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Remember when eating seafood was easy? Fish was fish. But things have changed and now, it's okay to eat some fish, but not others. Wanna eat Dungeness crabs? Go for it. But Chilean sea bass? No. Bluefin tuna? Nope. Orange roughy? Unh unh. Swordfish? Yes, but only if it's caught using a harpoon or handline in the U.S. or Canada—and it'll probably be loaded with mercury or other contaminants so you may want to limit your consumption. Geesh!
Don't panic. We'll show you how to make choosing the right seafood easy. But first, we'll explain the difference between the right fish and the wrong fish.
Sustainable vs. Unsustainable
It's all in the way they're caught. The right fish are harvested sustainably. That means there's a balance between the number of fish we're catching and the number of babies the fish are producing. If we maintain this balance, these fish will be around to feed future generations.
The wrong fish are overfished—we're catching them faster than they can reproduce. If we don't give them a chance to catch up, these fish won't be around much longer. That's not only a problem for the fish and for seafood-lovers—we tend to overfish the tastiest fish—but it's also a problem for the whole ocean. For instance, the overfishing of sharks has led to an abundance of rays, who, in turn, eat all those delicious clams and scallops. In North Carolina, the over-abundance of rays ate so many scallops that there weren't any left for the fishermen to harvest.
Wild-caught vs. Farm-raised
There's another kind of right fish and wrong fish. In wild fisheries, the wrong fish are those caught using gear that digs up the ocean floor or that the gear accidentally traps and kills other species, like sea turtles and dolphins. The right fish are often caught using gentler methods like "hook and line."
In farm-raised fisheries, the wrong fish come from farms that pollute the local environment or harm the wild population of fish. For instance, salmon farms spread parasites to wild salmon and pollute the nearby waters with loads of waste. In other words, farmed salmon is the wrong kind of fish. But there is one exception: tilapia farmed in the United States is farmed in closed inland systems that prevent pollution and fish escapes.
Finding the right seafood
There are still plenty of fish that are okay to eat, like farmed mussels and oysters, wild Alaska salmon and Stone crabs. And there are lots of resources to help you make the right choice at the grocery store or in a restaurant. Seafood Watch, Blue Ocean Institute and Environmental Defense Fund all offer national guides to help you select the most eco-friendly seafood. Seafood Watch also offers a sushi guide and a number of regional guides. You can print these guides and keep them in your wallet, or try the more tech-savvy approach. Text 30644 with the message "FISH" with the name of the fish you're considering, and Blue Ocean Institute's FishPhone will respond with an assessment of the fish along with other alternatives. If you're an iPhone user, you can download the free Seafood Watch application.
If you want to find seafood that's sustainable and good for you, check out Seafood Watch's brand new Super Green List.
Click here for information on overfishing and here for more about farmed salmon.
What are your favorite fish? Share your thoughts and comments below:
