Sustainable Seafood 101: 4 Simple Tips to Make Better Choices at the Seafood Counter

Ep 012: Sustainable seafood sounds simple... until you're standing at the counter, staring at five kinds of white fish with zero idea what to buy. 

In this episode, I'm breaking down five low-effort, high-impact tips for making better seafood choices, no marine science degree required! 

In this episode, we chat about why eating local matters, what eating low on the food chain actually means, which eco-labels are worth trusting (and which to take with a grain of salt), why ocean plants deserve a spot on your plate, and one easy swap you can make as soon as this week. 

These changes are small, but they compound. You don't have to overhaul your whole diet to make a difference. By the end, you'll have at least one concrete habit to bring to the seafood counter next time you shop.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Listening to this episode means you care about what's on your plate and how it affects the greater ecosystem, the greater environment, and that's so important. And I hope with this episode that we'll encourage more people to eat more sustainable seafood in a way that still brings some joy and nourishment as well. This is Marine Conservation, the podcast where we talk ocean protection, science, activism, and everything that makes our watery world so endlessly fascinating. I'm your host, Casey Smith. I'm a marine scientist, environmental optimist, and diehard ocean nerd who's dedicating my career to protecting the sea. Fighting for the health of our oceans isn't just my job, it's my passion. And I'm here to share that love with you. Join me and my guests as we chat all things ocean and share the science, stories, and solutions that keep it thriving. Whether you're a marine professional or you dream of becoming one, or you simply just love the ocean and want to learn how you can make a difference, you're in the right place. Ready? Grab your fins and let's dive in. Sustainable seafood is a complicated topic. I think a lot of us wish that it was easier. Um, it even is complicated for me, someone who spent a lot of time like researching, trying to figure out the best seafood to buy, uh, most sustainable ways to eat food that's sourced from the sea, but there's really no way around it. It's a complicated topic for so many reasons. So I wanted to take today to do a little 101 episode. I think that making it simple at the start is really helpful. I'm gonna share with you some low effort and really practical tips to eat more sustainable seafood. And this is just gonna be the beginning. I really hope that as this podcast continues, that I'll be able to have some sustainable seafood experts here on the show that will actually impart their wisdom and have a lot more experience than me. But I do know a thing or two about eating sustainable seafood, and so I wanted to share with you sort of a beginner's guide. And these might seem like simple tips, but they really do compound, especially if you eat fish regularly. And small changes like these that I'm about to tell you are ways for all of us to just do a little part to help the ocean every week when we go to the grocery store. So this episode is for seafood lovers like myself or ocean curious eaters, home cooks, anyone who wants to buy seafood that is more sustainable, and you definitely don't need a marine science degree to do it. So last year I read a book called The Ocean of Life by Callum Roberts, who's a professor in the UK. And by the way, thought it was great. You should absolutely beat it. But there was a part in the book that I remember where he talks about how eating sustainable seafood sometimes makes you feel like you need a degree to do it. You know, you need to know so much to make good seafood choices. And in a lot of ways, that's true because there's a lot of like greenwashing that happens, so eco-labeling that isn't actually valid, or um it's hard to source a lot of seafood, it's hard to know exactly where it comes from because for obvious reasons, it's more difficult to understand those things versus food that we grow or farm here on land. And so, even as someone who marine conservation is like at the focus of my life, and I also love seafood, and I live in this kind of tension, like I want to go to the store and buy things that I don't need to feel guilty about. I want to feel like I'm eating fish that is sustainable. Um, but it's really not easy. A lot of times things are not labeled clearly. A lot of times I'll just, you know, grab something that's the more affordable option, which isn't always the best choice either, but hey, the times we live in, you know? So that's why I made this episode. I had a friend ask me a few weeks ago about sustainable seafood. So I thought this would be a good intro to the conversation that we'll hopefully go further on this podcast. And by the end of this episode, I hope that you'll have at least one concrete switch that you can make or one concrete habit that you can build that you can take to the seafood counter next time you go to the grocery store. But I do think it's important to not feel guilty. Like I literally study this stuff, and sometimes I just grab what's on offer because I get decision fatigue, I get overwhelmed. I'm like, I don't remember, I'm can I'm confused by certain things. So I definitely don't want you to feel guilty. I just want you to take a few tips, go forward with those, and see if we can all make some better seafood choices together. So let's jump into tip number one. So the first tip I think is gonna feel a little bit obvious, but it is to eat local. Buying things that are farmed close to where you live or caught if you live near the sea, it means the supply chain is shorter. So it's as close to like farm