Navigating Sustainable Seafood Choices

10min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Exploring the Seafood Watch Guide and various resources available for making sustainable seafood selections, including concerns about farmed Atlantic salmon in Norway and the impact of lobster fishing on North Atlantic right whales. The chapter emphasizes the role of consumer education in influencing retailers and restaurants to offer transparent information and highlights success stories like the conservation efforts for rockfish. It also discusses the affordability and sustainability of different fish options, promoting the use of online guides and the importance of asking questions when making seafood purchases.

Roughly 196 million tons of fish were harvested in 2020, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The organization also notes that the number of overfished stocks worldwide has tripled in the last century. All of this overfishing has led to the decline of entire species, like Atlantic cod.

Enter the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch. It and other free guides give consumers an overview of the world of fish and seafood, helping people to figure out the most sustainable fish available to them. With the help of Life Kit's Clare Marie Schneider, we figure out how to make informed decisions about what we eating – whether that's at a restaurant or the local supermarket.

Check out more from Life Kit on sustainable seafood.

Have questions or comments for us to consider for a future episode? Email us at shortwave@npr.org — we'd love to hear from you!

A previous version of this episode incorrectly stated that there are native wild salmon in Chile. Salmon are not native to Chile.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy