Look, I’ll be honest – when my daughter started asking where our fish sticks came from and whether we were hurting the ocean by eating them, I realized I had absolutely no idea. We live in Charlotte, which is about as landlocked as you can get in North Carolina, and I’d never really thought about how that salmon at Harris Teeter made it to our dinner table or whether it was caught responsibly.
That conversation happened about three years ago, and it sent me down this whole rabbit hole of trying to figure out sustainable seafood. Turns out, it’s way more complicated than I expected, especially when you’re living hundreds of miles from the nearest coast. But we’ve learned a lot through trial and error, and honestly, some of what we discovered surprised me.
First thing I learned is that most of us have no clue how bad things have gotten in our oceans. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization says almost 90% of global fish stocks are either fully used up, overused, or completely depleted. That’s terrifying when you think about it. We’re basically strip-mining the ocean, and most people buying fish at the grocery store – myself included, until recently – don’t even know it’s happening.
My wife thought I was going overboard when I started reading about this stuff. She was like, “It’s just fish, Louis. We buy it at the store like everyone else.” But when you realize that overfishing doesn’t just hurt the fish we’re catching – it messes up entire ocean ecosystems – it becomes harder to ignore. Take out one species and you can trigger what scientists call “trophic cascades,” where changes ripple through the whole food web.
The human cost is huge too. Something like 10-12% of people worldwide depend on fishing for their livelihood, according to the World Bank. When fish stocks collapse because of unsustainable practices, those communities lose everything. It’s not just an environmental problem – it’s destroying people’s lives.
Living in Charlotte means we’re dealing with all the usual challenges of trying to eat sustainably, plus the extra headache of being far from any ocean. Fresh seafood that’s been shipped hundreds of miles? Good luck with that. Most of what we can get is either frozen or has been flown in, which jacks up both the price and the carbon footprint.
I remember the first time I looked at the price difference between regular salmon and the sustainably-caught stuff at Whole Foods. The sustainable option was almost double the cost. When you’re feeding a family of five on a healthcare IT salary, that kind of price difference makes you think twice. And that’s part of the problem – if sustainable choices are only available to people with money, we’re never going to solve this thing.
But here’s what I’ve figured out over the past few years. You don’t need to become some kind of seafood expert overnight. You just need to start paying attention to a few key things.
Those little labels and certifications actually matter. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) – that’s the blue fish logo you might see on cans of tuna – means the fish was caught using methods that don’t destroy ocean ecosystems. The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) does the same thing for farmed fish. When I see those labels, I know someone smarter than me has already done the homework on whether this fish was caught responsibly.
Learning which species to choose and which to avoid was eye-opening. Atlantic cod is basically a disaster – we’ve overfished it so badly that it’s on most “avoid” lists. But Pacific cod from well-managed fisheries is usually fine. Wild Alaskan salmon during its season (roughly June through September) is great. Outside of that season, responsibly farmed salmon is a good alternative.
Shrimp was a tough one for our family because the kids love it. Turns out a lot of shrimp farming destroys mangrove forests, which are crucial ecosystems. But you can find ASC-certified shrimp if you look for it. Costs more, but at least I know it wasn’t produced by destroying coastal habitats.
One thing that’s helped us a lot is using apps like Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch. I can literally stand in the grocery store, pull out my phone, and look up whether the fish I’m considering is a good choice. It rates everything as “Best Choice,” “Good Alternative,” or “Avoid.” Takes the guesswork out of shopping.
We’ve also discovered some local solutions I didn’t know existed. There’s actually an aquaponics operation about an hour south of Charlotte that raises tilapia alongside vegetables. It’s this cool closed-loop system where the fish waste feeds the plants, and the plants clean the water for the fish. The tilapia tastes great and we know exactly where it came from. No shipping from across the country, no questionable fishing practices.
I found out about Community Supported Fisheries through a coworker who was doing Community Supported Agriculture. It’s the same concept, but for seafood. You buy a share at the beginning of the season and get regular deliveries of sustainably caught fish. We tried one that sources from North Carolina’s coast, and even though it’s more expensive per pound than grocery store fish, the quality is incredible. Plus, we’re directly supporting smaller fishing operations that use responsible methods.
The farm-raised versus wild-caught debate used to confuse the hell out of me. I thought wild was always better, but it’s not that simple. Some wild fisheries are managed terribly and some fish farms are doing amazing work with minimal environmental impact. Those recirculating aquaculture systems, for example, can raise fish with way less water and waste than traditional fish farming.
