I have a rule against buying anything that was caught in the Mediterranean. The med is an evaporating sea - more evaporates from it than flows in from rivers, so there is a steady inflow through the Straights of Gibraltar. So all the contaminants from the Rhone, Danube, Volga and Nile (i.e. most of the crap from former soviet states), as well as things added directly to the sea (lead from boat paint, radioactive waste dumped illegally by the mafia etc etc) has no where to go and gradually concentrates.

The open ocean is better, but frankly, the whole damn planet is polluted and the best we can do is choose the less polluted food sources. Or be like Griff, but I hate goats.

That's pretty funny, I've eliminated about 95% of fish from my diet for health reasons.

The best fish comes from McDonald's, doesn't it?

It is easier to cut their throats if you hate them.

Just goes to show how far out of the loop I am. I've always seen diets recommending fish as a good source of lean protein and felt badly that I resisted because I didn't like it. Now, not so much.

It still is, you just have to be more selective where it comes from. We farm a fair amount of fish in this country.

There was a great discussion on NPR yesterday about fish farming.
There are some issues with salmon as they are being farmed too close (so says the interviewee) to the wild salmon and there is a great risk of transference of infection, disease ....

They also discussed some things about Catfish and mentioned a couple different names from overseas. Asia, I believe. They are basically catfish, but the commercial fish lobby fought them on the use of the name "catfish" here in the US so they are called something else. One was their Latin name ... can't remember.
He did say that fish farming, specifically those that are NOT carnivores are tyhe safest/best way to go.

Here's a great TED lecture on fish and fish farming by Dan Barber:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_...th_a_fish.html

If you've ever seen the ponds they farm the catfish in in Asia, you'd never eat it.

Just eat wild caught deep sea fish and you'll be better off. Most pollutants stay pretty close to the surface.

That's a great point Ali. For the past decade or so, I rarely eat any seafood that I or someone I know personally hasn't caught.

That's what the OP was about, Vietnam ponds. If we don't use the pond farmed fish we grow here, we won't be eating anything soon. The rate we are taking fish is unsustainable for many types.

Theres a similar warning for US shellfish. One industry practice is to harvest shellfish from contaminated waters and them park them in cleaner waters to decontaminate.

The difference in US inspection between meat/poultry and fish/seafood is mind-boggling. If seafood were held to the same standards as meat and poultry, we'd be having a recall a day.