster of buildings situated in the middle of picturesque Midwestern farmland. This isn’t your typical Missouri farm, however. Instead of cattle or corn, at Triple J, the Howell family is growing sustainable Pacific white shrimp.

Jeff Howell, who coowns Triple J with his brother James and their parents Dave and Sandi Howell, comes from a long line of farmers. Thanks to the generations before them, he and his brothers have been around agriculture all their lives. “One day, my dad was reading an article in ‘The Soybean Digest,’ of all places, about how you could make shrimp feed out of soybeans,” Howell says. “We were soybean farmers, so that got him interested in aquaculture.”

After much discussion and research, Howell began developing business partnerships with Florida hatcheries, where the shrimp spawn in a controlled environment. From a building with a dirt floor, the family built out the current facility in Foristell, complete with 14 saltwater tanks and two nursery tanks. Now, the baby shrimp arrive at Triple J via overnight UPS in groups of 30,000 – each one the size of an eyelash.

Triple J uses heterotrophic bacteria – groups of microorganisms that eat shrimp waste and clean the tank water in the process. This symbiotic relationship is intensely monitored by Howell, who conducts 11 tests on the water daily. “We don’t use any filters or electricity in the waste-removal process,” he says. The large tanks produce 110 pounds of shrimp each.

Pacific white shrimp are among the most widely cultivated shrimp in the world and can be easily grown in pools. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program, 90 percent of shrimp sold on the U.S. market is imported. By producing shrimp domestically, farmers like the Howells reduce reliance on international shipping, carbon emissions and air pollution. Today, Triple J supplies local restaurants, such as Clayton’s Bar Moro, with shrimp for their menus.

Pacific white shrimp farmed in U.S. ponds have a green, “best choice” rating on the Seafood Watch list. These shrimp are more eco-friendly than those farmed worldwide in indoor recirculating tanks; one reason for this is a lack of chemicals in ponds.

Sustainability efforts often start at the grassroots level, and one St. Louis chef who takes environmental health to heart is John Messbarger III, chef de cuisine at Peacemaker Lobster & Crab. Located in St. Louis’ historic Benton Park neighborhood, Peacemaker is known for its lobster boils, steamed clams and dazzling raw bar.

“I’m pretty aggressive environmentally with everything I do,” Messbarger says, explaining that he keeps additional energy usage down by shipping on daily flights already bound for the Midwest. “Planes are already traveling from Boston to St. Louis – or somewhere along that route – so we get [our seafood] thrown on with commercial flights,” he says.

Along with shrimp, a rotating selection of oysters also appear on the Peacemaker menu. “Oysters are a major help in ocean sustainability because they filter the water and help everybody in the process,” Messbarger says. From Kumamoto oysters in Washington to Eastern oysters in Massachusetts, these bivalves clean the habitats of other sea creatures – a significant help to threatened fish species like Atlantic halibut and Beluga sturgeon.

Dominic Weiss – owner and executive chef at Big Sky Café in Webster Groves – has been composting much of the restaurant’s food waste, including its seafood, for more than two decades now.

To source its seafood, Big Sky uses Illinois-based Fortune Fish & Gourmet. Like Big Sky, Fortune Fish recycles and composts in its offices, as well as repurposes all its seafood trim, bones and heads.

All along the supply chain, Weiss points out, leaders in each industry can do their part. “For a while, wildcaught was the way to go,” Weiss says.

“And that’s what you’d hear the most: ‘Wild-caught is lowestimpact; wild-caught is better regulated.’ But that’s not necessarily the case anymore. There’s a lot of agriculture out there that’s hyper-focused on being environmentally sustainable.”

Big Sky also works with Riverence, a steelhead trout farm near the Snake River in Idaho. Rated as a green, “best choice” Seafood Watch option, the trout are raised with minimal impact to the environment – meaning without growth hormones, preventative antibiotics or genetic engineering.

Trout is a well-known eco-friendly fish worth ordering at dinner, Weiss explains. However, he also notes that cooking with less familiar fish is another way to bring sustainability into your kitchen, especially when popular varieties – like Bluefin tuna – are heavily overfished. “Arctic char is one of the most sustainable fish out there – and maybe one that not everyone is familiar with – but I tell people it’s a cross between trout and salmon, so it’s a very approachable fish,” Weiss says.

Both Big Sky and Peacemaker use leftover bits of fish and crustaceans for seafood stock, and the Howells suggest using shrimp heads to make stock at home. At Triple J, the shrimp molt in their tanks and the leftover shells are used in the garden. The shrimp that don’t make it are used as fish bait.

Interested in getting involved in eco-activism on the local level?

Try the Great Mississippi River Cleanup, which has removed more than 610,000 pounds of debris from the river. In 2017, two separate groups of scientists determined rivers to be the main source of plastic pollution in the ocean.

Check out St. Louis’ Green Dining Alliance website at greendiningalliance.org and the Seafood Watch list at seafoodwatch.org for more information on sustainable seafood efforts.

Big Sky Café, 47 S. Old Orchard Ave., Webster Groves, Missouri, 314-962-5757, bigskycafe.net

Peacemaker Lobster & Crab, 1831 Sidney St., Benton Park, St. Louis, Missouri, 314-772-8858, peacemakerlobstercrab.com

Triple J Farms, 3103 Hwy. T, Foristell, Missouri, 636-828-4144, triplejfarmsstl.com

WRITTEN BY MARY ANDINO | PHOTOS BY JENNIFER SILVERBERG

“I grew up on a farm and was that little kid who always bonded with the animals not meant to be pets. … That repeated experience [of life and death] was traumatic for me,” she says. “Things can go one of two ways: You either become desensitized to the way things are and just carry on what was done before, or it has a dramatic effect on you and you want to do the opposite. The second way is what it was for me.”

