HOW TO CHOOSE FISH

When buying fish, three main factors determine how environmentally sustainable

– or damaging – it is: what fish it is, and where and how it’s been caught or farmed.

With just five species (cod, haddock, tuna, salmon and prawns) making up 80% of the seafood we eat in the UK, overfishing is a dire problem that threatens the health of our oceans. Charlotte Coombes, Good Fish Guide manager at the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), states: ‘The UN has named unsustainable fishing as the greatest driver of marine biodiversity loss in the world. We need healthy seas, full of life, for a healthy planet and to help us fight climate change. Ocean ecosystems are complicated and delicate webs of life – if we remove one species, it affects everything else in the chain.’

Eating a wider range of fish and seafood will take pressure off certain fish stocks. But, even here it gets complicated as there are more, and less, sustainable options within the same species. Luckily, the Good Fish Guide (mcsuk.org/goodfishguide) can help. As a current example, cod caught in the North Sea is one of the least sustainable options and should be avoided, but cod caught using the same fishing method in Iceland is one of the most sustainable options.

And it’s not always the case that farmed seafood is bad news environmentally. Mussels farmed in Europe, the UK or the Republic of Ireland get top marks for sustainability – look for the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) or Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) logos – as do many types of tinned fish. The latter has the added advantage of a longer shelf life, which could help to reduce food waste, too. Look for herring from the North Sea, Msc-certified sardines caught off the coast of south-west England,

Pacific salmon and anchovies from the Bay of Biscay.