When buying and eating seafood, it’s important to consider the environmental impact. And to encourage us to make more sustainable choices, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) maintains a Good Fish Guide.
Covering seafood sold or produced in the UK, the guide uses a traffic light system – with green being ‘best choice’, amber an ‘OK choice’ and red indicating ‘fish to avoid’.
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Now, the charity has released a list of simple swaps after it revealed that most seafood consumed in the UK comes from just five species: cod, haddock, salmon, tuna and prawns.
Chris Graham, head of ocean regeneration and sustainable seafood at the MCS explains, “Relying so heavily on just a few species puts a lot of strain on wild populations and farms and can lead to unsustainable fishing and seafood farming practices. By choosing sustainable and lesser-known alternatives, we can help reduce that pressure and support more responsible seafood production.”
Here are the charity's recommended sustainable swaps.
Swap cod for hake
Cod may be a popular choice for a chippy tea, but the MCS have warned that there are no green-rated cod stocks in UK seas, with most cod imported into the UK from Icelandic or Arctic stocks. Instead, swap it for hake – ideally European wild-caught hake. It has a similar texture to cod so can be swapped like-for-like when cooking at home too.
Swap haddock for pollock
Haddock from the Southern Celtic Seas and English Channel has also been downgraded in the guide due to low population levels and overfishing. A budget-friendly option is to choose pollock, which can be found as frozen fishcakes or fishfingers as part of your supermarket shop.
Swap salmon for rainbow trout
According to the MCS, salmon is the most popular fish in the UK, but it’s now red-rated on the Good Fish Guide due to a drop in wild Atlantic stocks. The charity recommends swapping salmon for farmed rainbow trout – from freshwater ponds and raceways (an inland artificial channel) where possible – which are green-rated.
Swap prawns for mussels
While prawns are another popular choice, they’re not the most sustainable option. Try UK rope-grown mussels instead, where ropes or lines hang in the water and provide a surface for mussel larvae to attach and grow on.
Swap tuna for anchovies
When it comes to tinned fish, swap tuna for anchovies caught in the Bay of Biscay or sardines certified by the Marine Stewardship Council from the Celtic Sea or English Channel. Make sure to double check the labels, however, to avoid sardines from the Bay of Biscay and anchovies from Portuguese waters.
You can find the Good Fish Guide online.
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Top image: illustration of tinned sardines. Credit: Getty