Seafood Watch, the official police of sustainable seafood based out of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, gave the green light today to U.S.-farmed Coho salmon, Alaskan wild-caught pollock, and U.S.-farmed freshwater prawns. In the semi-annual update to the organization’s Pocket Guides to sustainable seafood choices, domestically farmed shrimp earned approval for the first time since they are raised in inland ponds with no saltwater access, and are able to eat the plants and insects that naturally occur where they’re raised, with very little feed required.
Seafood Watch also adds that these freshwater prawns are naturally disease-resilient, and “their inability to tolerate winter temperatures, reduces the risk of escape and establishment in the wild.”
Imported and foreign-farmed shrimp are still on the “Avoid” list, but other “Best Choices” for farmed seafood include abalone, Arctic Char, barramundi, catfish, clams, mussels, oysters, scallops, striped bass, and U.S.-farmed tilapia — with Central American farmed tilapia still a “good alternative.”
Download a printable pocket guide from the link below, or download the Seafood Watch iPhone app, which will obviously update itself when these guidelines change again.
Seafood Watch’s January 2010 Pocket Guides [Seafood Watch]
