smart seafood

speaking of seafood sensation.... via the washington post's smart living section, an easy way to navigate the confusing world of seafood sustainability.

The most straightforward thing you can do is avoid eating any species that has been consistently overfished. According to a recent report from the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, 28 percent of global fish stocks were overexploited, depleted or recovering from depletion in 2007. Another 52 percent were fully exploited, meaning that catch levels had either been reached or were close to their maximum sustainable limits. (For more on the world's overfishing problems, watch the new documentary "The End of the Line," billed as "An Inconvenient Truth" for the seafood industry.)

To find out how your favorite fish is doing, check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium's popular Seafood Watch program, which rates both wild-caught and farm-raised seafood as "best choice," "good alternative" or "avoid." For wild-caught fish, the program looks at stock levels but also takes fishing techniques into account, because some types of gear result in greater damage to the marine environment or higher levels of collateral damage to nontarget species. For farmed fish, which are often raised in net-pens in the open ocean, Seafood Watch looks at the potential for pollution and disease transference to the ecosystem. (Wild-caught Alaskan salmon, canned albacore tuna and farmed rainbow trout all get high marks under this program.) In the supermarket, look for the Marine Stewardship Council's eco-label, a blue oval with a fish and a checkmark. That certifies that products come from sustainable fisheries.

i visited the monterey bay site, and discovered they also offer a handy iphone app, so you can make better choices when you're in a store or restaurant. while the post article points out there's not much info about carbon footprints, that info isn't very widely available. and even if we can make our choices a little more smart, that's better than an altogether dumb one.