Picking Seafood Wisely

Vancouver is much vaunted for its extensive seafood dining options, and with good reason. Just look at our surroundings... here we are and there the Pacific is. That thing is full of fish. I've had more than a few friends come here to visit with one of their objectives being to eat sushi every day while they're in town. I'm a huge seafood fan myself and am particularly enamoured with the raw fish, so it's important to me that future generations also have access to these fabulous sources of nourishment and taste. The thing is, there may or may not be an endless supply, and the choices that consumers make about our seafood will ultimately decide how long the precious resource will last. It's complicated though... salmon caught wild in Alaska is good, but farmed Atlantic salmon is bad. Atlantic cod is bad, Pacific trawl-caught cod is better, and Alaskan longline-caught cod is the best. The list goes on and on and on. Luckily there's a few organizations out there who want to help the public make wise seafood decisions.

On the home front, the Vancouver Aquarium runs the Ocean Wise program, which puts its logo on sustainably-managed seafood menu items in participating Vancouver area restaurants.

Of course, Vancouver's own David Suzuki Foundation has lots to say about sustainable fishing... along with a headfull of other very important things.

Sea Choice gives us the ever-so-handy pocket-sized Canada Seafood Guide.

Heading down south, the Monterrey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch also has a great website with regional guides so you can be informed whether you're eating seafood on the west coast, in the northeast, in Hawaii, etc.

And on the east coast we have the Blue Ocean Institute spreading the word out of New York State.

No more excuses.

Photo courtesy of SqueakyMarmot.