Everyone knows that the world’s fisheries are in trouble, but it is hard to know what to do about it other than not eating seafood. Cutting fish out of our diet isn’t the answer. Seafood is a healthy choice and an important part of the Canadian economy. The trick is to choose the right seafood to eat, something that I haven’t been very good at.

I tend to eat salmon, shrimp and catfish. I figured that the farmed Atlantic salmon was a good choice, but apparently there are problems with pollution and disease from the farmed fish affecting the wild fish stocks. While there are some concerns over the health of the wild Pacific salmon, they are a much better choice.

Most frozen shrimp that I buy is farmed internationally, but they contain antibiotics that are banned in North America and the farms are very damaging to the environment. It is better to look for shrimp that are farmed in the US or for Pacific prawns that are trap caught.

It is hard to know what you should be looking for at the supermarket, so several Canadian environmental groups got together and formed Seachoice.org. This website features a database of seafood available in Canada and rates them Best Choice, Some Concerns and Avoid.

To make it easy, they also produce a wallet sized seafood guide that you can download, print out and keep in your wallet for trips to the supermarket. I printed one out today. Hopefully it will help me make some better choices.