In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.

Hello Grist,

The food worry that keeps me up at night is how best to buy fish. Should I buy sorts of sea wildlife in one fell swoop, drowning the fish they wanted to collect along with many varieties that they will just dump back in the water dead? Or “farm raised,” with the many antibiotics that are required to keep the fish alive in close quarters, other injections, the waste that is often times released (either on purpose or accidentally) into the waterways, polluting them so the wild fish and other wildlife do not survive?

Any advice on which is better would be appreciated.

Thank you for starting a column just focusing on food, as this is a big issue for sustainability.

Karen Bograd Raleigh, N.C.”wild caught,” with the world’s fishing fleets using giant nets that scoop up all

Dear Karen:

The next time you are up at night fretting, please know that you are in good company! At about 3 a.m., you are likely to find me staring at the ceiling, worrying about upcoming presidential elections, my sump pump, or if I’m getting enough fatty acids — and how the heck acids can be fatty in the first place. (Tell me honestly now: Does this acid make me look fatty?)

In all seriousness, questions around eating fish are a legitimate source of angst. Not only are our oceans in peril from pollution and irresponsible harvesting (according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, more than 75 percent of the world’s fisheries are either fully fished or over-fished), but you also could endanger your health by choosing the wrong sea critter. And I hate to tell you this, but the cheap popcorn shrimp and Cajun-grilled Atlantic salmon that we all love to order when we eat out? Ixnay on those.

In scientific terms, Karen, your question is known as a “tuffy.” The problem with fish-harvesting methods are many, including their definitions.

“Wild-caught” casts a wide net and can mean that your fish were caught using highly destructive (read: downright demonic) fishing methods such as dynamiting reefs, high-seas bottom-trawling, and drift nets. But the term wild-caught can also encompass more desirable lower-impact techniques, such as hand-lines, divers, or the use of pots or traps.

Farmed fish (the product of aquaculture), as you have pointed out, also have their fair share of problems. As most of us now know, certain kinds of farmed salmon can, quite literally, be a lousy option. But aquaculture products are hard to avoid, given that nearly half of all the fish we eat now comes from farms. Though the farmed stuff should be avoided in some instances, you don’t have to eschew it entirely. Certain kinds, especially herbivorous species, raised domestically in well-contained ponds, can be a healthy and eco-conscious option.

So rather than choosing between farmed and wild-caught fish, I propose that you choose sustainable fish…

Full Story: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/8/14/93128/6887?source=food