Shall We Fed-Ex Your Fish To You?
Accepting the fact that we all must make compromises for living in the modern world, trying to be green when it comes to fish is sort of like watching a horse-race: Eat this fish! Wait, no, eat this fish! And that fish, but only if it’s from Chile and not Argentina! And don’t even think about ordering THAT, you might as well kill a baby polar bear!
The greenest choice for salmon, according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Guide, is wild Alaskan salmon. The types to avoid are farmed salmon, Atlantic salmon, (see? it’s already confusing–”Alaskan” vs. “Atlantic”) and sake salmon, which they say is salmon used for sushi. The Aquarium has a great pocket guide that you can get as an iPhone app (or download and print for traditionalists) to keep in your wallet for the next time you buy/order fish–click on the link in the “Links” section to the right. Do download it periodically because fisheries are continuously changing and what might be sustainable today might not look that way tomorrow.
The sushi issue also brings up the question of getting your fish fresh or frozen, and most studies point to getting your fish frozen. If you buy your fish fresh, that means that it’s been literally jetted from the boat to you (and the route may not be all that direct). Frozen fish is transported by freight trains, which place much less demand on oil. While some foodies will claim that fish must be fresh, others will argue right back that frozen fish is in fact, fresher, because it’s frozen right after it’s caught, whereas fresh fish will do some travelling before it gets to you.
Greenest option? Probably a fishing pole. But for those of you who don’t live in the Alaskan wilderness, this is what we’ve got. Please—if there’s one thing you can do, download that pocket guide and stay away from anything in the red…I know, I like monkfish too.
