Wednesday, August 15, 2007

I'll have the fish

I'm not usually a fish eater. Back in the day my mom used to make cod for supper often. Since I'm married and she doesn't live in our kitchen, it's fallen off the radar screen.

However, at previous employer they used cater in lunches for out of town customers. Many of us would scavenge the leftovers including some excellent tilapia. So I got easy recipe for tilapia in a garlic butter sauce and have made it from time to time. Yes, it does sound good, doesn't it?

It's reasonably priced in the frozen section at our local grocery store. When looking at the label I saw "Farm-raised" and "Product of China". I read this article in National Geographic recently and thought, "Well, at least it didn't wind up on the shelf by fishing the living daylights out of the ocean."

However, I've become aware of how terrible the farm-raised practices can be. The use of antibiotics and the environmental impacts of cramming fish on fish has thrown me off farm-raised. I did see some video footage of a farm pond where there were so many fish, that they were barely "in" the water. I haven't found other supporting evidence of that otherwise I'd post a link here.

So if not farm-raised, what about wild? The NatGeo article above has me concerned. I remember eating the aforementioned cod years ago, but it's been over fished to the brink. The season for cod has been curtailed drastically and the allowable catch limited.

I read of one possible conscious-soothing alternative. The Alaskan salmon seems fished responsibly. Alaska's not exactly local. Ya once, but how 'bout some nice perch der from Lake Michigan (a really strong stone's throw from our house and my wife's lake, just so ya know). Whoa, I don't think so.

Maybe I'll just have the salad.

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