to table as seafood could be if it's coming from the ocean, like a few miles from your house. All it needs to do is be landed, so brought to shore nearby, processed nearby, and then it makes its way to the seafood counter either at your local fish store or the grocery store. And it doesn't have to travel very far. So its carbon footprint in that way is minimal. It's also more traceable. So things that are coming from nearby, it's easy to understand how it got from the ocean to your plate. If things are coming from further away, it's a lot harder to know all of those individual steps about how it got to you, whether it was caught in an ethical way, someplace really far away, it's kind of harder to tell. And then, you know, we probably had to be on a plane and then in shipping trucks and all of these things. So the traceability is really important. And it's something that I think all of us deserve to know. You know, we deserve to know where the food we're eating comes from, whether it be like produce or meat or seafood, it's really important so we can make informed, sustainable decisions. And eating local often just means that you're much more able to know where the source of your food is. And then, of course, there's the benefit for you as well, because the seafood is likely fresher if it's coming from someplace local. So, one important thing to note here is that where a fish was caught, if it's a wild-caught fish, does not necessarily have to be the same place it was processed. So a fish could be caught in international waters, for example, and then processed in the US, or can it it can be processed elsewhere? So they're two different things, and it's hard to kind of tell the difference on the label. But this is something you can ask your fishmonger. You can say, like, where was this caught and where was this processed? A lot of times I find people won't actually know the answer to this, which is so frustrating because it's kind of their job, but a lack of an answer does tell you like they're not paying so much attention to that. And if you go to like a specialized fish market, they might be able to tell you that with more ease than like say your local market basket or something like this. But it's worth asking. So starting up a conversation with your fish monger might feel like a little bit of a stretch, like, gosh, do I have to interrogate someone to buy food that I feel comfortable buying? But it's a great way to learn more. A lot of times they will want to help you, which is really great. And they can hopefully help you figure out what's a better choice. And so one action item here is that you can go the next time you're at the supermarket or the fish store. You can go and just be like, hey, what's local? What's what's fresh today? What did you get in locally today? And that's often a really good choice, one that you can feel good about. Eating local is also very similar to eating seasonally. So it's a great thing for climate, for the environment to eat what's in season and not try to farm things that aren't in season. So eat with the seasons, eat with your region. You know, a lot of us I think are very used to eating things that are imported without even thinking about it, like things like bananas that we eat all the time, at least in my house. And we absolutely don't grow bananas anywhere nearby. So it's something that we kind of don't have in our heads that often, but it can be a great key to eating in a sustainable way. And this also applies to seafood. So certain fish, for example, are in season. Either they're migrating through a certain area where they're fished during that time, or you know, they have different places where they are in different times of the year. And eating the fish that are in season is great because you're not going further afield to find them if they're going to be in local waters. So eating fish in season that are local means that you're finding things that are closer to you, which by all accounts is a great way to eat sustainably. So those are some reasons to consider eating local. And my best piece of advice for this tip is just to ask. So next time you're at the fish counter, just be like, hey, what is local here? And hopefully they'll be able to tell you. And then that can be a good choice that you can feel good about buying. And then another quick idea for eating local is that if you have absolutely no idea what might be local in your state or your region, just Google your state local seafood or like your region local seafood and just see what comes up. Do a teeny bit of research on Google and it's really low effort, high reward, and it'll give you a little bit more of an idea about what types of things are in season and local in your area. Okay, tip number two is to eat low on the food chain. So maybe you remember from your high school biology class, perhaps. Different species are at different places on the food chain. So if an animal is low on the food chain, it might be more of like a prey fish, for example. So smaller fish, um, bivalves, things that are preyed upon and they're not predators. And then all the way up at the top, we have things like sharks and tuna and orcas and animals that are predators and they prey on other animals that are lower than them on the food chain. Okay, so pretty basic. The higher up on the food chain an animal is, the more resources it takes to produce that animal or for that animal to exist, right? So more energy, more food, more time, and also more space because those predators tend to be larger than the smaller prey fish. So if we are taking from lower on the food chain, we're taking less energetically from the ocean. But a lot of times the protein and the nutrition can be just as good as taking from higher up on the food chain. So, some examples of