I’ve been talking a lot recently about the fact that the more I learn about industrial/unsustainable food production, the fewer things I can enjoy eating. This isn’t all bad. It’s important to be an ethical, conscientious consumer, and sometimes the more you learn about a product (especially when it comes from a local, independently-owned source) the more you enjoy it.
These days I’ve been finding out a lot about fish. First it was Atlantic salmon, then it was pretty much everything else in the sea (well, everything not caught in Alaska).
I’ve been looking forward to seeing The Cove for a while now—it actually won the award for Best Documentary (over Food, Inc.) at the Oscars on Sunday. Fortunately, I don’t currently eat dolphins, so this movie shouldn’t have too deep an impact on my eating habits. That said, it probably will impact my enjoyment of marine mammals in captivity.
All this rambling is a lead-in to posting this story about the filmmakers of The Cove helping with a sushi sting in California at a restaurant serving whale. It’s an interesting—and pretty disturbing—tale of what some people are still interested in eating.
Eating sustainable fish is a hard buy. Not only is it a challenge especially here to find sustainable, but Consumers should use a fish buying guide, print it off and put it in your wallet for your food shopping trips. There are several out there but the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx is one of the most stringent.
Check out a local sustainable seafood distributor who is operated by Alaskan fishers, Otolith Sustainable Seafood http://www.otolithonline.com/store.html.
Go here for great Pacific seafood, sustainably managed and fished.
Watch out for farmed salmon…here is a you tube 4 part special supported by peer reviewed science and tells the story of the effects of farmed salmon on the local ecosystems in parts of the world where even Whole Foods gets their salmon. http://www.youtube.com/user/PureSalmon
So think about what your next piece of salmon sashimi or lox might be doing to the local environment