New sushi guide red-list farmed salmon
USA: Sushi lovers nationwide will soon have a way to make seafood choices that please the palate and safeguard the world's ocean wildlife. Not surprisingly, farmed salmon is not recommended.
On October 22, three leading ocean conservation organizations -Blue Ocean Institute, Environmental Defense Fund and the Monterey Bay Aquarium - will make available to the public, color-coded consumer guides ranking popular sushi selections based on whether they are prepared using seafood that's caught or farmed in ways that harm the ocean or pose a health risk to people. The guides will be available in print, online and mobile device versions.
For sushi aficionados, that means both pleasant surprises - and some disappointments. Popular items like bluefin tuna (hon maguro/kuro maguro) and freshwater eel (unagi) are firmly on the "red" list, as is farmed salmon (sake). These species are either overfished, farmed with aquaculture methods that pollute the ocean, or caught using methods that destroy ocean habitats or kill large amounts of other sea life.
Items like wild-caught Alaska salmon (sake), farmed scallops (hotate) and Pacific halibut (hirame) are more sustainable choices, in part because they come from abundant, well-managed fisheries or - in the case of scallops - are raised using sustainable aquaculture methods.
All three guides incorporate human health recommendations from Environmental Defense Fund, and fish that contain levels of mercury or PCBs that may pose a health risk to adults or children are flagged. Fisheries researchers from the Blue Ocean Institute and Monterey Bay Aquarium evaluated the seafood species included on the guides. The Monterey Bay Aquarium seafood rankings are the basis for items selected by Environmental Defense Fund for inclusion in its sushi guide.
Blue Ocean Institute, Environmental Defense Fund, and Monterey Bay Aquarium are also part of a larger consortium of marine conservation organizations known as the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions (www.solutionsforseafood.org). In May, the consortium released its "Common Vision for Environmentally Sustainable Seafood," promoting steps companies can take to develop and implement comprehensive corporate policies on sustainable wild-caught and farmed seafood.
