Whole Foods To Begin Selling Lionfish

Lionfish
Lionfish

With the war against Lionfish heating up off the coast of Florida, looks like at least one grocery chain is getting into the business of selling the fish.

According to multiple news sources original news source Civil Eats, Whole Foods plans to begin selling Lionfish in its U.S. West Coast stores within the next six months, with the possibility of going national soon after.

The catalyst for Whole Foods’ decision was the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program giving the Lionfish its “Best Choice/Green” rating. Whole Foods uses Seafood Watch to decide what to stock in its stores.

Granted, the Lionfish’s spines are poisonous venomous, but remove them and you get a white, flaky fish with a mild flavor.

If you spearfish off the East Coast, check out the video below to learn how to safely fillet a Lionfish.

And who knows? This might be the one invasive fish that breath-hold spearfishermen/women might not turn their noses up at scuba spearfishermen/women.

Filleting a Lionfish
SOURCECivil Eats
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John Liang is the News Editor at DeeperBlue.com. He first got the diving bug while in High School in Cairo, Egypt, where he earned his PADI Open Water Diver certification in the Red Sea off the Sinai Peninsula. Since then, John has dived in a volcanic lake in Guatemala, among white-tipped sharks off the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica, and other places including a pool in Las Vegas helping to break the world record for the largest underwater press conference.