Regarding Fish

There is conflicting information about eating fish. What is healthy, what is not? As the recent article, The Flip Side of Tilapia, from the New York Times reports, the production of Tilapia has been, like so many things, industrialized and tainted, to the point where the fish lack the very attributes that make eating fish recommended as a healthy component of diet. This is tragic. I remember decades ago, The New Alchemy Institute, a forward-thinking non-profit on Cape Cod, was incorporating Tilapia into their experimental greenhouse ponds, raising them in an organic environment as they worked to develop ecological, sustainable, local food systems. That small-scale, organic model has gone by the way-side.

Paul Greenberg's excellently written Four Fish details the issues with wild and farmed fish, as well as presenting useful solutions—highly recommended for anyone concerned about the future of food.

Slow Food's Slow Fish Campaign is full of helpful and inspirational information. At the end of May, Slow Fish held a convention in Genoa, Italy focusing on small-scale fishers. Slow Food says,

"Slow Fish celebrates and draws awareness to artisanal fishing in many ways and investigates the difficult balance between safeguarding the income of fishers and protecting the marine resources on which their livelihood depends. This begins with welcoming fishers from across the world, like Frank Fleming, the Irish fisherman who, while battling to compete with the huge quantities of industrially caught fish on the market, set up a certification system for responsibly caught fish; or 16 year old Georgios from Greece, a third generation member of a family of fishers who use small boats and traditional fishing methods; or the Oosterchelde Lobster Presidia fishermen from the Netherlands whose careful techniques ensure the survival of the species for future generations."

Thank goodness there are still fisherman working on a small, sustainable level. Explore the Slow Fish site for more information and tips.

Two of the many resources offered at Slow Food include the Chef's Collaborative report, Seafood Solutions: A Chef’s Guide to Sourcing Sustainable Seafood, and for residents and visitors of the UK, restaurants serving responsibly harvested fish can be found at Pisces Responsible Fish Restaurants.

In the meantime, I suggest some wild sardines (still available) as they are low on the food chain so don't have the toxin and heavy metal loads that tuna and other larger fish have, and, so far, are not endangered