PSA for foodies and other people who eat

[lagilman]

For many years I lived with someone who could not stand even the hint of fish (raw or cooked). I've been making up for lost time since then, and have discovered a great range of piscine dining choices -- healthy and delish!

However, the fishing industry is... not always kind to this planet. The Monterey Bay Aquarium maintains a list of sustainable fish, and alternatives to overfished species here:
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/sfw_alternatives.aspx

If you eat fish, or buy it for your household, this is a really useful quick-check list to help you eat sustainably, for now, and for the future.



[aside: oh hey look at that! It went up to 13 degrees! Heat wave!]

Comments

[house-draven.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this link. I eat shellfish, not things with fins as a rule (there are some exceptions) but my husband likes fish and I occasionally buy it for him. We're both very concerned about the oceans, so this list is really nice to have.

[eeknight.livejournal.com]

Tilapia is an amazing fish. It can survive water conditions that would choke a catfish, but it's still delicate of flesh. Reminds me of sole.

Proof of its quality is that Papaspiros, arguably Chicago's best Greek restaurant and picky about its seafood, regularly features Tilapia as one of the dinner specials. Since it's farm-raised you can get it fresh and cheap here in the Midwest.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

I've yet to find tilapia that doesn't taste of mud. Maybe it's been a preparation issue?

[lagilman]

Really? Huh. I've never encountered that. I'd try a different fishmonger...

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

I may be picky as well. I grew up eating fresh-caught trout and can taste the difference between native and hatchery product (even though I've not done my own fishing for years, my parents were avid and enthusiastic fishers of a particular reservoir in Central Oregon). I still can't stand to eat trout--rainbow, that is--that I haven't caught myself. It just doesn't taste right.

I've not developed the same sense for other fish--but I had tilapia in fish tacos once, and it really didn't taste right. I had it in one other dish and it didn't taste right then, either. My guess is that it may be that we have substandard tilapia here.

I can't stand to eat Atlantic salmon for the same reason (doesn't taste right), unless it's the variety that's been imported to the Pacific Northwest and has gone native. But I'm in a region where we originally had five runs of different salmon species, so that's a totally different situation (and there is nothing quite so impressive as watching a huge Chinook salmon in the wild, though it's not what it used to be).

If you have a fisher in the family, too, it's still possible to get hooked up with a halibut charter and catch your own. DH did that with some friends for a few years. Fresh-caught halibut, flash-frozen at the dock because there's no way you can eat a whole one, is yummy--I was taken by the number of listings where halibut is listed as an acceptable substitute for various other rockfish. Then I sadly remember a fishing trip done by husband and friends where they were able to catch a stunning array of rockfish of different species--twenty some years ago. Not possible now.

One thing to note is that the viability and sustainability of salmon fluctuates by the year. Some years the runs are incredible and everyone is out there fishing and selling. Other years, there's hardly any. The best sustainable practice is to always go with the fresh-caught seasonal salmon because otherwise you're eating something that may not have been sustainable.

Another fishery I've seen collapse is the smelt (oolachon) runs. Twenty years ago, you could go out in the Cowlitz River and catch your limit any day with a few passes of a smelt net (catch them by standing in the water and running a dip net). Now, you hardly see any smelt, and the season is limited to one day a week. Sad, as they were quite yummy, and a feed for both sturgeon and salmon. You just gutted them (some people didn't bother with that, as they are a.) small and b.) don't eat once they leave the ocean) and fried them up, eating them bones and all.

Probably TMI on sustainability and fishing. But, having been a ranting enviro in the Pacific Northwest, fish and fisheries are something you have to understand and follow. Shapes a lot of enviro policy here.

[lagilman]

So you're speaking as to your personal taste in fish, which is different from "all the good fish are here." Understood.

(and I hear you on the other data, although I was raised in a land-based conservationist ethos.)

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Right. My taste in fish has been solidly shaped by growing up in a family of fishers--and my parents were aggressive about fishing to provide food. For my first twenty-some years of life, I didn't eat a fish that hadn't been caught by family.

The same is true of DH, though he grew up on the Tillamook estuary and had exposure to fresh oysters and fresh clams (the big blues, quahogs, steamers). Unfortunately, the radiation outflows from Hanford in the 50s left a radioactive trail that affected shellfish in that area.

Considering the native fisheries here were so abundant that the local Natives were able to provide for themselves based on fishing rather than hunting, it's sad to see the current state of the local fisheries now (seriously--one culture shock for Lewis and Clark was that the locals used the rivers and creeks for travel rather than land. Considering the nature of a PNW forest, it was logical).

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Another really important page is the one they link to at the bottom - safe consumption limits (http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=17694). It is sad but true that essentially all fish is contaminated with heavy metals and PCBs; the question is simply the degree to which it's been able to accumulate in the fish.

[lagilman]

The trick is to eat the shorter-lived fish, as they have less chance to accumulate --and can also repopulate more swiftly.

