Packard Foundation-funded SeaWeb, and other activist groups, want you to take the fish off your dish. They say all sorts of favorite seafood selections — “cod, tuna, haddock, flounder” and more — require protection. And to save consumers the trouble, they’re deciding what you should do about it for you, by working to restrict your choices.
Many California restaurant patrons now cannot get the popular Chilean Sea Bass, Bon Appetit‘s 2001 Dish of the Year. “There are plenty of other fish in the sea,” one chef glibly notes. In all, 65 California restaurants have tossed bass right off the menu following activist pressure.
So where can consumers go for fish? Another natural food vendor, PCC Natural Markets of Seattle, has just partnered with EcoFish, sellers of “environmentally friendly” seafood. Says an EcoFish spokesman, the union “will meet customer demand for environmentally responsible seafood.” He doesn’t mention that EcoFish products can cost consumers up to 20 percent more than a traditional catch.
