June 9th, 2009 by Jess

So I missed World Oceans Day.

I did not go to the ocean.  I did not think about the ocean.  I did not eat anything from the ocean.  Oh wait… that one is good!  While I meandered around my land-bound house, not thinking about the oceans, the eco-blogosphere was filled with seawater.

GeekDad had some great suggestions on how I could have been enjoying World Oceans Day.  The Monterey Bay Aquarium had a photo contest (the new official iconic ocean image will be announced June 18th).  And the nice folks over at Treehugger taught us about jellyfish, the other seven biggest ocean issues, the Great Barrier Reef, and why we hope the oceans will stick around until August so they can see how much we really love them. And nude bicyclists. But I don’t think that one had anything to do with oceans.

I did end up participating in World Oceans Day in two ways.  First, I spent the evening trying to catch the special World Oceans Day fish on a crazy FaceBook fishing game that I play.  Second, I forwarded my skepti-dad some links about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

To be honest, the oceans are something I really struggle with.  I love the ocean.  I feel intrinsically connected to them, probably due to generational memories of living on sailboats passed down from my maternal grandfather.  If I could live anywhere in the world, I would live by the ocean.  Any ocean.  I love everything about them.  Including sushi.

This is where I run into trouble.

I don’t eat very much meat.  It’s not good for the environment, my budget, or my health.  I am a social meat eater, and a deliberately occasional meat eater at home.  When I do eat it, it is usually in the form of a hamburger, because that is one comfort food I’ve had a hard time giving up.  But sushi is a different story.  I could eat sushi for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

So I was thrilled when the Monterey Bay Aquarium released their pocket guide to sustainable sushi. Until I looked at it.

I wish I lived in San Francisco.  San Francisco has Tataki. But in contrast to what this article from the Center for American Progress says, I haven’t found it easy to eat sushi sustainably in the average sushi restaurant.  Maybe it is true that in high-end sushi restaurants, the chefs on staff can tell you exactly where the fish is coming from.  The sushi restaurants I visit are not like Nobu – chefs resisting customers’ pleas on behalf of the oceans and continuing to employ virtually the least sustainable menu choices possible.  But for the most part, my attempts at verifying the origin of my salmon nigiri have come up short, either because of a language barrier or because they just don’t know exactly where their salmon came from.

So where does that leave me?  Right now, it leaves me trying to eat sushi more rarely.  And I think it’s important to keep pulling out my pocket guide and asking, because even if they don’t know the answers, they know that at least one of their customers cares.  If more of us ask, if more of us care, hopefully we’ll start to see more sustainable choices enter the mainstream.

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Nobu, overfishing, seafood pocket guide, sustainable sushi, world oceans day