Start the Year Off Right: Sustainable Fish

Here is an update to an older post I made at least 2 years ago regarding the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s most recent sustainable seafood guide.

On their website, you can find the most recent sustainable information on all kinds of fish and seafood. It’ll tell you about how the fish and seafood is farmed, if it’s overfished, if it’s a good fish choice, etc. They also have a section on sushi.

Or you can download their pocket guide to take with you to the grocery store and have it on reference at all times – works great for deciphering restaurant menus when you go out to eat.

Get the Monterey Bay Aquarium Fish and Seafood Pocket Guides based on region at their site

Get the Monterey Bay Aquarium Sushi Pocket Guide at their site

Great Fish Buying Tip

In the most recent issue of Bon Appetit magazine (Feb 2009), they have a really great article on 50 Easy Ways to Eat Green.

What I discovered is Text Fishphone – it’s utterly brilliant! It’s the easiest way to find out what fish at your local grocery store is good for you (mercury levels, farming methods) and good for the environment (sustainable, farming methods). And it’s so simple: text 30644 and enter FISH, followed by the name of the fish you want to buy. It’ll return a text telling you if it’s a good one or not.

Find out if you’re living a sustainable life

Have you played the Consumer Consequences interactive game on Minnesota Public Radio’s website?

You can find out what the world would be like if everyone lived like you…

“Nice Planet…Want to Share?

The Earth couldn’t support its 6.6 billion residents if everyone lived like a typical American. Consumer Consequences will tell you how many planets it would take to support your lifestyle on a planetary scale and provide some ideas for making your ‘footprint’ a little smaller.” 

What does my footprint look like? If everyone on the planet lived like I live, then we’d need THREE planets. Whoa. I spoke to a friend yesterday who said she’d need 6 planets, so I guess I’m doing alright.

However, it seems that I need to cut down on my coffee addiction (wah wah) and start using my car less.

The push to move away from plastic bags

I’ve been reading a lot lately about people advocating for not using plastic bags. I wrote a post about this awhile ago, but I’m going to comment again because I found some great places to purchase cool grocery bags. And hey, these can be used for ANYTHING- not just groceries!

delight.com sells Envirosax for $34.50. This is the option I went for. They’re stylish, they wrap up and snap up small enough to keep in your purse or glovebox, and they’re pretty inexpensive. This includes a set of 5. I’ve given 2 to my sister to keep in her car too.

One other thing I love about these bags….they were delivered promptly in the mail with a handwritten thank you note. I mean, c’mon! No one does that anymore! I got all warm and fuzzy when I saw it.

Some other options out there:

magic-pony.com

blueq.com

bringyourownbag.com – and this one is organic cotton. isn’t this great? makes you want to use this at places other than just the grocery store, huh?

perpetualkid.com

  reusablebags.com – these nifty produce bags are a great alternative to loading up on plastic bags for single produce items. heck, i don’t use bags for any of my produce so i don’t have to worry about this at all.
do you have a favorite? please share your links for cool non-plastic grocery shoppers.

What a surprise – I can recycle things I didn’t know I could when I bought them

I discovered this morning that all 8 of my shower products are in plastics #1 and #2 – recyclable! Why I didn’t know this before? I also *shamefully* discovered that this morning:

Me before today: buy product > use product > product is empty > “can i recycle this container?” > yes/no

Me today and for now on: “can i recycle this container?” > yes > buy product > use product > recycle product container

People, check your containers to see if they’re recyclable first, then buy the product. (I noticed that out of my roommates’ 10-12 containers, zero were recyclable because I couldn’t even find a plastic number on it…yikes…what are they made of?)

What Fish to Eat – being socially responsible

I recently downloaded the Shedd Aquarium’s 2007 Seafood Wallet Guide. I’m about to print it out and I suggest you do the same. You can carry it with you when you’re grocery shopping or out for dinner.

This is a great reminder to everyone that one person can make a difference. I choose to do this by voting with my money (seeing that voting at the ballot is somewhat of a waste of time).

