Eating Gulf-friendly is up to you
To the editor:
Are you seafood savvy? That’s a question you will hear often from your friends and family in the coming months. Seafood savvy means that you are in tune with the next wave of smart choices in eating responsibly. It’s called sustainable seafood.
Seafood Savvy is also the name of a program just begun by START, a Florida non-profit organization dedicated to preserving our coastal waters. The goal of Seafood Savvy is to give you, the consumer, the tools and information you need to make the right choice next time you order fish at your favorite restaurant or buy a couple of pounds of shellfish at your local seafood market.
But what are the right choices? Almost 75 percent of the world’s fisheries are fished to capacity, or are being overfished. You have the power to improve that percentage or to make it worse. If you choose to eat species, whether caught or farmed, that are abundant, and harvested with methods that will not cause long-term harm to the environment and other sea life, then your grandchildren will be able to enjoy eating them as well.
Seafood Savvy has teamed up with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program to help you make the right selections, with an easy-to-use pocket guide. It folds up to fit in your wallet or purse, and uses a simple green (go), yellow (caution) and red (stop) color scheme. Green is a list of seafood that are “Best Choices” to eat, yellow is a list of “Good Alternatives” if the best choices are not available and just “Avoid” any of the seafood on the red list.
Although Chilean seabass is one of the most popular selections at many restaurants, it is being severely overfished and has high levels of mercury. Likewise, our Gulf grouper and red snapper are being overfished and are on the “Avoid” list. Instead, choose Gulf-friendly seafood, that are wild-caught or farmed-raised with sustainable methods, and that will support our local fisheries at the same time. Next time you go out to eat try Gulf of Mexico mahi mahi, Florida spiny lobster, stone crab or wild-caught Gulf shrimp.
To get you own Seafood Watch pocket guide, which is updated every January and July, call Seafood Savvy at 888-757-8278.
Capt. Jeff Werner
president of the Bonita Springs/Ft. Myers Chapter of START and a member
of the Seafood Savvy