New guides address sushi sustainability

NEW YORK — Mackerel is in, but octopus is out. And bluefin tuna, known as the king of sushi for its fatty belly meat, is a definite no-no.

These tips and others on ocean-friendly sushi are available in new pocket guides published by three conservation groups. The sustainability guides are the first specifically for sushi, listing fish by their Japanese and English names.

"The sushi industry as a whole is probably pretty far behind the curve," said Trevor Corson, the author of "The Story of Sushi" and a contributor to one of the guides, produced by the Blue Ocean Institute.

Corson said nonsushi fish restaurants are more likely to pay attention to whether their seafood is fished by sustainable methods. In one of the guides, diners at sushi restaurants are encouraged to quiz sushi chefs on where the fish came from and whether it was caught or farmed.

"You often see the information about the fish right on the menu," Corson said of traditional seafood restaurants. "You don't get that at sushi restaurants."

The three guides, published by the East Norwich, N.Y.-based institute, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Environmental Defense Fund, will be introduced today.

The organizations already publish guides to seafood whose supplies are dwindling because of overfishing and other environmental threats. So why a separate guide for sushi?

Corson said some consumers "leave their sustainability conscience at the door when they walk into a sushi restaurant."

And he said sushi offerings may be identified only by their Japanese names, such as toro (tuna belly) or tako (octopus). The Environmental Defense Fund's guide is slightly more focused than the other two on the health of the consumer as well as the health of the oceans, with some items — wild Alaskan salmon, farmed oysters — identified as "high in heart-healthy omega-3s and low in contaminants."

Bluefin tuna makes the worst-choices list of the defense fund's "Sushi Selector" because overfishing has sent the world's bluefin population plummeting by 90 percent in 30 years.

Other worst choices, according to the defense fund: monkfish (ankoh), red snapper (tai) and freshwater eel (unagi). Best choices include U.S. farmed abalone (awabi), albacore tuna from the U.S. or Canada (shiro maguro), and farmed arctic char (iwana).