Sustainable Seafood at the Monterey Aquarium

Omid and Kelly at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

By Omid Vojdani 

Be Seafood Smart

As a health coach, seafood is a delicious and nutritious part of any diet I recommend to any client to improve health and wellness. But aside from teaching clients about the healthy fats and great quality protein of fish, I also find it incredibly important to educate clients about where their food comes from. Most importantly, are the foods we eat having a positive or negative impact on the environment? As a sustainability advocate, I was thrilled to find an amazing tool to that I can share with clients to help make picking sustainable seafood a breeze. 

In 1999, Monterey Bay Aquarium started their Seafood Watch Program. Starting as a pocket guide updated twice a year, it has evolved into a free and easy to use smart phone app updated twice a month, providing users with a customizable list of what fish to avoid and what fish are approved based on fishing practices. Seafood Watch also includes a list of restaurants that have partnered with Monterey Bay Aquarium to provide a menu dedicated to serving sustainable seafood. 
 

For example, for years I’ve personally been avoiding tuna, believing that the prize fish has been overfished near to extinction. But using the Seafood Watch app, I’ve discovered that tuna is no longer off the menu entirely if I choose tuna from specific parts of the world. For example, in the US North Pacific, albacore tuna has strict regulations on the amount fisherman can catch, and even more regulations on how farms can raise the fish. But in the South Atlantic, the albacore is fished without regard to sustainability, and the ecosystem is on the verge of collapse. 

The good news is that we as consumers have enormous power to influence how these fish make their way to our plate in two ways. One way is to simply ask anytime you can where your fish came from. If enough restaurants and fisherman hear this question, the awareness will spread. The second way is to simply vote with your dollars. In supermarkets, the source location of the fish is listed, and by using the Seafood Watch app, you can make the most ecologically wise decision on what to buy.

With Seafood Watch, we can impact sustainability practices around the world, all while enjoying the healthy seafood we love. Join me, Edible Skinny, and Monterey Bay Aquarium in continuing to educate the public to this issue, and we CAN make a difference.

Hello Fishes!!! Edible Skinny Does the Monterey Bay Aquarium!

Hello Fishes!!!  While up in Monterey a month ago Edible Skinny was lucky enough to experience the watery wonder of the Monterey Bay Aquarium!

While there Edible Skinny discovered the extraterrestrial world of kelp forests, granite reefs and the open sea tanks filled with hammerhead sharks, sea otters, penguins, octopuses, jellies and countless other creature.

Rated the #1 aquarium in the world by TripAdvisor, the famous educational fish tank is located bayside on the site of a former sardine cannery on Cannery Row (made famous by one Mr. John Steinback…).  Showcasing the wildlife and habitats of The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary the aquarium has an attendance of more than two million visitors a year.

 

The Monterey Bay Aquarium's 28-foot Kelp Forest is one of the tallest aquarium exhibits in the world.   It allows a scuba diver’s eye into the world of sardines, sharks, and eels as they bob and weave through swaying fronds of kelp!   We were on site to experience not one but two fish feedings:  the Open Sea and Kelp Forrest. 

During our the Open Sea feeding we learned that that the Monterey Bay Aquarium has the oldest recorded Hammerhead shark in captivity, a female that's thirteen years old.  This same shark is also the largest on record, clocking in at twelve feet long (something you definitely don't want to encounter when scuba diving...). 

Fun fact, they actually have the feed these sharks separate from the tuna that share the tank with because the tuna, in their excited hunger state, might slam into the sharks gravely injuring them (shark's are pure cartilage so they don't do well with sixty mile per hour tuna charging into them...) 

I was once again delighted by the aquarium's Jellyfish exhibit (I adore Jellyfish!!!) which features native Jellies including the: sea nettles, moon jellies, and the nearly invisible crystal jellyfish.

Here's to never encountering a 12 foot Hammerhead or a tuna charging at sixty miles per hour, and to life being delicious!

  
 

 

Mesmerizing Jellies at the Monterey Bay Aqaurium

Splish Splash!!!  While up in Northern California Edible Skinny was lucky enough to experience the watery wonder of the Monterey Bay Aquarium!

Rated the #1 aquarium in the world by TripAdvisor, the famous educational fish tank is located bayside on the site of a former sardine cannery on Cannery Row (go figure…).  Showcasing the wildlife and habitats of The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary it has an annual attendance of more than two million visitors.

 
While there Edible Skinny discovered the extraterrestrial world of kelp forests, granite reefs and the open sea filled with sharks, sea otters, penguins, octopuses, jellies and countless other creature.

The aquarium’s 28-foot Kelp Forest is one of the tallest aquarium exhibits in the world.   It allows a scuba diver’s eye into the world of sardines (so much cooler than they sound), leopard sharks, and eels as they bob and weave through swaying fronds of kelp!   We were on site to experience the fish’s afternoon meal, which actually featured a scuba diver handing out the niblets!  Talk about a feeding frenzy!

 

The Monterey Bay Aquarium prides itself on being an educational site so many of the exhibits are extremely interactive.  My personal favorites were the two jellyfish exhibits (that’s right, not one but two!).  Our ticketing agent informed us that each exhibit was very different, a comment we didn’t take to heart until we experienced for ourselves!

 The first was your classic beautiful balletic jellyfish illuminated with film noir like precision; the second was their special exhibit, The Jellies Experience, a groovy far-out world where these stunning animals were reimagined in a swinging sixties lifestyle.  

Both were fantastically mesmerizing reminding us that every moment of life is delicious!