After I wrote about my dinner of sea bass last week, a number of you asked whether sea bass was endangered. The short answer is no. But it’s something I always try to consider, and because these things can shift quickly, it’s worth checking before you buy.
You might look at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s seafood watch website, which tracks all of this, as does Blue Ocean Guide to Seafood
which also has a wallet-sized PDF that makes life easier at the supermarket.
But suppose you failed to do that before you left the house and you’re standing at a fish counter, staring at a piece of fish. You can text Blue Ocean’s Fishphone at 30644 with the message FISH and the name of the fish in question. Immediately you’ll get a text back with an assessment and, when appropriate, a more environmentally sound alternative.
If you put in sea bass, for example, you would get a message back saying, “Black sea bass; U.S. Mid Atlantic (GREEN) few environmental concerns, strong management has helped populations recover from overfishing.”
Green means green light, of course.
And the system is pretty smart. Try “halibut” and you get
(GREEN) few environmental concerns
MSC certified as sustainable;
(RED) significant environmental concerns
“MSC” means that the species has been certified as a “best environmental choice” by the Marine Stewardship Council (www.msc.org).