Every day, you dream of shopping for fresh-caught fish, tomatoes picked off the vine, and farm-fresh eggs... then you wake up and head over to a giant, big-box store to throw a package of frozen fish sticks into the cart.
Fortunately, retail giants are hearing (and heeding) the siren call of the sea and are starting to sell sustainable seafood, according to NPR's the Salt food blog.
Target is already selling wild-caught sustainable and traceable Alaskan salmon, dungeness crabs, Patagonian scallops, cod, and halibut under its Archer Farms and Market Pantry labels and has committed to switching to a complete sustainable and traceable inventory by 2015.
Wild-caught Alaskan salmon, halibut, and Alaskan Pollock are available at Walmart. All of these products bear the Marine Stewardship Council's blue fish logo, signifying that the seafood comes from, and can be traced back to, a sustainable fishery.
The Marine Stewardship Council has rigid criteria for seafood to be certified sustainable (the 301-page document can be viewed here),
taking into consideration many factors like species fished, management
practices of the fishing/production company, and the geographic area
where the fishing is done.
Now we can all feel good about our seafood
purchases as we're writing "go to farmers' market" in red Sharpie on
next week's calendar.
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