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Sardines are in vogue. Literally. They are in Vogue magazine. They’re delicious (subjectively), good for you, and sustainable… right?

Recently, a listener called into the show asking about just that.

“I've always had this sense that they're a more environmentally friendly fish, perhaps because of being low on the food chain. But I'm realizing I really have no sense of what it looks like to actually fish for sardines,” Jeannie told us.

The Outside/In team got together to look beyond the sunny illustrations on the fish tins. Is there bycatch? What about emissions? Are sardines overfished? If we care about the health of the ocean, can we keep eating sardines?

This episode was originally published in 2025.

Featuring Jeannie Bartlett, Malin Pinsky, and Zach Koehn.

Rip logo photo: Canned seafood by Jack Kennard (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

Produced by Justine Paradis. For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org.

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