eating low on the food chain that I personally love, one of the best things you can do is eating small filter-feeding shellfish. So bivalves. They're some of the most sustainable seafood on the planet. So things like oysters, mussels, clams, and scallops, if they are diver caught and not dredged. Like if you just take a muscle from the sea, you're not causing any damage with destructive fishing methods. But also, these animals are on such a low trophic level that they don't really require any input. They don't need to prey on any other animals. Basically, they get their food from filtering nutrients directly from the water. And they actually improve water quality when they do this. So that's why mussel farms, for example, are not only great for like developing sustainable sources of seafood for people to eat, but they're also really good for water quality. And they pretty much just grow themselves. You pop them in there, you don't really have to feed them, and you don't have to really do too much maintenance to take care of bivalves. Like oyster farms are similar as well. So that's an action item from tip number two. Eat low on the food chain. Get into bivalves. If you have slept on oysters your whole life, like I totally did, I didn't think I liked oysters for the longest time, and I'm such an oyster girl now, I love them. But mussels, clams, and sustainably caught scallops are a great way to eat sustainable seafood. And then, of course, there are things like small fish, things like sardines, anchovies, mackerel. They're often really fast to reproduce and reproduce in large numbers. So they're very abundant oftentimes in ocean ecosystems. Obviously, like anything else, you do need to make sure that they're caught sustainably. Not all sardines, anchovies, mackerel are caught sustainably, but if you can find ones that are, they are really wildly underrated as a source of sustainable seafood for us humans. And by contrast, larger predators such as tuna or swordfish or sharks, they live a lot longer than those small fish. They're a lot slower to reproduce than the small fish, and they're often more at a risk of overfishing. Those seafood items that are higher up on the food chain, you can think of it as like for that tuna to exist, for example, it had to eat so many little other fish. And for the one of those small little fish, for example, to live, they didn't have to eat as much. So without turning it into too much of a science lesson, just think about how much that animal that you're eating had to eat itself in order to get to the size that it is when you ate it. It's the same reason why eating plants is more sustainable than eating red meat, for example. Plants need less feeding, they need fewer resources to exist to the point that we would then eat them, than, for example, something like a cow. A cow needs a lot of feed, it needs a lot of energy going into its system before it's at a point that we humans can harvest it for our own eating. So it's the same in the sea, except for it's fish eating, fish eating fish. But if you think of it in levels, the lowest level that you can get is more sustainable. So an action item for this tip is the next time you are at the grocery store, instead of getting something like tuna or swordfish, try to get something that's lower on the food chain, bivalves or small pelagic fish. Okay, tip number three is to look for eco-labels on your seafood. So eco-certifications are a really good quick visual shortcut when you don't have too much time to like research different types of sustainable seafood, and you're just at the store, you see an eco-label, that's a good choice, but it's also not as simple as that because a lot of eco-labels have been criticized. They're not perfect, and honestly, I think it would kind of be impossible for them to be 100% accurate all the time. It's really, really difficult to, as I said, to know exactly where a fish comes from, to know if it was caught sustainably. It's not as easy as like walking into a farm or to a cattle ranch or a chicken farm or whatever. It's so much harder because fishing takes place in an area that not a lot of people have access to, and it's hard to police and it's hard to govern, and it's hard to really get a full understanding of what happens when fishers are out at sea. And of course, this is for wild-caught seafood. For fish farming, it's a little bit easier because maybe people have a bit more access to fish farms than they do like wild-caught fish that come from very far afield out in the ocean. So, still, eco-labels are helpful because it's better than nothing, right? And of course, they're trying, like they're not they're not all bad, but they're not perfect. So, the eco-labels I'm gonna mention now, all of them also have some really good resources on their websites for eating sustainable seafood. And also they're always improving, they're always like trying to make their systems better. So it's something that I personally do rely on, but not as the gold standard, you know. So if I see something with an eco-certification on it, I'm much more likely to buy that, yes, but I don't take it as the end all be all of sustainable seafood. So just keep that in mind. So there are a couple that I want you to know about if you don't already. So the first one is the Marine Stewardship Council, the MSC. Maybe you've seen this label before. It's a little blue fish with like a check mark on it. Um, and this is for wild-caught seafood, and it certifies that a certain fishery meets standards for sustainable fish populations, for low environmental impact, and also effective management of that fishery. And I think it's the most widely recognized label globally. Like if you've seen any of them, you've definitely seen this one. Then there's another one called