Eating sustainably doesn’t always go down well when it comes to sushi. While many seafood restaurants have dropped overfished species such as sea bass, swordfish, Atlantic cod and monkfish from their menus, sushi chefs are having a harder time swapping out their much coveted cuts of tuna, salmon and octopus for more ocean-friendly swimmers.
Like, say, sardines. Not frequently found on sushi menus, they’re a hard-sell for sushi lovers used to the mild, fatty flavors of toro (tuna belly), sake (salmon) and unagi (freshwater eel) as opposed to leaner, fishier flavors of more sustainable fish. But for the sake of the oceans, watch groups such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium suggest we start changing our palates and our minds about what we put on our chopsticks.
According to the aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, considered the top authority on sustainable seafood, there’s a growing concern in the scientific community that we’ve eliminated as much as 90 percent of the large predatory fish such as shark, swordfish and cod from the world’s oceans. In 2003, the Pew Oceans Commission warned that the world’s oceans are in a state of silent collapse, threatening our food supply, marine economies, recreation and the natural legacy we leave our children.
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