It's also important to not panic about mercury etc, unless you a) eat a LOT of fish or b) are pregnant/have a compromised system. A healthy human body is surprisingly good at filtering out crap, assuming you don't abuse it.

http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=15904

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

There are several river systems here in Oregon where safe consumption limits are posted in the fishing regs. The numbers are surprisingly small, especially for bass (obviously not a concern for sea run fish). If I recall correctly, it's recommended that consumption not exceed a single serving per day, two or three days a week.

The concern is mercury seepage from gold mining, both new mines and old. Sadly, some of these limit areas are in rural locations where locals may be fishing to feed their families, not for sport.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

We have safe consumption levels posted on salmon and some other fish in Maine. Mostly mercury from natural leaching (well, natural as caused by acid rain) from the bedrock, although we have a defunct chlor-alkali plant on the Penobscot that used a lot of mercury in the electrolysis cells.

I believe sea-run striped bass is covered by the warnings.

[(Anonymous)]

It's a relatively useful table concerning the fishery characteristics... but not so much for the "substitutions". (I grew up in Seattle eating a lot of fish from the Pike Place Market, and almost all line-caught. OK, it was a looooong time ago.) For example, even suggesting that tilapia -- a decent enough fish itself -- can substitute for grouper indicates that the person who decided so doesn't actually do the cooking him/herself! I suspect that it's a "it works in my two favorite recipes for this kind of fish without being awful" sort of thing...

--Jaws

[lagilman]

Actually, it's a "texture and firmness" substitution, which IS useful to those of us who cook. I find tilapia to be the (better-tasting) tofu of the fish world -- it adapts itself to most recipes, in most cuisines, and has the plus of being farmable without endangering local habitats.

[stef94.livejournal.com]

We picked up a whole bunch of their pocket guides when we were in Monterey in 2008.

And in case you go traveling abroad, WWF has similar guides for a number of (mostly Western) countries.


And yay!! for the start of spring

/sarcasm


ETA: *doh* I just realised that most of those guides are in the native languages for the country *facepalms*

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... does char cook the same as salmon, that's what I need to know.

[lagilman]

Nothing cooks the same as salmon. Salmon is the King of Fish. But it's a close relative, and shares a lot of the characteristics, including the fatty texture/taste/cooking needs.

It's also yummy as hell.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

The advantage of living in the Pacific Northwest is that most of the recommended fish choices are the local, readily available choices. When it comes to fish, we often buy salmon from Indian fishers at the farmer's market--and if you have a freezer, you can take an ice chest and drive up the Columbia to the places around Hood River where the Indians are selling fresh-caught salmon.

And as for crab--seriously, I don't understand why anyone would go for King over Dungeness. There's no comparison--Dungeness, especially fresh-caught winter Dungeness, is soooo much sweeter. Stone crab isn't as good as Dungeness, in my opinion. But then again, I'm spoiled because I have eaten Dungeness fresh out of the ocean (crabbing's easy enough to do around here/get during the season--it's like lobster in Maine).

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Don't want to jump on something that wasn't intended, but lobstering in Maine isn't easy. Or particularly safe. We had one fatality a week or so back, stern-man fell overboard and died before people who were already on the scene could pull him back aboard.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

The recreational Dungeness crabbing is easy. The commercial season here--recent stats are showing that Oregon's commercial Dungeness fishery is the biggest ocean killer of all.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Just about any kind of commercial fishery is a hard, dirty, and damned dangerous job. Even sea-urchin roe for sushi -- we lost several boats and crews on that, last year.

[lagilman]

I react to crab the way some other folk react to wine: 'eh, it's all shellfish, right?"

I shall not reply to your comment about the PacNW because I'm sure my 'tude about living in the MetroNYC area & the availability of things here comes across just as annoyingly. ;-)

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Eh, it's the advantage of location. You have the advantage of location for other stuff. We get the fish (grin).

[lagilman]

*blink* Because bluefish, sea bass, flounder, and cod, to name a few, aren't fish? Not to mention freshwater trout? All damn good eating, if some are off-limits right now.

(I know what you meant, but it's more fun to raise an eyebrow)

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

When I was living further down in the Willamette Valley salmon wasn't the focus that it is here in Portland, and on the Columbia (no Indian fisheries down there, for example).

However, mostly, any more when it comes to fish, I try to eat local. It's just easier to do here because we have more of the sustainable options available for the moment. That is, sadly, going to change, I'm afraid (I admit, I follow the salmon run statistics to shape my yearly salmon eating behavior).

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

One thing I don't see anywhere in that list -- farmed catfish. I thought it ranked well up in sustainability and such.

[lagilman]

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_factsheet.aspx?gid=34

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Wonder why it didn't rate on the other chart? It's yummy.

[lagilman]

don't know...maybe because nothing can really sub for it?

mmmm, catfish po'boy. *iz hungry nao*