the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, the ASC, and it's a blue-green logo that's found on farmed seafood. And this certification looks at different things like feed sourcing for the fish they're farming, um, water quality in their fish farms, management of disease. That's a big topic in aquaculture, habitat impact, and then social responsibility on fish farms. And then a final one to know about is best aquaculture practices, BAP. And this is also for farm seafood, and you might find it on like shrimp, salmon, tilapia. And this system uses a one to four star rating and it covers like the whole supply chain. So from the hatchery to the farm, feed, processing plant, all of it. And then the more stars it has, obviously, the better, and the more of that whole supply chain has been checked. So all three require independent third-party audits. So it's not just one organization that founded itself and then decided it was the gold standard and just tells everybody else, like, trust us. They have to be audited by third parties. Obviously, as I mentioned, it's really, really difficult. And none of them are perfect, but they all are meaningful and they all have science behind them. So it's so much better than having no information at all. So, my action item for you is the next time you're looking at packaging labels, so like on frozen shrimp or um tags at the seafounter, and also sometimes on restaurant menus, but this is I've never seen this happen, but I've heard it is out there, but I haven't seen it yet. Look for one of these three logos, and if you see them, then you can feel quite a bit better about buying that fish. And also keep in mind that if there isn't a label, it doesn't automatically mean that it's bad. So the certification from one of these eco-labels costs money, and a lot of small fisheries can't afford that certification. So you have to do your own research. But if you don't have a chance to do your own research, checking out these labels is a good thing. And in the show notes, I'm gonna have links to each of these three eco-labels, and you can see what the actual logo itself looks like. So you know what you're looking for at the store. And you can also get a little bit more information from each of these organizations, do some reading on their website. Really good information there if you want to go a little bit deeper. Okay, and then tip number four is to eat more ocean plants, not just ocean animals. So things like seaweed and sea vegetables are some of the most sustainable food on the planet. So, just like I mentioned, mussels and oysters and other bivalves, shellfish, they don't really require anything. They just kind of like grow on their own and take their nutrients from around them. You don't have to really do anything to farm them, you just kind of put them there. It's very, very similar for seaweed and sea vegetables. So there's no feed, you don't have to really take care about the water, you don't have to fertilize, and they don't take up any space on land. And they grow by absorbing nutrients from the water around them. So things like kelp, nori, sea lettuce, wakami, they're so wonderful. Both for your health and for the environment. So seaweed farms can also, just like bivalves, as I mentioned, they can improve the water quality by absorbing excess nutrients and can sometimes also help reduce algal blooms. Some species also sequester carbon, which is really amazing. Nutritionally, a lot of seaweed is really dense with great things for you. So, like minerals and fiber and vitamins and plant-based omega-3s, depending on the species. And a lot of times when there are like kelp farms, for example, this is considered regenerative ocean farming and it's a growing field. So it's something where you're not just farming for the sake of creating seafood, you're also farming to help the environment. And it's a really amazing thing. There are organizations that uh train cool stool farmers in like low-impact methods of farming, things like seaweed and or shellfish that you can grow together. And it's getting easier to find things like seaweed snacks and different types of ocean plants for you to eat at the store. So I personally am kind of obsessed with these. Uh, it's called gimme. They're just like dried sheets of, I'm not exactly sure what kind of seaweed, but I'm totally obsessed with them. They're amazingly delicious and like shockingly so, actually. And they're a great little snack, things like dried wakami for soups and salads, kelp noodles you can find now. I've also seen kelp burgers, which I personally have not been able to try it. I've never found them like in real life. I've only ever seen them like online that they exist, but it's an amazing idea. And then seaweed-based seasonings and snacks, like furakaki on your pokey bowl, for example. And this can be an addition. Incorporating ocean plants doesn't mean like you need to cut out all of the seafood, but it's really great. It's just like eat more plants if you're gonna keep red meat or other like more environmentally degradating foods on your plate. Make a little shift to have a little bit less of that and then a little bit more of the plants. And I personally think it's a really great. Great way to kind of like reduce the pressure on animal stocks in the sea. And it's so great because seafood is actually so delicious. I think it's something that a lot of us have thought of as like icky and slimy, especially if you've like been at the beach and you've stepped on a giant pile and you don't like that feeling. Um, but it is actually so delicious and it's such a great move for sustainability. So if you haven't tried out some ocean plants yet, I highly recommend it. And then in the show notes, I'll put a couple links for things that you might want