By Kate McLaughlin, Blue Ocean Institute
Kate McLaughlin has studied fish all over the country—from herring in Massachusetts’s rivers to Steelhead Trout in northern California. She is currently Blue Ocean Institute’s Seafood Program Director.
Eight conservation groups in the U.S. & Canada teamed up to get the word out about ocean-friendly seafood. The message? Look for ocean-friendly seafood choices that you can be happy about.
Why should people Be Happy about their seafood choices?
Seafood can be a great addition to any family’s menu. Who doesn’t want a low-fat, high omega-3 addition to their dinner plate?
And just as you’re thoughtful about other environmentally-responsible choices you make (like recycling, or buying farmers market vegetables), you can be thoughtful about your seafood choices and be happy with the results.
People can go to www.facebook.com/BeHappyFish to learn more about ocean-friendly seafood, find family- (and ocean!) friendly recipes, , and show support for the ocean by signing a pledge to support ocean-friendly seafood or posting a pic of your best fish face.
What are some ocean-friendly choices that people can be happy about?
Farmed mussels are a great choice. Mussels can filter 10-15 gallons of water a day, eating microscopic plankton they strain out of the water. Since mussels filter their food from their surroundings, we don’t have to catch wild fish to feed to them (as is the case with some farm-raised seafood, like Atlantic salmon).
Other great choices are U.S. farmed catfish, farmed Arctic char, wild Alaskan salmon, and Pacific cod. You can find recipes for all of these fish on the Be Happy Facebook page.
In the above list of ocean-friendly choices, there’s a mix of farmed and wild fish. Should people be asking where their fish comes from and whether it’s farmed or wild?
Asking where your seafood comes from is a great first step in getting to know the fish you’re eating. Next time you’re at the store, look for signs in the seafood case that note whether it’s farmed or wild, and you’ll see there’s more farmed seafood out there than you might have guessed.
(Did you know that half of the seafood produced globally comes from fish farms?)
Why is Blue Ocean involved with the Be Happy outreach effort?
Blue Ocean works with seafood lovers, scientists, and chefs to communicate the science of seafood. And now we’ve teamed up with seven other organizations in the U.S. & Canada to help more people from coast-to-coast find seafood choices they can be happy about.















Editorial Credibility in an Online World
by Elizabeth G. Howard
I was recruited by MomCentral.com to take part in their blog tours, when the subject was appropriate for my blogs. I have two blogs -- Letters from a Small State, which reflects on my life in Connecticut, and Honk if You Compost, my eco-humor blog.
I am on a mission with these tours: to write great reviews and thoughtful pieces for whatever I sign on to. I take the job seriously, even if the pay isn't much.
Recently I committed to review Clorox's Green Works Natural Biodegradable Cleaning Wipes. I am seriously curious about this brand-- I particularly wanted see if Clorox could sell me on this disposable product.
They didn't ... the wipes, although compostable weren't amazingly useful enough to make them worth adding to the cleaning products that are tried and truly low-impact.
Everyone's Truth is Out There
Curiously, my negative eco-humor-review was not too overly adored by the MomCentral crew-- I was asked if I didn't want to tone it down just a little bit? This has indicated to me what I have been suspecting about this far-reaching and influential website (and others like it): online reviews can often be more about promoting products than they are about giving serious consideration to the product and its impact on the audience. In the case of MomCentral, I fear this may be the case.
It is certainly true that with online writing, the lines between advertising and editorial are gone. As is illustrated by contextual advertising (ie. Adsense), where once there was a firm division between the ad and the ed, we now decide precisely what we advertise based on the page content.
The result? The more niche reporting becomes, the more difficult it becomes to evaluate the credibility, objectivity and even the usefulness of information we find online. Everyone has an opinion--and that opinion is backed by an agenda that becomes more and more hidden.
I have one recommendation, and that is awareness. For more information about how to evaluate what you read on the web, have a look here.
Posted at 06:31 PM in Awareness, Commentary, Education, Media, Products, Quandries, Tips 2 B-Greener, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)