TOP TEN SEAFOOD LIST

Seafood at Market Street Grill

Americans ate 20 percent more tilapia in 2010 than they did in 2009,  propelling it from the number five spot to the number four spot with the single largest gain in consumption on the National Fisheries Institute’s (NFI) latest Top Ten Seafood List.

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For many years, America’s most-consumed seafood was canned tuna. But in 2000, shrimp surged ahead, and has remained at the top. That was mainly because shrimp prices were lowered due to imported farmed shrimp.  Many people don’t realize that  more than 90 percent of U.S.-consumed shrimp is grown in fish farms in countries such as China, Thailand, Vietnam, Brazil and Ecuador. Farmed imports have definitely made shrimp more affordable to those who don’t live near the Southern coastline. But there’s the concern that the imports are squeezing out the American shrimpers, who can’t catch wild shrimp as cheaply as a foreign counties can farm it.
Several prominent New Orleans chefs told me they insist on using domestic shrimp for this reason, and because they feel it has better taste and texture.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a “Seafood Watch” that recommends which seafood to eat and which to avoid, based on environmental issues, which types are overfished or farmed in ways that harm other marine life, or that have high levels of contaminants. Imported farmed shrimp is on its “avoid” list.
But, if you have a hankering for shrimp in Utah, you will find that American-caught shrimp is a lot more expensive and harder to find than farm-raised.