The Hidden Cost of Eating Fish – and How Things Are Getting Worse

For years, the advice has been simple: eat less red meat, eat more fish. It’s lighter, cleaner, better for your heart, better for the planet.

But once you factor in welfare, environmental damage and sheer scale, it starts to look like one of the most ethically complicated.

In recent months alone, the cracks have started to show. New figures revealed that almost 36 million fish died in aquaculture cages in three years, with regulations being ignored at over 75 per cent of sites surveyed.

In the UK, there is concern that industrial trawlers are still fishing in supposedly protected waters. Once framed as a “better” option to meat or poultry, fish is now more likely to be described as at “breaking point” or on the “brink of disaster”, exposing just how fragile the system behind it really is.