Should we eat cod? Chefs fear consumers are confused
By Lewis Smith
May 10 2012 Lewis Smith
Since the North Sea was all but cleaned out of cod and the Grand Banks fisheries collapsed there have been doubts about whether the species should be eaten at all.
Atlantic cod has remained a favourite of British chippies and is a regular on restaurant menus but in the minds of some diners there is a big question mark over its sustainability.
To many restaurateurs cod is a fish they like to put on their menus but some are frustrated by what they perceive as a myth that it is a species that should be avoided by diners.
Mitch Tonks, who runs the Seahorse and Rockfish restaurants in Bristol and Dartmouth – all rated as blue fish restaurants on Fish2fork – is among those who believe the public are confused about cod.
He accepts that North Sea stocks have been badly depleted in the last two decades but points to other areas that are managed sustainably.
“The North Sea has got itself into a bit of bother. Cod stocks there are devastated but the connection in people’s minds was a blanket one. The blanket connection with not eating cod is totally wrong,” he said.
North Sea cod was plentiful not so long ago. Most years in the 1970s and 1980s saw more than 200,000 tonnes caught and in some years it exceeded 300,000 tonnes. This year scientists recommended a maximum catch of just 31,000 tonnes and cautioned that even a zero catch would fail to get the species up to sustainable levels by 2013.
Yet, as Mr Tonks points out, there are areas where Atlantic cod is plentiful. Among the areas where they are being fished sustainably are Icelandic waters, which last month won Marine Stewardship Council status for 160,000 tonnes, and the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea which also boast large MSC supplies.
The crucial considerations when trying to decide which cod can be eaten with a clear conscience, said Bernadette Clarke, fisheries officer at the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), are the area of the sea where the fish is caught and the method used to catch it.
The MCS assesses, based on scientific data from the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES), Atlantic cod stocks on its fishonline site. Of the 17 fisheries it considers, nine of them get the worst possible score of 5 and the MCS advises that consumers should avoid eating cod from them. However, four of the fisheries get a 2 score which is high enough to warrant the MCS recommending them as ‘fish to eat’.
Cod from the Western Channel scores 3, which the MCS considers can be eaten occasionally. Ms Clarke said: “The MCS isn’t saying ‘Don’t eat cod’. What we are asking people to do is to look at the specific area that that fish is caught in.”
Some restaurants specify where their fish come from – an approach Fish2fork encourages and considers important – but, with delivery notes and packing boxes usually failing to specify the origin, chefs will have to make enquiries, sometimes determined enquiries, to establish the source and catch method.
Peter Fraser, of the Harbour Lights chip shop in Falmouth, another blue fish restaurant, experimented last year by taking cod off his menu for a week.
He said the purpose was not that he wanted to boycott the fish as unsustainable but that he wanted to encourage customers to try different varieties for a change: “We aren’t anti-cod. There are sustainable stocks at the moment. But who knows? There might not be in five years. Why not pre-empt and develop a taste for something else?
“It was very successful. We served 1,200 portions that week and only five people were calling us names. Some did a u-turn. It got the debate going. My own industry is waking up to the issue. We are beginning to see some good debate.”
MCS ratings of Atlantic cod fisheries:
Barents and Norwegian Sea, demersal otter trawl....................2
Iceland, longline, gill net......................................................2
Iceland, demersal otter trawl.................................................2
Celtic Sea (includes Western Channel), all methods..................3
Greenland, demersal otter trawl.............................................5
Norwegian coast, all methods................................................5
Faroes Bank, longline............................................................5
Faroes Plateau, longline, jigging............................................4
Faroes Plateau, demersal otter trawl.......................................4
Kattegat, otter, gill net, Danish seine...................................... 5
North Sea, Eastern Channel, Skagerat, demersal otter trawl.......5
West Scotland, demersal otter trawl........................................5
Rockall, demersal otter trawl .................................................5
Irish Sea, demersal otter trawl................................................5
Baltic Sea east, demersal otter trawl, gill net.............................2
Baltic Sea west demersal otter trawl, gill net.............................3
North Sea, Eastern Channel, Skagerat...gill net.........................5
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1 Responses to "Should we eat cod? Chefs fear consumers are confused"
Karen Orr Says:
Im not sure why any fish caught by trawler or long lining should get a rating anywhere close to sustainable. I just quit eating anything out of the sea. If you eat sushi, you are a selfish Eco pig. The oceans will be empty soon enough, greed always wins.
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