Each year in the U.S. alone, egg producers dispose of about 300 million “spent hens.” These chickens, after being deemed unproductive for egg laying, are eliminated and go to waste. Camp, who is now the founder and president of St. Louis-based nonprofit Second-Hen’d, is on a mission to change this – one chicken at a time.

Camp, an army veteran, settled in St. Louis in 2010 and began looking into raising chickens of her own. She found there were well-established groups and nonprofits in the U.K. that re-home “spent” hens, but a program like that didn’t exist in the U.S.

“I wanted to save them from a situation where the other alternative was certain death,” Camp says.

She began contacting egg producers in 2015 to set up relationships, but she says it was tough at first. Farmers thought she might be trying to do undercover exposés on their practices. Two years later, she finally found an egg producer willing to collaborate, and they developed a productive partnership.

Although egg producers call them “spent hens,” these birds are anything but, Camp says. “They usually get rid of them around a year to two years old,” Camp says. “They hit their first molt, and so they lose all of their feathers and grow new ones back.”

The chickens’ bodies then need to focus all energy on regrowing feathers, so egg production stops; this process can take two to three months. “It’s not cost effective for [the egg producers] to pay for their care while they’re not producing eggs, so it’s cheaper to just get rid of them,” Camp explains. However, she adds, once the hens complete their molt, they will continue laying eggs and can live up to 10-plus years.

Camp’s organization Second-Hen’d prides itself on the many ways its operations promote sustainability. Not only is the nonprofit saving these birds from what would be certain death, but also, if the birds lay eggs during their quarantine, Second-Hen’d donates them to local food banks. The chickens can even make a difference when it comes to the adopter who is looking to lower their environmental impact. “Chickens are great for composting: They’re natural tillers that will diligently work a compost pile. High in nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, their poop is fantastic fertilizer,” Camp says. “Their eggshells can also be added to garden soil for a boost in calcium.”

Once it receives the birds from egg producers, SecondHen’d focuses on getting them healthy and adoptable. “We get these chickens in rough shape,” Camp explains. “The only human interaction that they’ve had was limited. So we have to earn their trust and show them that we’re not a threat.”

When searching for residents who are qualified and ready to adopt the birds, Camp isn’t looking for people who just want a cheap source of eggs. Her ideal adopters are people who treat these chickens as someone would treat their dog or cat – as part of the family.

Jenny Connelly-Bowen and Adam Bowen are one such pair; they began adopting chickens from SecondHen’d three years ago, and their birds have become indispensable to their daily lives.

“They were in rough shape when we first got them … and it was just really fun watching them recover and learn to be chickens,” Connelly-Bowen says.

“They’ve never had the opportunity to get up and move around on their own, so it feels really meaningful to be able to provide that for them,” Bowen adds.

Although the duo says there was a learning curve when it came to daily care, the biggest lesson came from trying to form bonds with the chickens. “How do you deal with an animal that hasn’t been able to form those kinds of relationships before?” Bowen asks. “Part of that is also learning what chicken affection looks like.” Over time, the couple says, the birds came out of their shells and embraced them as protectors.

The two have one main takeaway from their experience: Chickens have character and are worth cherishing. “Chickens have personalities, just like any other animals that you might meet,” Connelly-Bowen says. “They definitely have unique emotions and minds.”

Chickens share another quality with dogs and cats: their potential to be therapeutic. “As a disabled vet, the main things I struggle with are depression, anxiety and PTSD,” Camp explains. “Chickens are perfect [for] therapy because now I have a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Their survival and ability to thrive require my utmost attention.”

Second-Hen’d Vice President Rebecca Clark has also found comfort and solace in her chickens: “I have this girl right now, Ducky, and she’s very intuitive. I have severe depression, and when I’m having a bad meltdown, she knows and will actually follow me around and make sure that I’m OK.”

Clark says that the nonprofit is working to find ways to extend the therapeutic benefit of chickens to the community at large: “Before COVID, we worked with a school for kids with autism; we’d take our chickens and some chicken-themed books and go read to the kids. Afterwards we’d have sensory time. There’s just something about these chickens that the kids really love.”

“We sometimes hear from staff that, ‘Oh my gosh, we’ve never seen this child smile like this before,’” Clark adds. Second-Hen’d is hoping to expand the program and offer it in more schools and potentially nursing homes in the future.

Given its grassroots nature, incredibly small team and limited resources, Second-Hen’d can only rehome two to three hundred birds per year. In the future, Camp would love to see the program become as robust as its counterparts in the U.K., but in order to do so, SecondHen’d needs to secure more funding, volunteers and a permanent plot of land in the city. No matter what though, Camp, Clark and Second-Hen’d adopters won’t give up on providing these birds a beautiful, safe home for the rest of their natural lives.

Camp says she strongly identifies with these chickens that have so much potential – but that are still seen as expendable. “In the military, when you’re so broken and so done, they no longer have any use for you,” she says. “We’re just trying to show that these birds still have a purpose and so much left to give.”

Second-Hen’d, St. Louis, Missouri, instagram.com/2nd.hend/