Seafood is now making its head way to the menu list of many restaurants and bars. Sustainability is a new buzz word with eco-warriors, journalists and foodies giving ever more advice and opinion on what we should be eating, drinking and thinking amid headlines of global-warming, carbon footprints and runaway food costs.
It is fact that the fishing industry has got involved too with the launch of its first joint initiative. The Marine Conservation Society (MCS), Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Seafood Choices Alliance, an international association for sustainable seafood, and Sustain are all pulling together to launch “Good Catch”. The main purpose of this venture is to help restaurants, caterers and chefs learn more about cooking with lesser-fished species. It also wants to highlight the importance to chefs and caterers of knowing where fish has come from and whether it has been caught through sustainable practices.
It is right that the price of seafood is nearly high always on food bills with prices growing as swiftly as catches shrink. In parts of China and Hong Kong, the average weight of any fish caught is now 10g, the result of increasingly sophisticated nets reaching increasingly younger and smaller fish. Every one knows that supplies are dwindling, but it can be confusing trying to make sense of how to buy and eat fish in a responsible way.
As obesity rates soar and diets like the Atkins put forward the benefits of eating protein three times a day, fish seems the healthiest option. According to the sources in fish farming the poisons are magnified each time the process moves up a step in the food chain so that the fish we eat are often high in mercury, nitrates and other man-made poisons.
