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Seafood Watch: Eating Sustainably from the Ocean
August 8, 2007

A few weeks ago, the Green Journal on energy saving meal tips, including a simple halibut recipe, elicited a question about what seafoods are sustainable. That is an interesting and often confusing question and depends on your definition of sustainable and your location. Overall, seafood demand continues to increase as more people seek healthier alternatives to meat and poultry. Over one-third of the seafood sold are now farm-raised, in order to keep up with this demand. Overfishing has nearly wiped out many once-common species like cod, bluefin tuna and rockfish. Depending on the fishing method, other wildlife can be unintentionally caught as part of the bycatch. For every pound of shrimp caught in trawl nets, up to TEN pounds of other sealife can be killed. So how can we choose wisely, with so many issues to consider?

For me, a great resource on sustainable seafood is the Seafood Watch Program from the Monterey Bay Aquarium (one of our family’s favorite places). This program is part of the aquarium’s effort to educate individual consumers and businesses on the impact of our choices. Seafood Watch also offers practical tips and alternatives we (non-vegetarians and vegans) can all choose to help preserve the sea. My favorite tool is the seafood guide (downloadable into a pocket-sized version) that simply categorizes seafood by Best Choices, Good Alternatives and Avoids. Best Choices are abundant, well-managed or farmed in environmentally friendly methods. The Avoids are over-fished or farmed in ways harmful to the ocean and other marine life. The guide is tailored by geography and covers all major regions of the U.S. Best Choices (for the west coast) include: farmed clams, oysters and mussels, Pacific Halibut, Alaskan Salmon, Farmed Rainbow Trout, Striped Bass and Farmed Tilapia. Avoids include: Chilean Seabass, Monkfish, Orange Roughy, Farmed Salmon and Bluefin Tuna

I also really like the fact that many of the local restaurants participate in Seafood Watch by pledging to not serve the Avoids. Of course, it is still up to us the consumer to ask about the origins of the seafood but at least this guide can help point the way.

CindyC at Organicpicks

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