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McDonald's: Friend O' Fish

Posted by Alaina Browne, June 20, 2007 at 3:40 PM

Salon.com interviews Charles Clover, author of The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat on "the scourge of overfishing, disgraceful restaurants, and yes, sustainable McDonald's." It's worth reading in its entirety, but a few choice quotes:

On whether consumers should continue to eat fish:

I didn't say in my book, "Don't eat fish." I say, "Don't eat certain fish, don't eat endangered fish." If a fish takes 20 years to double its population, that's a long time. If it takes 30 years before it breeds, don't touch it. But if you eat something that's fast reproducing and not overfished, you should be all right. And there's quite a lot of those species out there. You can eat a hell of a lot of shellfish, a huge amount of mussels and oysters, and your deep-water scallops, with a clear conscience. You can have a really nice fish stew, it's not a problem. But why eat endangered fish? And the slow-reproducing ones are probably going to have mercury in them anyway, so it's a win-win.

On the sustainability of McDonald's Filet-O-Fish:

...McDonald's is sustainable because it is a big company and needs continuity of supply, but isn't that arguably a definition of sustainability?

Buying Alaskan pollock as McDonald's does is not a bad practice -- except that they don't seek to advertise their MSC [Marine Stewardship Council] connection, which might mean they would have to pay for the logo. Gambling you can make your fortune before you run out of exotic fish is an individual decision and one Nobu shares with many restaurateurs from Asia.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch is a great reource for information on sustainable seafood. Their Seafood Watch guides contain the latest information on sustainable seafood choices available in different regions of the U.S. and are available in a handy printable, pocket-size formats.

1 Comment | Tags: overfishing, sustainability