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While eating a local, plant-based diet is the most sustainable, most people are not (totally) there yet. If you're a seafood eater, which types of seafood you eat and where they come from have a huge impact both on the environment and on your health. Most shrimp consumed in the U.S., for example, is raised in east Asia on farms that are destroying local ecosystems, depend on unfair labor practices, and use chemicals that are toxic to the body (and which are banned in the U.S.).
The Monterey Bay Aquarium is here to help with their new sustainable seafood guidelines. They have an online database that will let you search by individual seafood, and will give you rankings of "Best Choices," "Good Alternatives," "The Super Green List," or foods to flatly Avoid. Seafood in the latter category is "caught or farmed in ways that harm other marine life or the environment."
They also have a handy pocket guide that will help you make smart choices based on your location, which is great for on-the-go situations.
Check out their full report, Turning the Tide: The State of Seafood, to learn more about the threats facing our oceans and efforts being made to save them.
