Welcome to Ocean Commotion: The Passionfish Blog for Seafood Lovers!
Ocean Commotion is the blog by www.passionfish.org. We created Ocean Commotion due to the flood of questions our team has been responding to about seafood — and you know what?
WE FEEL YOUR PAIN. Over the years, we have witnessed the growing chatter (commotion) about what’s going on in our world’s ocean (one ocean, many seas!). Our organization was founded in Y2K (2000) in order to help the public sift through the confusing morass of campaigns from all sides of the ocean and seafood sustainability issue. Guess what? Even the “experts” aren’t that much closer to defining “sustainability” in a way that makes sense to all of us concerned citizens. In fact, our team is not just “sifting” through conflicting messages anymore, we are now “wading” up to our necks through them, right along with those of you who have not yet thrown up your arms in despair, disgust, or even derision! We thought we better create this blog ASAP rather than let wading turn into drowning! Really, we don’t want people to give up eating heart-healthy seafood in favor of fried chicken fingers!
We know there are folks out there who would not hesitate to scarf down the last, solo, tiny egg (caviar) from the last, solo, tiny gasping Caspian Sea sturgeon. (Also known as “black gold” from the hugely at-risk-of-going-extinct species). For those folks, well, let’s just hope you are a very small minority. For the rest of us, knowing which seafood to eat “in good conscience” (as we keep hearing we must do) has made excursions to the grocery store’s seafood counter, or a festive family BBQ, or a relaxing (or perhaps life-defining romantic) oceanside seafood dinner all transform into very confusing, political, passion-dampening, and altogether uncomfortable experiences. Was the fish or shellfish caught in ways that didn’t harm the environment? Is seafood healthy for me? What about my kid(s)? Does seafood reek of toxins or spewing of mercury? Don’t wild fish swim in oil and discarded plastic? Don’t farmed fish poop all over each other? Should I avoid seafood altogether and go pop an Omega 3 pill? Should I only eat steak? Or become a vegan?
Yes, we’ve heard it all at Passionfish, and so, join us on our journey as we navigate and traverse these choppy waters in our little rowboat and share with you the map we draft, if not provide some answers so you can make sensible decisions for yourself, your family, your community, and our planet!