Original post: August 2011.
Nutritionist tell us eating fish is healthy. Maybe; depends on the native origin of the fish.
Wild caught salmon is expensive, and I waiver between paying the mortgage or buying wild caught.
Farm raised salmon was an alternative until I read the fish are naturally gray, then dyed red to appear more appealing. Aside from questionable cosmetic enhancement, fish that swim up stream in the Pacific ocean have to be in better shape than those that loll around in a tank all day.
A grocery circular featuring a sale on sea scallops prompted a race to the store. My research on sea scallops indicates they are often carved from cod and passed off as sea scallops. I flatten my body against the meat case and peer at the scallops to see if their grain runs vertically and they are not cod in drag.
I try to make myself invisible while other shoppers look at me as though I escaped from the asylum.
The store demo at the seafood counter was hawking monkfish as “poor man’s lobster.” He assured me it tasted exactly like lobster tail. Sure it does and rattlesnake meat taste exactly like chicken, but who wants to go there?
Shrimp is another matter entirely. If the price is too good to be true, the shrimp are native Indonesian. There’s nothing wrong with being from Indonesia, but shrimp making the journey may have experienced more trauma than I wish to ingest.
Much of the Tilapia at my supermarket comes from China. The possibility I might glow in the dark gives me a reason to eliminate that choice. I give up on the fish and head to the produce section.
Should I flip a coin and get the stuff from the farmer and hope I can get all the pesticide off, or should I get the organic and trust that it’s truly organic?
Too much information about food sources is depressing. I arrive home empty-handed, famished and call the pizza delivery guy.
Pizza is fish and lettuce free.
