August 4th, 2009

From Green Right Now Reports

The more you learn about your carbon-footprint, the more you’ll realize that it’s weighed down as much by food choices as by what car you drive and your home energy program.  Food production comes with a cornucopia of green issues, from pesticide use to deforestation to global shipping.

No food issue, though, is more important than choosing the right fish to eat. Seafood merits special attention, because the fish varieties that we’re consuming could be on the brink of survival.  Ocean ecosystems are being wrenched apart by the overfishing of certain species and the destructive fishing techniques used to harvest others.

Fortunately, there’s help out there to assist you in sorting out what you can responsibly buy and what you should avoid.

Seafood Watch is a current, easy-to-use table of contents to the marine menu. It breaks down your seafood options into three categories, “Best Choices”, “Good Alternatives” and “Avoid.” These lists are kept and updated by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, an authority on marine health. You can download a pocket guide to use while shopping or use the iPhone application, handy for dining out.

For those who want to know why and how their favorite menu pescatarian choices have been graded, click through on any given species and find out more. Haddock, for instance, is considered either a “Good Alternative” or a fish to “Avoid” depending on the fishing technique used to catch it. Haddock caught the old-fashioned way, with a hook and line, are considered to have been reasonably harvested. Trawled Haddock, however, represent a destructive practice that’s harmful to coral and the ocean’s floor.

Now this gets to be a deep subject, so a new fish selector service has launched. FishChoice.com aims to help commercial buyers like restaurants and retailers hook up with sustainable fishing enterprises, so that the seafood industry can steer a new course. FishChoice.com is starting as a non-profit, funded by foundations and donors, but expects to earn some operating money from subscriber fees at a later date.

“It’s been difficult to find sustainable seafood at the right commercial quantities,” said Richard Boot, Founder & President of FishChoice.com, in a news release announcing the new service today.

“FishChoice.com provides a business solution to an environmental problem by creating a crucial link in the supply chain to connect buyers and sellers of sustainable seafood,” said Boot, a former chef who previously worked with a fishery advocacy group.

Soon maybe you won’t need that pocket guide.

(Image credits: Haddock, Monterey Bay Aquarium; FishChoice.com logo)