Finding sustainably produced fish sticks for your kids in the Bay Area and beyond

When was the last time your children had pollock for dinner? The answer is very likely recently. Pollock, although rarely labeled as such, is a cheap and bland fish often used in fish sticks. Formerly considered an abundant fish species, the Pacific pollock - the largest fishery in the U.S. -  is facing a decline from all time highs and is about to switch from a green to a red choice. 

In fact, a little over a million tons of pollock are caught in U.S. waters each year, half of which are consumed as fish sticks or fish filet sandwiches. "Parents would want to know that pollock are not just food for humans," says John Hocevar, Oceans Campaigns Director at Greenpeace USA, explaining that pollock serves as foraging food in the Bering Sea for sea lions and fur seals to whales and sea birds. As harmless as they seem, our frozen dinners take a heavy toll on the oceans and it's time to look closer at the label.

Processed, amalgamated fish pulp pumped into molds, fish sticks are rarely fish-specific and few consumers know what they're eating unless they read the label on the package. Try it. The first item on the ingredients list mentions the type of fish. Now you know what's in your fish sticks. How do you know it's not on the seafood red list? Several resources can help you navigate through that fishy maze.

Seafood Watch, a Monterey Bay Aquarium sustainable seafood program, publishes up-to-date recommendations about what kind of fish is best. Simply run a seafood search in their online database, grab one of their pocket guides, or download your region-specific iPhone mobile application.

Don't have the time to check? Instead of looking up a specific fish, you can support retailers with a sustainable seafood agenda. In July 2009, Greenpeace published a scorecard of seafood practices, ranking nationwide groceries on their efforts to support sustainable fishing practices. Surprisingly, Costco and Trader Joe's ranked very low in the list while WholeFoods and Walmart ranked very high. GreenPeace even created a Traitor Joe's website to prevent Trader Joe's from selling fish on the red list.

If you are going out to the restaurant and choose the kid menu, fish sticks will be there with pizza and chicken tenders. Ask the chef what fish it is and whether it is a sustainable seafood choice. It may or it may not but if it isn't, it will show that you care. Fortunately, some places have already made the smart choice. 

In the Bay Area, you can find shops and restaurants that sell sustainable seafood by checking Seafood Watch's Restaurant Program or look for the Marine Stewardship Council blue label. Some grocers, like Andronico's or Bi-Rite, partner with FishWise and label their seafood red, yellow or green so consumers can make informed choices.

Chow, a Bay Area chain of family restaurants, even started offering sustainable fish sticks on their menu five months ago. "It doesn't help anybody to deplete the oceans," says Adam Marchetti, chef at Chow. Buying from the Monterey Fish Company, Marchetti chooses the type of seafood he serves depending on how and where it was caught. Last week, the fish sticks were mahi mahi.

In the home kitchen, you can adopt a "slow food" approach and follow this recipe for kid-friendly fish sticks to make fish sticks with your own green-certified fish. At least, you are sure to know what kind of fish your family will eat tonight.

In the end, fish sticks should be about fish - not about some generic low-grade protein. By making your next fish sticks sustainable, you're showing your children an important lesson on the environment - unless you decide to switch to mozzarella sticks.