There's nothing fishy about this menu

With more than 60 per cent of the world’s marine stocks fully fished, exploited or depleted, the students are learning it’s important seafood comes from properly managed sources so oceans stay healthy and can support a diverse range of fish and seafood.

Safety, sustainability and satiation is the theme for Thursday's lunch at Thompson Rivers University.

The departments of culinary arts and natural resource sciences have teamed up to bring the campus and community a seafood lunch people can feel good about.

With more than 60 per cent of the world’s marine stocks fully fished, exploited or depleted, the students are learning it’s important seafood comes from properly managed sources so oceans stay healthy and can support a diverse range of fish and seafood.

For second-year culinary-arts student Shannon Devries, the lunch brings together the best of both worlds: Delicious and eco-friendly food.

“It’s import to see where the food you’re cooking is from and that it has been caught sustainably,” she said, noting everyone can incorporate this type of meal planning by looking for specially labelled products.

“You just have to put a little more time into it.”

While satisfying their hunger, lunch-goers can also learn more about safe practices through the myriad posters and displays, including eco-certification and seafood labelling, fish species to avoid, harvesting methods, benefits of tilapia and farmed versus wild clams, oysters and mussels.

They are all topics fourth-year natural-resource science student Caitlin Dobson said are important on a global scale to effect change.

“The more people ask, the more they receive the product that they’re looking for,” Dobson said.

“If people are refusing to buy things that aren’t sustainably caught, restaurants and stores are going to have to bring it in — they’re going to have to change because that’s what people want.”

Lunch will be served in the culinary-arts building cafeteria (adjacent to the library) from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

To learn more about safe seafood practices and to download Canada’s Seafood Guide, go to seachoice.org, a seafood-awareness program created by the David Suzuki Foundation, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, the Living Oceans Society and the Sierra Club of Canada, B.C. chapter.