You may have guessed from my previous posts on grass-fed and free-range beef that I’ve been thinking about sustainability and meat a lot lately.  Beef was an easy thing for me to write about because I feel like I have a real handle on how to eat beef in a sustainable way: don’t eat it very often and on the few occasions you do eat it make sure it’s grass-fed and free-range.  Other meats aren’t as easy to understand.  Take fish.

I’ve been interested in seafood and sustainability for a for a while how, but I’ve never really dug into the issue (let alone written about it) because, and I’m ashamed to admit this, it’s really complicated.  We don’t know a lot about the ocean.  It’d deep, it’s dark, and it’s a little scary.

How little do we know about the ocean?  Well, there are entire, very large,  species of animals  (giant squid) that live in there that we only know about because there remains wash ashore every once and again.  Also, some of the best scientific knowledge we have about ocean currents comes from, and I’m dead serious here, mapping where a shipment of hockey gloves swept overboard in a storm eventually washed ashore (one of those cases where it’s science because we did it while wearing lab coats) .  Basically what I’m saying is that the ocean is a mysterious place that we know surprisingly little about, and yet we utilize a whole heck of a lot for our diets.

Both global and national demands for fish as food are increasing hugely.  According to the World Health Organization, the average per person consumption of fish has just about doubled in the past 50 years (keep in mind that the number of persons has increased as well) and this trend shows no signs of slowing down or stopping.  In fact, the opposite may be occurring.  World wide, as populations increase in wealth they add more protein to their diets and fish is a popular protein.  And on top of that, in nations where protein is already abundant in the diet (such as the United States) fish is seen as a more healthful alternative to meats like beef or pork.  Here fishy fishy.

It’s time to stop complaining that seafood is hard to understand and to start looking for resources to help me figure it out. Here are three resources I’ve found that I’d like to share:

First is Green Chefs, Blue Ocean by the Chefs Collaborative and the Blue Ocean Institute.   It’s designed for chefs and restaurateurs, but the information is useful for anyone who wants to know more about seafood, where it comes from, and whether their choices are sustainable.  I completed the introductory lesson (there are about 6 lessons altogether) and found it very informative.  It had good sources for its facts and a nice, broad definition of sustainability that addressed not only both farmed and wild-caught seafood, but also sustainability in terms of the fishing communities, which is something that should be considered but is frequently excluded from dialogue on sustainable fish.

Next is the Monteray Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Site.  While I know most people skip straight to the seafood recommendations, I ignored those for the moment and focused on the background information the site provided.  I particularly found their Ocean Issues section to be helpful and informative.  This gives some nice background in wild-caught and farm-raised seafood, including information that might not be widely known such as the damage caused by underreported fishing or the effects of farmed fish that escape into the wild.

Finally there is the website of local freelance writer Jacqueline Church, who was one of the panelists at the Farm, Fish & Fowl discussion at Tufts last Monday.  Church is a lawyer by training, but has gone on to a career as a food writer with a strong sustainability bent and an interest in pigs and fish of all things.  Her blog and newsletter are great for keeping an eye on local events focused on sustainable seafood.