well the hoki don't have to worry about me depleting their stocks...deep fried fast food fish was never something i liked to eat.

now beer battered fish is something i will always eat, so the haddock are DOOOOOOOMED

Tighten the fishing regulations in that area and throw anyone violating it in the hoki pokey.

It's a gorgeous fish. I mean, really. McD's may not be your thing, but the Filet O' is the best fast food fish sammich. Relatively moist and tender, even after all the fast food processing. It would be a shame to lose the Hoki, because to me it's a better tasting fish than pollock or haddock, etc.

So Mcdonalds will have to get their misc fish bits elsewhere. They could just farm their own tilapia, pollock, hoki, catfish, pac cod, or whatever is the cheapest to farm. But then McD's is not into raising "food" only cooking and serving it.

This looks like a good place to plug both Seafood Watch and this really excellent article on shopping for fish.

@HiPwr: I LOLed.. a lot.

@HiPwr: ba-dum bum!

I watched an hour long documentary about a boat off the Alaskan coast that fished I think it was Alaskan polluck. They mentioned SEVERAL times throughout the doucmentary the boat featured was the only source for the Mcdonald's filet-o-fish. Someone is lying to me!

Also is it me or does it seem like we are over-harversting the world's oceans at a remarkable pace? I fear for the future of marine life due to overfishing but feel there's nothing that can be done because so many lives depend on jobs stemming from the industry.

I think a one year ban on all fishing would go a long way toward helping the world's overall fish supply make a marked comeback, though I know such an idea is merely a pipe dream.

There should be a show on TV called "Hoki Wars"...where people protesting the unethical treatment of the Hoki follow the fisherman around and play cruel jokes on them in order to entice them to eat more Big Macs...

@Jon34511: The idea of farmed catfish from Vietnam where things like Malachie Green are still used turned me off from McDonald's fish fillets for life.
[www.thanhniennews.com]

Cod is another one that is at serious risk of being fished to extinction. I love cod. After hearing all the over fishing issues and buying way too many absolutely horrible brands if fish we curbed our seafood purchasing.

We quit buying shrimp from Thailand. Every batch that we got tasted like bait. It is also subject to chemical laden farming techniques. [archives.chicagotribune.com]

We also quit buying any fish that didn't come with a country of origin we knew had good practices. It has come down to only buying seafood in the same way we buy things like steak. It is an occasional treat. Luckily the local grocery chain has improved their fish counters. We can get US wild caught shrimp, US wild caught cod and a few others. They are expensive but well worth the wait and price.

I can't stomach mystery fish anymore, sometimes ignorance is bliss.

@Jon34511:

McD uses several different species of fish for their sandwiches

Per NYT:

Gary Johnson, McDonald's senior director of global purchasing .... McDonald's also used other whitefish for its Filet-O-Fish sandwiches.

@Thangka: I like them too. And they aren't a very popular item, so they usually have to make them fresh. Of course, if they aren't fresh, the really SUCK. Like "I can't eat this" kind of suck.

@Jon34511: Leaving all financial aspects aside, stopping all fishing for a year will SEVERELY crunch the food supplies. Too many people depend on fish as a major portion of their diet.

@HiPwr: That's true, if they aren't fresh they dry out and become Staedtler Mars Plastic erasers.

@bohemian:

Shameless plug....
Buy LOUISIANA Shrimp!!!
Our shrimp (wild caught of course) tastes great! And our shrimpers are hurting from competing with cheap crappy imports that don't smell right.
They are also good for bait (the fish like them too!).
Ask for Louisiana shrimp at restauraunts and grocery stores.

Wow, that's actually fish in their fish sandwich! I assumed it was preprocessed white "meat" such as fat, chicken bits, pork bits and bush meat with artificial flavors.

@Jon34511: I saw that documentary as well, and you are correct about what they claimed in the film. Since that docu was made a couple years ago, it's possible McD's is using a different source. They don't LIKE to have only one supplier for any item.

Besides, I swear I remember reading that particular fish processing ship had caught fire and sank relatively recently. All the more reason for McD to use a different supplier and type of fish.

@Thangka: i lived next door to a mcdonalds, when they introduced the filet o fish the smell made me want to vomit

@Thangka: The Filet-O-Fish isn't just hoki though-it's assorted whitefish. I'm with sponica though-I worked there and couldn't stand the things.

@Jon34511:

The problem is really very simple. There's just too many humans in the world and we're consuming the world's resources faster then than they can reproduce. I know that it sounds unpleasant but the quote in the movie The Matrix that said that humans were like a virus is really quite accurate. The only thing that I see correcting the imbalance is some sort of natural disaster that takes out half of the world's population.

At one time, cod was considered to be in endless supply, just like the passenger pigeon. It's not uncommon for anything "endless" to be overharvested, simply because it's not possible to empty the supply. However, nothing is endless anymore. More cod information can be found here:
[www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca]

A more recent example is that of a restaurant selling sushi made with an endangered species of fish. My guess is that the more endangered it is, the harder it is to find in restaurants so more can be charged for it. How much would you pay to eat one of the few bluefin tuna left as the stock is depleted? But just think of this nifty response: to "suggest" that patrons ask for an alternative fish!
[www.guardian.co.uk]

@HiPwr:
THAT's what I was trying to think of! LOL

Not fish from lake mead...you'd never want to eat that after visiting that place. I would gather most fish there have a penchant for corona and a pack a day habit.

no obligatory comments about the Hoki Poki?

/shocked

@Scatter: Except that's probably not the case. Globalized trade results in decreasing sustainability, so you have countries exporting food at the same time as they're suffering famine.

In case anyone brings up the "sustainable" concept of farmed fish, instead of harvesting wild fish...

...know what the #1 food for farmed fish is?

Take a guess. I'll wait.

OK - time's up. The answer is wild fish. Yup. They catch mountainous amounts of wild fish to feed to the farmed fish. I *believe* the net-net of the operation is honestly that you'd be better off just harvesting wild fish.

In pretty much all cases, fish that people like to eat are ridiculously endangered, and not anywhere near enough is being done about it.

...and can we nuke Japan again, just a little, to make them stop their whaling "research" programs? How much effing whale can those little people eat, anyway?

@sponica: Yes fish oil smells. So I take it you don't eat any fish then?

@sonneillon: They should just do what Long John Silver's does. Instead of being picky, they should just use whatever the dump trucks bring in.

Save the planet. Eat Spam.

@sonneillon: I would hardly accuse mcdonalds of selling food

@Corporate_guy: it's the smell of fish and the fryolater. or the fish + everything else they're frying. you'd want to vomit too if you smelt mcds fish day in and day out because the restaurant vents into the apartment courtyard.

i tend to only eat haddock when it's covered in beer batter. and as long as i can't smell where they're cooking it.

Did anyone else giggle after reading the text in the picture incorrectly: "Now Hiring Fish Sandwichs. 2 for $500"

I'm assuming that's "per week," which would make that cheap labor, which is too bad, because fish sandwichs [sic] gots to eat too, ya know.

@YouDidWhatNow?: I've been to Japan. I have never so much as seen a place that sells whale. Who eats that, anyway?

@Coles_Law: I used to work there too, it didn't smell too bad until you had to drain out the fryer vats at night. The scum that accumulates at the bottom of the fillet fryer vat was disgusting and smelled like burnt rotting fish.

@ossavir: I figured it was $500 per hour, which made me wonder just what they expected the fish sandwiches to do.

Fish heads, fish heads, rolly, polly, fish heads.....