A GUIDE TO SHOPPING FOR SEAFOOD

_{The GMO salmon that never made it to market}

Not that long ago the clear, plump eyes of the fish on the seafood counter in the grocery was enough to assure a shopper that it was safe to eat. Today, that whole fish has been replaced by filets possibly farmed in foreign waters or wild-caught by a floating fishing factory, fileted, frozen, shipped to your market and defrosted in the back room. Our oceans have become polluted by poorly regulated runoff from industry, from jettisoned trash and by the fishing industry’s inadequate removal of its own waste. How does a seafood lover know what to buy?

Marion Nestle* stepped into this dystopian scene in 2002 with the book, Food Politics, a thorough analysis of the problems facing he world’s seafood supply. In a just-published pamphlet, The Fish Counter, Nestle updates and expands on the issues currently facing consumers. She explains how and why our government and the fishing industry have failed to properly address water pollution and dwindling fish stocks. Nestle also examines a GMO salmon project that never made it to market, the nutritional properties of surimi, vegan seafood and why color is added to farmed salmon

Nestle herself gives us the takeaway: consumers are on their own when it comes to purchasing a fish untainted by toxins or practices that harm the environment, degrade the ocean and disrupt coastal communities.

_{The Whole Foods fish counter on June 16 in Willowbrook, IL (check out the prices!)}

Here is a checklist I developed after reading The Fish Counter:

1. I shop at a store I trust: my local Whole Foods where employees are knowledgeable about what they sell, and the fish is clearly labeled as to country of origin, whether it is farmed or wild and if it has been previously frozen.

2. I check to see that a wild-caught fish bears the certification label of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)

3. A farmed fish has to bear the the label of the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC).

4. Even better, but not imperative, is a seal from the Global Seafood Alliance (GSA) a 8,000 member trade association.

5. I eat wild salmon and tuna no more than once a week and look for the small skipjack salmon and light tuna which harbor lower levels of methylmercury.

6. I avoid buying fish from countries in Southeast Asia and China where the violations of the human rights of their crews are well documented.

Mackerel from TinCanFish.com

Nestle has yet to use her sleuthing skills to examine the canned/tinned fish industry. Tinned fish is an inexpensive alternative when prices for fresh fish are high or the selection is limited. Sardines and small mackerel live shorter lives and eat vitamin-rich algae which makes them less likely to carry toxins and more likely to have a higher level of omega-3’s than larger fish.

Graciously accept a neighbor’s gift of fresh water fish caught in an American stream or lake but ask where it was caught. Inland waters carry the same risks to fish as the sea. But sometimes it's worth taking a chance.  A friend left two small lake sturgeon at my back door one recent Sunday morning. They looked like living fossils with thorny armor-thick hides and shovel noses. These fish had been plucked from their spawning grounds in the muddy shallows of the Mississippi in northwestern Wisconsin.

In the process of removing the tough scales, the larger one split open to reveal an eight ounce sack of glistening black roe. After a short soak in a bath of filtered water and salt, these eggs became caviar. I served us a generous mound  in a baked potato with crème fraîche, and we toasted our good fortune with a glass of bubbly. (At Caviar Caspia on the Place de la Madeleine in Paris the price for a baked potato with one ounce of caviar is currently 122€.)

* Marion Nestle is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita at New York University and is also a visiting professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell.