What’s the most sustainable fish for fish and chips?
Image by rawpixel.com
Every August growing up, our family and visiting relatives would gather at our favourite local fish and chip shop for a seaside supper. Come rain or shine, we’d collect our takeaway and huddle on a harbour wall or sit on the beach with sandy toes to savour the freshly battered fish with chunky deep-fried chips, eaten straight from the white paper wrapping with a wooden chip fork.
Enjoying a big portion of fish and chips by the sea is still one of my favourite summer pastimes, but these days I’m also concerned about how our seafood choices affect the environment. With that in mind, I did some digging to find out what the most sustainable fish is for fish and chips this year – and which fish to avoid.
Image by Damiano Fiore
In the UK, we tend to stick to just five types of fish. Cod, haddock, salmon, tuna, and prawns. “It puts a lot of pressure on a handful of wild stocks and creates demand that drives unsustainable fishing and farming practices,” says the Marine Conservation Society, which just updated its Good Fish Guide identifying sustainable seafood.
Cod is the chip shop favourite. It’s generally wild-caught rather than farmed, and UK stocks are doing very badly due to overfishing. If you want to order cod, make sure it’s Atlantic cod from the North East Arctic, Iceland, or Norway, or Pacific cod from the Bering Sea. Avoid Atlantic cod from UK seas, and North Sea cod.
Haddock is another popular pick for fish and chips. Like cod, it’s usually wild-caught, and although it’s generally a sustainable option, some stocks are running low. Haddock often swims in the same areas as cod, meaning haddock fisheries may catch both species. If you’re ordering haddock, make sure it’s caught in the North Sea, from Scotland, Iceland, or Norway. Only buy fish that’s larger than 30cm, too, to help protect young fish.
Image by Nguyen Linh
Better still, approach the chip shop counter with an open mind. There are plenty of good alternatives to the classic cod and chips. Four to consider are hake, plaice, pollock, and coley – all of which have a similar meaty, flaky texture to cod and haddock but with a milder flavour.
Thanks to good management, European hake from UK seas is a sustainable choice right now, and plaice stocks are booming in the North Sea. Sustainability varies for Alaska pollock, so go for fish caught in the Bering Sea or the Gulf of Alaska. Likewise, sustainability for coley (or saithe) also varies depending on where it’s caught, but your best bet is fish from Iceland.
Remember to consider how your seafood is caught too. Dredging or bottom trawling fishing methods are the most damaging to marine life. For mid-water fishing methods, such as pelagic trawling and purse seining, impacts vary depending on how well the fishing is monitored. Meanwhile, pots and traps, or pole and line fishing are more low-impact approaches.
Thoughts? Will you be swapping your classic fish and chips order for something more sustainable this year?
