Think before you eat - Seafood Guide helps you to find sustainable sourced seafood on your iPhone
I'm not only an appfreak, but I also love fish and seafood in general. I always struggled to find the right application for my shopping: Sometimes I'm not familiar with the fish being sold in the UK and in specialist fishmongers the hunt can be even trickier. I always wanted an app with picture of fish and it's name in different languages. Being bilingual this is crucial for me, since most dictionaries are not accurate when it comes to seafood varieties.
Then I found Seafood Guide for the iPhone. As wikipedia says, Seafood Watch is one of the best known sustainable seafood advisory lists, and has influenced similar programs around the world. It is a program designed to raise consumer awareness about the importance of buying seafood from sustainable sources. Not only I have a directory of fish, but it tells me wether I should buy it or not. I haven't had a chance to review Safe Seafood, but it is a very similar concept.
The app has been created for the US public, and I'm not sure if all the names correlate. Most of them do. Your region or location is required to advise you on locally sourced produce, but for people like me, you'll need to check the option, out of the US.
The app is simple and straight forward. You can either select "Seafood Guide" that will open a list with seafood entries sorted alphabetically or by rating and will label them in three colours and will give you shopping recommendation (Best choice, Good alternative, Avoid). "Sushi Guide" offers the same, but using Japanese sushi names (which makes it a brilliant learning tool) and how they're usually used in sushi.
Each entry is fully featured with an illustration of the fish, name, origin, source and a description. I have found the descriptions very dramatic and informative. You have some examples there in the screenshots. The info given is very valuable, but a couple of tests showed flaws or at least an American perspective based in their choice there. More importantly it tells you why you should avoid certain species that have been captured or farmed in ways that harm the environment.
Raising awareness about this issue and changing your buying habits is the aim of the app. I cannot do anything else but recommend it to everyone. Forget about the reviews on iTunes UK that give the app a low score. It is US led, but it is perfectly useful somewhere else, since we also buy from the same sources.
Must check it out is you like cooking or love fish like me. And yes, it's free.
