Meatless Monday: Foraging for Ocean-Friendly Fish…

in all kinds of places. It’s not as easy to purchase ocean (and consumer)-friendly seafood as in the old days when you could walk into the neighborhood fish market and purchase the local catch.

Now it’s important to consider whether the seafood for sale is ocean-friendly — caught in a manner and quantity which will allow the stock to thrive, or farmed under clean and ecologically sound conditions. Is the fish a Best Choice, a Good Alternative, or one you should Avoid altogether?

The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program provides all the tools you need to make choices which are good for the ocean, in  the form of a handy, frequently updated, pocket guide to help you select the best seafood from your available options. The Guide exists in printed form which you can pick up at the Aquarium or a wide variety of locations if you are lucky enough to visit the Monterey Bay area. You can also access it online and print out your own copy. The Guide is tailored for different geographic regions, so be sure to select the version of the Guide correct for you. [There is also a National version and one for Sushi.] And, if you have a smartphone, you are in luck. Download the free app and you will be able to enter the name of a fish and immediately access information on your selection and see the program’s recommendation. If you use the app on your phone, be sure to enter any good sources you find so others can share in your good fortune through Project Fishmap.

I brought my phone with me on Saturday as I did my weekend shopping. At Whole Foods I bought a 2 lb. bag of BlueBay cultured mussels, farmed on Prince Edward Island in Canada, a Best Choice. Relatively inexpensive at $5.99, and higher in Omega 3s than any other shellfish, they were also very easy to prepare. Farmed mussels are clean and beardless — no scrubbing necessary. That night we steamed them in a bottle's worth of local beer until they opened. [Tasty broth, I might add.]

Next I hit Trader Joe’s in the hopes of stocking the freezer. At TJ’s you need to be careful as there are a few good choices amongst quite a number of not so good ones. By carefully reading the labels and using the app, I was able to pick up arctic char farmed in Iceland (a Best Choice) and some crab cakes from Maryland (a Good Alternative) which I was cautioned to eat in limited quantity due to concerns about mercury content. 

Next up was a stop at home to put the purchases away. But one errand remained – a stop at IKEA for lightbulbs and a cheap cafeteria lunch. IKEA now offers Atlantic Saithe (another name for Atlantic Pollock) in their New Haven cafeteria as a replacement for their previous offering of farmed salmon (on the Avoid list). IKEA sources have informed me through email  that the saithe is sourced from MSC-certified fisheries off the coast of Norway, which would seem to make it a Good Alternative or Best Choice, depending on which type of nets were used. I was also informed that this information is not displayed since IKEA has chosen not MSC-certify their restaurants. Saithe is a mild, flaky fish, and the price of the meal is certainly a deal. I’m glad to know I can enjoy it from time to time in relatively good conscience. I haven’t given up on trying to find out more, and I am hoping that IKEA has set improving their seafood sourcing as one of their goals.

Saithe with jerusalem artichoke gravy, etc…

That’s a wrap on my weekend of fish hunting.

I hope you’ll join me in watching what seafood you eat. There is great power in numbers. The more people who ask for ocean-friendly seafood, the better! 

I am one of the Aquarium’s many volunteer Seafood Watch Advocates. If you decide you’d like to take your commitment to saving the oceans to the next level, check it out. It’s free.

Happy Monday!

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Meatless Monday: A Meet-Up in Monterey

Two seal watchers observed on our walk to meet Ryan. 

Two weeks ago my husband and I were in Monterey, California, where we had the opportunity to a real-life meet-up with one of my longtime online acquaintances, Ryan Bigelow, Outreach Manager of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program. Fish is a choice for many observers of Meatless Monday, so this seems an excellent moment to tell you a bit about our visit with Ryan.

We covered many topics while sitting outside near Fishermen’s Wharf under bright blue skies. We learned more about his role with Seafood Watch, his work with large companies to guide them in making better fish purchases, the criteria Seafood Watch uses to determine its ratings, the need for consumers to read labels carefully no matter where they make their purchases, and why sometimes food miles is not always as important as how the fish are caught or raised…

He also gave us lots of tips on how to spend our 5 days in Monterey. We began with an afternoon at the Monterey Bay Aquarium where we learned about the ecosystem of the Bay, explored the kelp forest, experienced jellyfish, found about the secret lives of seahorses, and discovered how sardines are cooked in their cans. All along the way we had many opportunities to take action to improve the health of the oceans. A favorite exhibit was the interactive diner where a menu selection elicits an entertaining video response on why the choice was a good (or bad) one. 

Jellies

We had a wonderful afternoon and a great week. More on our Monterey adventures in the days to come. 

In the meantime, check out the latest news and tools from Seafood Watch here. Be sure to download the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Pocket Guide which is right for you. Never underestimate the impact of your seafood choices.  

Happy Monday! Always remember your potential to make the world a better place.

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Saturday Short Subjects: Scott’s Settles

It’s lawn reseeding season for many in the Northeast. The best time of year for starting a new lawn in Connecticut is August 15-September 15, which means that as soon as I finish this post I am off to the back yard. I am going to use a blend of fescue to overseed the densely shaded portions in the hopes that I will be able to get grass to grow there. I won’t, however, be using Scott’s seed this time around.

On September 7 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a press release stating that Scotts Miracle-Gro Company (Scotts) will pay $12.5 Million in Criminal Fines and Civil Penalties under a settlement that resolves violations under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). This is the largest civil settlement under FIFRA to date. 

Scotts pleaded guilty in February 2012 to including illegally applying insecticides to its wild bird food products that are toxic to birds (to protect its bird foods from insect infestation during storage), falsifying pesticide registration documents, distributing pesticides with misleading and unapproved labels, and distributing unregistered pesticides. By the time it voluntarily recalled the products in March 2008, Scotts had sold more than 70 million units of bird food illegally treated with pesticide. Both the criminal and civil cases were investigated by the U.S. EPA. Read more here. 

Why Saturday Short Subjects? Some readers may recall  being dropped at the movie theater for the Saturday matinee — two action-packed feature films with a series of short subjects (cartoons or short movies, sometimes a serial cliffhanger) sandwiched in between. Often the short subjects were the most memorable, and enjoyable, part of the morning. That explains the name. The reason behind these particular posts is that we are all short on time. My Short Subject posts should not take me as long to write or you as long to read (or try).