After sixteen years of unwavering vegetarianism. I’m not sure why I suddenly wanted to try fish again. It was probably a combination of constantly hearing about the benefits of Omega-3 oils , noticing that since arriving at the wrong side of 30, my knees have begun to squeak alarmingly, and wanting my eating habits to be based on choices I’ve made as an adult and not as a mixed-up teenager. I know that fish is a good source of protein and selenium, both of which can sometimes be lacking from a vegetarian diet. Besides the rusty knees, my health is robust, but I wondered whether I was denying myself important nutrients. I began to find myself glancing surreptitiously at the fish stall every time I went to the farmers’ market.
I decided I would give fish a chance. But I’d only eat fish that was caught sustainably. Surely it would be easy to find out what I should eat, I reflected as I opened my web browser. Five minutes of searching and I’d be sorted. As it turned out, there was no shortage of information, but making sense of it all wasn’t as straightforward as I’d expected.
I started by Googling “eating fish responsibly”, and up popped a link to the BBC website. The first words I read were,
“What’s the consumer to do? On the one hand, the government recommends that we eat plenty of fish on a regular basis. On the other, we’re being told that certain species of fish – cod, most notably – are on the brink of extinction because of over-fishing. Confused? You’re not alone.”
Since I hadn’t even known that cod was overfished, I presumed I was a particularly confused consumer and was glad to find I had other equally baffled internet friends. From the BBC I learned that oily fish (which includes mackerel, salmon, sardines and fresh tuna) is actually fattier than some meat, but that it is good fat, because of the presence of Omega-3. I also discovered that it’s best to buy a variety of fish, to take the pressure off popular species. The World Wildlife Federation recommends rarer types like saithe and pollack. This was all good stuff, especially the discovery that saithe is actually a fish and not a Shakespearian phrase. Encouraged, I clicked on the next link that Google turned up. This was Fish Online, a resource run by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS). It provided a very useful “fish to eat” and “fish to avoid” list, as well as a searchable fish database – exactly the sort of cut-and-dried information I was looking for. It also contained a pocket good fish guide – again, extremely useful.
This guide introduced me to a new concern. It stated, in large serious letters, “We would recommend that you avoid ALL deepsea fish.” But what fish are those? For all I know, the humble herring could spend its days swimming around the bottom of the ocean and therefore be on the MCS’s banned list. Sadly, the pocket guide contained no information on this, but it certainly provided a wealth of other facts. Fish were divided into three categories: Eat, Caution and Avoid. Helpfully, the guide labels fish not only according to species but also by geography: so coldwater prawns from the north east Arctic are in the Eat group, while farmed and wild caught tiger prawns are marked Avoid. It doesn’t tell you why, but then perhaps that’s a bit much to expect from a pocket guide.
The MCS site was authoritative and exhaustive – and that was the problem. Every time I thought I’d got a handle on the issues, I found some new aspect to worry about. The guide had got me thinking about geography – specifically mine, in relation to the fish’s. Surely a fish that would be sustainable if it was bought in Cornwall or Kirkwall is less so if I’m buying it at home in Glasgow? The MCS recognised that to an extent, pointing out that fishing practices varied from place to place: fish stocks that are carefully conserved on one continent may be mindlessly ravaged on another. But oddly, food miles didn’t seem to rank highly on the list of considerations when buying fish.
A brief tour of online newspapers turned up a Guardian article that again listed good and bad fish, but this time included pictures. When you’ve spent well over a decade studiously avoiding the fish aisle in the supermarket, basic stuff like this is extremely helpful. This article also taught me that whitebait is not a good choice because it is the young of herrings: in general, eating baby fish is frowned upon, because it means that stocks don’t get a chance to regenerate. Over at The Times, I discovered that anchovies are near extinction – yet another reason not to order them on pizza, aside from the fact that fish on pizza is just plain weird. Apparently the adult anchovy swims at the top and the baby at the bottom, so fishing boats that dredge the seabed catch the babies, depleting the overall stock. The Times also helpfully introduced a whole new area for me to worry about: being poisoned. Fish can be polluted due to the presence of agricultural fertilisers on the land. These run into the sea and are eaten by plankton, which end up in the bellies of fish, leading to high levels of mercury and nitrate. Swordfish, shark and marlin contain particularly high levels of mercury, so the Food Standards Agency recommends eating these no more than once a week . Since I’d also looked at Greenpeace’s website, I knew that all of these species were a no-no in terms of sustainability, so I wouldn’t be buying them anyway.
Frankly, I was still confused. Certainly I’d gleaned plenty of facts, but what did it all add up to? What was the number one most sustainable fish I could possibly purchase? I decided the best thing to do was visit my local farmers’ market and see what was available. Perhaps I’d chat with the fish salesman and get his input. Maybe he’d whip out a portable stove and cook me up some samples while assuring me of the sustainability of his goods. I arrived in the rain to find a lengthy queue and a harassed man in blue overalls dealing rapidly with customers. I ran my eye over the stock: salmon, kippers, prawns, herring: what had my pocket guide said about all of these? It didn’t seem appropriate to fish (sorry) it out and start studying different species, so in desperation, I grabbed some sea bream, faintly recollecting that it was one of the good guys.
At home, the Marine Conservation Society reassured me that sea bream was rated as sustainable. The only question now was whether I could bring myself to eat it. I outsourced the actual preparation to my enthusiastically carnivorous boyfriend, who was finding the whole episode rather bizarre, and watched anxiously as he rubbed some salt into the flesh and quickly seared it on a griddle. When I finally, apprehensively took a bite, it was the skin I noticed first. The texture was oddly metallic, as if I were eating crumpled tinfoil. The flesh of the fish tasted sharp yet smoky, and seemed to stick to the roof of my mouth in a way I didn’t like. I ate the whole thing, chewing reflectively and slowly. When I had finished, I got up, scraped my plate, and placed my Pocket Good Fish Guide carefully into the recycling bin. The experience wasn’t unpleasant, just odd and incongruous, as if I had suddenly picked up one of the dining chairs and started to gnaw on it. Ultimately, trying to eat fish in a way that didn’t make me feel bad was just too difficult, coupled with the fact that the whole idea of eating flesh has become alien to me. In future, I’ll be sticking to eggs and pulses to get my protein. They may not fix my creaking knees, but at least I don’t need degrees in geography, marine biology and environmental science to decide what kind to buy.
