Dear Sustainable Spot Prawn: Get in my belly. Love, Caroline
It seems the higher we raise our collective consciousness and educate ourselves about our food sources, the harder it can be to navigate a restaurant menu and enjoy a guilt-free meal (or is that just me?). Some experts believe that red meat will one day become as verboten as smoking, and while everyone seems to love bacon, a lot of eaters (see Potter, Caroline) are realizing the many perils of eating factory-farmed pork and eschewing it completely.
So, that leaves us chicken and fish, right? Well, maybe. Sustainably sourced chicken is easy to identify; most restaurants name their poultry farmers on their menus. With seafood, however, it’s often difficult. Even if a fish isn’t identified as farm-raised, commercial operations may be fishing certain wild-caught species right out of existence.
So, how is a diner to know if she’s making a sustainable choice the next time she orders seafood? Check out our Sustainable Seafood Watch Approved Restaurant Dishes round-ups. Created in conjunction with Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, you can easily find dishes that feature seafood that is caught or farmed using environmentally friendly methods. OpenTable currently has dedicated pages in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. But, you can find sustainable seafood dishes wherever you are! Simply search on the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s site, print out a free pocket guide, or download a free mobile app to make ordering easy.
