Fish - where would we be without it?

'Back in the caves,' is the answer. This was one of the enlightening facts gleaned from my bedside reading at the weekend, The River Cottage Fish Book. It was the mind-expanding goodness in a chemical called DHA that allowed the brains in our ancestors homo erectus to expand and evolve into homo sapiens. And where did homo erectus get its DHA? By eating fish.

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall lays out the arguments about how a healthy fish intake helps reduce the chances of diabetes and children to develop better. And a new one on me - how the gloop at the bottom of the ocean contains one billion micro-organisms per cubic centimetre and that 80% of the 100 strains identified reduced cancerous cell growth. So, not only do we appear to owe our existence as intelligent creatures to the sea, but it could contain the cure to many of the diseases we suffer from.

The downside of this though is that we've become too 'intelligent' for our own good and are abusing the ocean in so many ways, including overfishing. This is why Hugh started his Fish Fight campaign which is aiming to change the EU rules about throwing by-catch back.

If you care about the state of our fisheries, the book contains some useful tips for practical action:

1. buy from sustainable fisheries - look for the Marine Stewardship Council blue fish tick logo and use the Marine Conservation Society fishonline.

2. eat locally caught fish and try different species (the River Cottage Fish Book is also a very good recipe book and available for under a tenner on the web).

3. sign up to Fish Fight campaign to reform EU rules.

Patagonia launches food line - Finisterre to retaliate?

The surprising news that Patagonia have launched a food line shrink-wrapped for easy eating by rough outdoorsy types had me searching for a calendar to make sure it isn't April 1st. But no - its true. They're selling salmon from sustainable sources, caught sensitvely by local people. This is great news (although it seems a bit expensive at $12.50 a packet).

Will St Agnes-based Finisterre (the UK equivalent of Patagonia) feel duty-bound to retaliate? If so, they don't have to look far. For centuries, the Cornish pasty has provided portable sustenance for miners, surfers and even grockles. Now it's received Protected Regional Identification status, its ticks the 'made by locals' box. All Finisterre have to do is source an organic one and flog it in a paper bag made of 100% post-consumer waste paper to make it even more sustainable than Patagonia's offering. Proper Job.

Kippertastic - sustainable fishing does exist

Another example of sustainable fishing - the Guardian reports big supermarkets increasing sales of kippers. They are usually herring, packed with omega 3 oils, cheap and a common species. They probably nourished the Hawaiian princes before their historical dip in the Brid briney.

Does sustainable fishing exist 2?

Tonight was the last of the BBC2 programme - The Fisherman's Apprentice. Monty Halls has taken the lessons he learnt from 8 months living in a small Cornish fishing village, including a spell of deep sea trawling and visiting US East Coast fishermen, to come up with a model of how inshore fishing can survive or even prosper.

Essentially, the fishermen started a 'fish box' scheme like a veg box. Punters don't know what they're going to get but must learn to wean themselves off the 5 species (cod, haddock, tuna, prawn and salmon) that accounts for 60% of fish eaten in the UK.

This can only be a good thing so it reduces the waste of edible fish which gets used as bait or chucked back dead and increases income for fishermen. It must also reduce the pressure on overfished species.

Does sustainable fishing exist?

This is one of several questions that Monty Hall - a telegenic marine biologist - tries to answer on the programme The Fisherman's Apprentice. The BBC filmed his attempt to spend 3 months as an inshore fisherman in south Cornwall. Last night's programme saw him spending a week on a deep sea beam trawler out of Newlyn. Although the boats are old and the work unbelievably hard, the sonar and other kit on board means that fishing is very efficient i.e. not much gets away.

I was stunned by the destruction wreaked on the seabed and the amount of bycatch chucked back dead. His conclusion was that small boats are the only sustainable form of fishing (as well as - presumably - fish you catch to eat yourself). It was difficult to find fault with that conclusion.