Gen Z Are Promoting Sardines – 7 Reasons This is a Problem
If you’ve been scrolling TikTok lately, you may have noticed a strange surge in videos relating to sardines.
According to reports, Gen Z is increasingly promoting sardine consumption. Some social media influencers only know sardines as a cheap food stuffed in a tin with oil, water, or sauce. But that’s not who sardines are. They are individuals, not ingredients.
If you’ve considered eating these amazing little animals, here are seven things you should know.
Sardines Are Someone, Not Something
Sardines are someone, not something. They are small fish who roam along the upper level of the ocean, migrating in large schools across vast stretches of open water. Sardines typically live in temperate and subtropical seas, in regions spanning Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. They gather in dense, shimmering groups that move almost like a single, mesmerising organism, evading predators through coordinated motion.
They live in communities and have rich and complex lives, just like us. Crucially, they suffer when harmed as all animals do.
Fish Do Feel Pain
Fish may look different from us and other vertebrates, but that doesn’t mean they suffer any less. They have a central nervous system and respond to negative stimuli in ways that show they feel pain.
Pain is an essential survival mechanism that protects animals from harm. It helps us avoid injury, learn from dangerous experiences, and survive long enough to reproduce. There’s no biological reason fish would lack it and there is every reason to believe they experience it fully, just like we do.
A 2025 study found that fish experience up to 22 minutes of “intense pain” when removed from the water. Remember that next time you walk past sardines in the supermarket.
The Fishing Industry Means Suffocation and Death
Sardines are dragged from the ocean in huge trawler nets by the tens of thousands.
Sardines are small and sensitive, and they experience fear, suffocation, and crushing long before they reach the deck where they may be put onto ice slurry and left to die.
Their natural behaviours – swimming in coordinated groups, navigating open waters, and responding collectively to threats – are used against them by the commercial fishing industry, making them exceptionally vulnerable to capture.
Each year, humans kill trillions of fish, including around two million tonnes of sardines hauled from the ocean.
Sardines Help Maintain the Ocean Ecosystem
Sardines play a key role in maintaining marine ecosystems. As small, schooling fish, they form a crucial link in the ocean’s food web. They eat plankton and in turn are eaten by dolphins, seabirds, and tuna. When sardine populations decline, entire ecosystems can destabilise.
Pacific sardine numbers have dropped by at least 96% since 2006 due to industrial fishing and the climate crisis.
Eating Sardines Can Cause Health Issues
Sardines’ flesh packed in cans can be high in sodium, and contain compounds called purines, which the body breaks down into uric acid, which can be a concern for people prone to gout or kidney issues.
Like all fish flesh, sardines can accumulate environmental contaminants like arsenic, mercury, and lead.
There Are Healthier Foods Available
Dog meat contains protein. Rat milk contains calcium. But would you eat either of these just to obtain these nutrients? If the answer is no, the same should apply to sardines.
Fish only contain omega‑3s because they consume algae. Humans can get omega‑3s directly from an algae supplement or other plant-based omega-3 sources like chia seeds or walnuts.
Sardines Are Not Ours to Eat
We don’t need to exploit and kill other animals to thrive.
If you like the taste of sardines but don’t want to harm animals, you can buy vegan versions or even make your own with hearts of palm! There are so many innovative, tasty, and cruelty-free vegan fish products on the market – check out our guide to vegan fish and chip shops in the UK:
Vegan Fish and Chips
Take the vegan pledge and remove all animals, including sardines, from your diet today:
And don’t forget to order your free Vegan Starter Kit to help you on your way!
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