Macgregors Seafood Notes

Why wait until Friday? When you get a great question, dive right in(that's fish talk!)

IS IT AS SIMPLE AS GREEN, YELLOW, RED, WHEN DECIDING ON WHICH FISH TO CHOOSE?

This question is in response to the various sustainable fish guides that are out there, outlining the best choices for seafood. Some use a colour code system with green being the best choice, red being avoid. These guides run the gamut from detailed to quite basic. There are many out there, some regional, some based on farmed fish, some wild. One of the more detailed ones is put out by Monterey Bay Aquarium. A U.S. slant, but good detailed info on the site. www.mbayaq.org. Another good one is www.mcsuk.org, which is a United Kingdom site that takes into consideration things such as exploited wild fisheries, fishing area scientific assessment, capture or fishing methods, breeding seasons to avoid, labeling to reduce confusion, amount of by-catch, sustainable fish farming including best practice guidelines, feed, stocking density, organic principles, ranching principles…etc.
Yikes! Confused yet? So how do we make this simple? Truthfully. The balance between environment and industry is usually never simple. To be sure, we all can do our part by asking the questions. Knowledge is power. Where does the fish come from? Is it in season, or out of season? Is it an exploited fishery? If so, does the fish at least come from a recognized sustainable source? If the fish is farmed, are there best practice guidelines being used? What type of fishing method is being used? Hook and line, trap, diver? All good questions, and we certainly should have the answers to make it "simpler." The more questions asked, the more empowerment both the industry of fish and the environment of fish will have.


Mr. Fish