Sustainable seafood on the go

July 13th, 2009

Photo via Flickr: NeilsPhotography

Thanks to the success of the movie The End of the Line, which is bringing the issue of overfishing into the mainstream consciousness in much the same way that An Inconvenient Truth did with global warming, sustainable seafood seems to be the buzz phrase everywhere these days.

Even in Door County, WI, where I just returned from a lovely respite, most of the restaurants I dined at featured ethically caught seafood, and never failed to make mention of it on their menus: local Lake Michigan perch for a fried fish sandwich I devoured post-boating, fresh lake whitefish for the famous Door County fish boils, and hook-and-line caught wild Alaskan salmon for our farewell dinner at the scrumptious Mr. Helsinki (not local, but still a “best” choice, according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch).

But what should you do when you’re at a sushi restaurant that doesn’t highlight which items are, in fact, sustainable? And what about when you’re at the supermarket trying to remember if it’s Pacific or Atlantic flounder you should avoid? Unfortunately, you can’t always trust the source to give you an honest answer. Trader Joe’s, for example, may be known as a supplier of natural and organic foods, but it’s been given an “F” score by Greenpeace for its seafood purchasing policies and its very own “Traitor Joe’s” website.

Luckily, there are a couple of cool tech options for researching the right seafood choices on the go. FishPhone is the Blue Ocean Institute’s sustainable seafood text messaging service (it’s free, minus your cell carrier’s charges, of course); just text 30644 with the message FISH and the name of the fish in question, and you’ll receive a message back with their assessment. For those with the iPhone or iPod touch, there’s the Seafood Watch free iPhone app, which includes a sushi guide that lists fish by Japanese name as well as the common market name. Wild-caught mirugai, yes; freshwater unagi, no.

–Jennifer Grayson

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