The Seafood Wallet Guide groups fish into 3 categories: Best Choices, Good Alternatives, and Avoid – based on two criteria:

1. The fish is high in toxins, such as mercury

and/or

2. The fish is involved in some environmentally unsafe practice, such as overfishing or harming other ecosystems

> Download the Shedd Aquarium Seafood Wallet Guide (PDF – 48KB)

Ocean’s Alive is also an excellent resource

I’ve also included the list here for you: (*= limit consumption due to concerns about murcury or other contaminant)

BEST CHOICES
These are your best seafood choices! These fish are abundant, well-managed and fished or farmed in environmentally friendly ways.
Barramundi (US farmed) – see Australis Aquaculture
Catfish (US farmed)
Clams (farmed)
Crab: Dungeness
Crab: Snow (Canada)
Crab: Stone
Halibut: Pacific
Lobster: Spiny (US)
Mussels (farmed)
Oysters (farmed)
Pollock (wild-caught from Alaska)
Salmon (wild-caught from Alaska)
Sardines
Scallops: Bay (farmed)
Shrimp (trap-caught)
Striped Bass (farmed or wild caught*)
Sturgeon (farmed)
Tilapia (US farmed)
Trout: Rainbow (farmed)
Tuna: Albacore (US & BC troll/pole-caught)
Tuna: Skipjack (troll/pole-caught)

GOOD ALTERNATIVES
These are good alternatives when the “best choices” aren’t available. There are, however, some concerns with how they are fished or farmed, or with the health of their habitats due to other human impacts.
Clams (wild-caught)
Cod: Pacific
Crab: Blue*, King (Alaska), Snow (US)
Crab: Imitation / Surimi
Flounder: Summer / Fluke
Lobster: American / Maine
Mahi Mahi / Dolphinfish / Dorado (US)
Oysters (wild-caught*)
Scallops: Bay
Scallops: Sea (Northeast and Canada)
Shrimp (US farmed or wild-caught)
Snapper: Gray / Lane / Mutton / Yellowtail (US)
Soles: Pacific
Squid
Swordfish (US*)
Tuna: Albacore, Bigeye, Yellowfin (troll/pole-caught*)
Tuna: canned light
Tuna: canned white / Albacore*

AVOID
Avoide these fish, at least for now. They come from sources that are overfished and/or fished or farmed in ways that harm other marine life or the environment.
Caviar (imported wild-caught)
Chilean Seabass / Toothfish*
Cod: Atlantic
Crab: King (imported)
Flounder: Atlantic
Groupers*
Halibut: Atlantic
Mahi Mahi / Dolphinfish / Dorado (imported)
Monkfish
Orange Roughy*
Rockfish: Pacific*
Salmon (farmed*, including Atlantic)
Sharks*
Shrimp (imported farmed or trawl-caught)
Snapper: Red*
Soles: Atlantic
Sturgeon (imported farmed* or wild-caught*)
Swordfish (imported*)
Tuna: Albacore, Bigeye, Yellowfin (longline-caught*)
Tuna: Bluefin*

My Valentine’s Dinner

This was the most memorable Valentine’s Day. In fact, I could only remember what I did last year after thinking about it for a while so my record isn’t that great. Maybe what I mean to say is that I’ll remember this Valentine’s Day.

My boyfriend made a fabulous meal for me last night. We had basil egglplant soup which was unbelievably yummy. In fact I don’t really care for eggplant that much, but this pureed version with carrots and pesto was very good.

He also made grilled red snapper with  an avocado paprika wine sauce. The sauce had a little oregano and and sour cream in it too. He rounded the meal out nicely with a bottle of Sonoma Cutrer which was perfectly buttery to match the avocado sauce and the basil soup.

This was definitely the best meal he’s made and it was better than any meal we could have had last night at any restaurant.

It just goes to show how a home cooked meal is one of the most enjoyable aspects of life.

To bag or not to bag?

I went to Rainbow Foods last night to pick up some limes and cranberry juice for my sister last night. While I was in line to check out, I noticed a major difference between the shoppers at Rainbow versus the shoppers at the Wedge.

The shoppers at Rainbow bag every single produce item. I saw a shopper with 1 onion in a produce bag. 1 onion! Are you afraid your onion might touch your jug of milk?

I looked around and noticed that people were bagging limes, lemons, tomatoes, avocados, carrots, etc. I can understand bagging produce that you might buy in mass multiples – think green beans. But 1 onion? It seems so wasteful.

Next time you’re grocery shopping, think twice about bagging that 1 onion. You can save the plastic that you’ll probaby end up throwing away once you get home.