The Race to Save the Once Mighty Salmon

How many times have you read a study that says to eat more fish in your diet because it’s good for you? But is what’s good for you good for the environment? Over the last 2 1/2 years of food blogging I’ve always stayed true to my healthy cooking ways but I have grown in one key area, which is choosing sustainable ingredients. In my opinion it’s the only way forward to save our food sources and I’m glad word is catching on (no pun intended).

The albacore tuna photos above were taken in Dingle, Ireland where I had the opportunity to speak to the owner of the fishery, which you can read about here. Now, I’m still learning about what’s considered sustainable and I’ll admit it’s not always an easy task. But that’s the point here–I’m choosing to educate myself to make the right choices. Our Dingle trip was back in October 2008 and rereading that article I wrote I realised that these fish were caught with nets, which nowadays is not considered to be sustainable fishing practices. Here I thought just picking the right fish was good enough but the reality is now I need to know how it’s caught as well. Here’s a great article on albacore tuna practices.

Well this article wasn’t supposed to be about albacore but that’s what happens when I start putting my thoughts on paper–my beautiful mind starts racing all over. What really got my attention last night was this piece from the Nightly News about salmon. I love salmon so I was happy to see the word is spreading about farmed salmon. Take a gander at the video:

I’m sure you can guess where I stand and trust me, even I get overwhelmed by it all. But there’s help out there. What do you think? Have we all gone mad or is overfishing/purchasing unsustainable fish a real problem? When you buy fish including at restaurants do you order sustainably or does that factor into your decision making?