Most of us know the health benefits of eating fatty cold water fish like salmon, tuna and cod. Cold water fatty fish is an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids, but even ocean-caught fish can be a source of environmental toxins, including mercury.

Sadly, most of the fish available on North American markets comes from industrial fish farms that can not only pollute our waterways, but also pollute our bodies. Other fish may be wild caught, but they can be contaminated because they live in polluted waters.

We know that the numbers of fish in the cold North Atlantic waters have declined 83 percent in the last century. According to the United Nations, more than two-thirds of fisheries the world over have been exploited or overfished, and catches are declining.

Billions of pounds of fish each year are wasted as unwanted “bycatch,” and hundreds of thousands of seabirds, marine mammals, sea turtles and other marine life are also killed through destructive fishing practices.

You can make a difference in the types and quality of seafood the industry will provide in response to consumer demand:

• When you’re buying seafood, look for the Marine Stewardship Council’s blue eco-label, which ensures you’re buying fish that were sustainably harvested. If your supermarket doesn’t carry them, request that it does so.
• Buy only wild-caught fish.
• Buy these fish which are sustainably caught and brought to market and that can easily regenerate their numbers: Chinook Salmon (also called King Salmon), spot prawns from Alaska, clams from the Pacific Northwest.
• Most experts recommend you keep your overall fish consumption to not more than two servings a week. This means that taking a high quality fish oil supplement will help you get all the healthy fats you need.

Because Garden of Life is committed to preserving our planet’s valuable resources for future generations, our fishery partners adhere to sustainable practices and only harvest fish that are abundant in the wild and never endangered. More specifically, the harvesting of the Norwegian  Arctic Cod for Oceans 3 formulas is done by local fishing boats and regulated by the Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs to ensure sustainability for future generations. Garden of Life buys only from fisheries committed to eliminating overfishing and reducing waste.

The human population of the world is expected to be nearly tripled by the year 2100. Also.. Every day 50 to 100 species of plants and animals become extinct as their habitat and human influences destroy them.