to try. Okay, and then I actually have a little bonus tip for you that I think will also help you make sustainable choices, like as early as this week, as early as tomorrow, should you go to the grocery store and you find yourself wanting to buy fish? Here is one thing that I think is really handy. So the whole concept of sustainable seafood is really complicated. It's really difficult, but just narrow it down for yourself to one thing right now. So you don't have to overhaul your entire diet, just replace one kind of like autopilot buy that you have with a more intentional one, and that will compound. So think of what the fish is that you happen to eat the most or that you like the most. And then if that happens to be something that's not so sustainable, what can we swap that out with that is more sustainable? So I think one really common thing is just like white fish fillet. Uh, it's something that's really easy to cook. Like you can do so much with it. A lot of people like it. It's pretty like neutral, pretty mild. And there's so many different kinds out there. And it's easy to just be like, okay, cod, I'll take the cod. But that's not always a great idea. So swap that for something that is most local to you. Like I said, if you live near the coast, you can find out what's being landed in your area right now. Um, local almost always means fresher, more traceable, and with a lower carbon footprint. So if your autopilot buy is white filet of fish, then look into what a really local, more sustainable choice could be. And then this is my personal favorite. So I really, really love salmon, but I know that it's something that is not always the most sustainable. So one of my favorite things to do instead of buying salmon is to buy Arctic char. And it's closely related to the salmon. It tastes really similar and it cooks the exact same way. It's this beautiful pink filet of fish. Um, typically they are farmed in land-based containers, so they're not in like open nets in the sea, they don't get the same like diseases, and the impact of this fish is meaningfully lower. And it's a great choice if you really love salmon and you'd rather have that type of more like hardy pink fish, but you don't want to eat salmon anymore. So give Arctic Char a try if you can find it. I really love it. And I think if you didn't know it wasn't salmon, you might not know. And the math is really simple. Like if you eat seafood, say, once a week and you make one swap each week, that's 52 better choices a year. It really adds up. So I invite you to think about what swap you could make this week. So, what's one fish that you buy that you could replace with something a bit more sustainable? Let me know. I'd love to hear from you. Send me an email, send me a DM on Instagram, or leave a comment. Let me know what your swap is gonna be. And then I just want to leave you with one more resource. So, along with the Marine Stewardship Council, Best Aquaculture Practices, and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, uh there's something called the Seafood Watch from the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. And they have really, really good resources for sustainable fish. So it allows you to search a certain species of fish and they rate them sort of like green, yellow, red with more details in there, of course. And you can look up a certain species and look like where it's caught and see if that particular fish or bivalve, whatever, is a good sustainable choice. I really like this website and it's a great place to look if you need to do a little bit of research on what you're buying. Okay, so those are the tips I have for you today. Eat local seafood, eat low on the food chain, try to find eco-labels like MSC, ASC, BAP, and then eat more ocean plants. And then if you can, think about the one sustainable swap you're gonna make this week and just baby steps. You don't have to overhaul your entire diet, you don't have to do anything drastic, you don't have to necessarily cut anything out. I do believe that anything can be eaten sustainably, but it's hard work sometimes to make sure that happens. So let's all do our part and see if we can eat a little bit more sustainable seafood as early as this week. I also just really want to applaud you because listening to this episode means you care about what's on your plate and how it affects the greater ecosystem, the greater environment. And that's so important. I wish that everybody thought that way. And I hope with this episode that we'll encourage more people to eat more sustainable seafood in a way that still brings some joy and nourishment as well. So, like I said, uh let me know what swap you're gonna make this week. Send me an email, DM, comment, whatever, and share this episode with a seafood loving friend who maybe is also wondering what the heck do I buy when I'm at the seafood counter. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. And in the future, I can't wait to bring on some sustainable seafood experts to really dive deeper into this topic because I think it's so fascinating and it's so important, but it's complex and we don't have to figure this out alone. So tune in for that, and I'll see you next time on the next episode. Thanks so much for listening. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review. It really helps other ocean lovers find the show. For the links in the show notes, head over to caseyscook.com slash podcast. And hey, if you have a friend who'd love this episode, make sure to send it their way and spread the ocean love. Remember, the ocean needs all of us to respect it, protect it, keep it wild. Each one of us can make a difference. Until next time, keep standing up for our seeds, and I'll catch you on the next episode of This Is Melanie Conservation.