Know Your Fish: A new almanac for sustainable seafood
Never knew when to pass on the pomfret or skip the squid? Now you do.
Worldwide, the demand for wild fish is now greater than the ocean can supply. India is no exception: our seas are significantly impacted by overfishing. So for those of us who eat seafood, it’s imperative that we make informed decisions about what goes into our shopping bags and on to our frying pans. Is the fish we buy sustainable? Does the fishing method cause environmental damage? Now, there’s a resource to ensure we make responsible seafood choices, whatever the season: Know Your Fish.
Know Your Fish is spearheaded by three marine researchers: Pooja Rathod, Mayuresh Gangal, Chetana Purushotham. It will let you check whether squid should be on the menu in April (answer: it shouldn’t). The Know Your Fish calendar tells you, for a given species, what the best time to consume it is, and when they should be absolutely avoided. This ocean-friendly initiative is an important one: if we all made sustainable seafood choices, fish stocks would have the chance to regenerate.
The resource can be used as a guide all along the west coast of India – in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala. Currently, the calendar has recommendations for nine of the most commonly eaten seafood species, including king fish, mackerel, pomfret and prawns, but the website has suggestions for around 20 species. The researchers behind the initiative will be adding to the list as they analyse more data.
The website provides monthly recommendations. Here’s April’s. You can even receive monthly fish recommendations on your phone. To subscribe, send the text ‘JOIN KYFISH’ to +919220092200.