Pike Place Market (©photo by Cheryl Peters, courtesy of morgueFile.com)

It’s not easy being a seafood lover, not if you care about your family’s health and the health of America’s fisheries.

The fresh bluefish I grew fond of eating as a boy on Long Island is now a victim of pollution to the extent that it is only considered safe to eat when consumed very occasionally. The Atlantic cod, once so mighty an economic engine that one was proudly mounted on the wall of the Massachusetts statehouse, is now a depleted species with no encouraging signs of recovery.

What’s a seafood lover to do? Fortunately, our friends at the nonprofit Food & Water Watch have come up with some pretty good answers in their newly released, 2011 Smart Seafood Guide. Here’s what F&WW’s Lauren Wright has to say:

This year we recommend eating invasive species, many of which sound like they came straight out of a sci-fi flick! European green crabs, Asian swamp eels and rusty crawfish are just a few of the strange animals that are jeopardizing native species and taking over local ecosystems throughout the U.S. Our solution? Eat 'em!

The nonprofit organization recently had major event at NYC's famed James Beard House demonstrating how to prepare some of these species, including the deadly lionfish.

For those that might be feeling a bit squeamish about eating species they find strange, keep in mind that species have been going in and out of fashion for hundreds of years. The now venerated lobster served in the toniest of eateries was once considered so undesirable that it was largely fed to prison inmates, something the inmates resented. Prisoners complained that they were being fed far too much lobster!

About Food & Water Watch

The nonprofit organization works to ensure the food, water and fish we consume is safe, accessible and sustainable. So we can all enjoy and trust in what we eat and drink, it helps people take charge of where their food comes from, keep clean, affordable, public tap water flowing freely to our homes, protect the environmental quality of oceans, force government to do its job protecting citizens, and educate about the importance of keeping shared resources under public control.

To view the new guide from Food & Water Watch, go to: 2011 Smart Seafood Guide

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