What matters more than whether it’s wild or farmed is whether it’s certified by organizations that actually check on sustainability practices. A responsibly farmed fish that was raised locally might be a better choice than wild-caught fish that was shipped halfway around the world.
Online shopping has opened up options we didn’t have before. Companies like Vital Choice and Sea to Table specialize in sustainable seafood and will ship directly to your house. Yeah, it’s more expensive than buying whatever’s on sale at Food Lion, but the quality is noticeably better and I know it meets sustainability standards.
My kids were skeptical at first when we started changing how we buy seafood. They were used to fish sticks and popcorn shrimp, and suddenly I’m bringing home whole fish that actually look like fish. But we started cooking together more, talking about where our food comes from, and now they’re genuinely interested in trying new things. My middle kid has become the family expert on which fish are sustainable – she reads the labels and corrects me when I’m about to make a questionable choice.
Restaurants have been trickier to navigate. Most servers don’t know much about where their seafood comes from, and honestly, a lot of restaurant seafood comes from whatever supplier offers the best price. But we’ve found a few local places that care about sourcing. There’s this farm-to-table restaurant in NoDa that lists exactly where their fish comes from on the menu. When we eat there, I don’t have to worry about whether I’m supporting bad fishing practices.
The thing that really drives this for me is the same thing that got us started on all our other sustainability efforts – I want my kids to inherit oceans that still have fish in them. The projections for what marine ecosystems will look like in 30 or 40 years are pretty grim if we keep going the way we’re going. Massive dead zones, collapsed fish populations, entire species extinct.
But individual choices do add up. When enough people start asking for sustainable options, stores start carrying more of them. When restaurants see customers choosing places that source responsibly, they pay attention. It’s the same dynamic we’ve seen with organic food, electric cars, renewable energy – consumer demand drives industry changes.
I’m not pretending we’re perfect at this. We still sometimes buy convenience seafood that probably isn’t sustainably sourced when we’re in a hurry or trying to stick to a tight budget. And there are definitely gaps in what’s available in Charlotte compared to what you might find in Seattle or Boston.
But we’re doing substantially better than we were three years ago. We know what to look for, we’ve found sources we trust, and we’re teaching our kids to think about the bigger picture when they make food choices. Every sustainable fish purchase feels like a small vote for the kind of food system we want to support.
The technology piece has been huge for us. Beyond the Seafood Watch app, I use websites like FishChoice to research specific products before buying them. Some of these sites let you trace seafood all the way back to the boat that caught it. It’s pretty amazing to be eating dinner in suburban North Carolina and know that your fish was caught by a specific fishing vessel off the coast of Alaska using methods that don’t harm other marine life.
What’s encouraging is seeing how much this has grown over the past few years. More stores are carrying certified sustainable options. More restaurants are thinking about sourcing. Even some of the big chains are making commitments to sustainable seafood – McDonald’s serves MSC-certified fish in a lot of their locations now.
Government regulations matter too, though they move slowly. The Magnuson-Stevens Act has actually been pretty successful at preventing overfishing in U.S. waters and rebuilding depleted fish stocks. International agreements help set standards for fisheries around the world. But ultimately, it comes down to whether consumers care enough to make sustainable choices and pay the extra cost that often comes with them.
Living far from the ocean doesn’t mean we can’t be part of the solution. If anything, those of us in landlocked areas probably need to be more intentional about our choices since we’re further removed from the direct impact of fishing practices. Every time we choose certified sustainable seafood over whatever’s cheapest, we’re sending a signal up the supply chain that responsible fishing matters to consumers.
My kids understand now that the fish on their plate comes from somewhere, and that how it was caught or raised makes a difference for ocean health. They ask questions at restaurants and grocery stores. They’re learning that being a responsible consumer means thinking beyond just price and convenience.
That’s really what this comes down to – taking responsibility for the impact of our choices, even when we’re hundreds of miles from where that impact occurs. The ocean might feel distant when you’re living in Charlotte, but our decisions about what seafood to buy directly affect marine ecosystems and fishing communities around the world.
It’s not always easy or cheap, but it’s doable. And when I think about the world my kids are going to inherit, making the effort to source seafood responsibly feels like one of the most basic things we should be doing.
