We love our seafood, a delicious source of lean protein. The latest data reports U.S. annual consumption to be more than 4.8 billion pounds of it, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with the average American eating 3.5 ounces of seafood a week. About half of the catch is wild-caught and half farmed. How do we know which fish and shellfish are safe to eat and good for ocean ecology?

The best approach is to choose seafood carefully. Oil spills, waste runoff and other environmental disasters can compromise the quality of seafood with toxic contaminants like mercury and other heavy metals and industrial, agricultural and lawn chemicals. These pollutants can wash out from land to sea (and vice versa). As smaller fish that have eaten pollutants are eaten by larger ones, contaminants accumulate and concentrate. Large predatory fish like swordfish and sharks end up with the most toxins.

Beyond today’s top-selling shrimp, canned tuna, salmon and farmed tilapia, more retailers and restaurants are also providing lesser-known seafood varieties like dogfish and hake as alternatives to overfished species such as sea bass and Atlantic cod. These newto- us, wild-caught fish can be delicious, sustainable and healthy.

Choices Good for Oceans

An outstanding resource for choosing well-managed caught or farmed seafood in environmentally responsible ways is Seafood Watch, provided through California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium. Information on the most sustainable varieties of seafood is available in a printed guide, updated twice a year. The pocket guide or smartphone app provides instant information at the seafood counter and restaurant table. Online information at SeafoodWatch. org and via the app is regularly updated.

The Blue Ocean Institute, led by MacArthur Fellow and ecologist Carl Safina, Ph.D., supports ocean conservation, community economics and global peace by steering consumers and businesses toward sustainably fished seafood. It maintains a data base on 140 wild-caught fish and shellfish choices at BlueOcean.org.

Hoki, for instance, might have a green fish icon for “relatively abundant” and a blue icon for “sustainable and well-managed fisheries,” but also be red-flagged for containing levels of mercury or PCBs that can pose a health risk for children. As species become overfished, rebound or experience fluctuating levels of contaminants, their annual ratings can change.

Choices Good for Us

To help make choosing easier, Seafood Watch has now joined with the Harvard School of Public Health to also advise what’s currently safe to eat. Entries on their list of “green” fish, which can shift annually, are low in mercury, good sources of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids and caught or farmed responsibly.

If the top-listed fish and shellfish aren’t locally available, look for the Seafood Safe label, started by EcoFish company founder and President Henry Lovejoy, which furnishes at-a-glance consumption recommendations based upon tests for contaminants. Labels display a number that indicates how many four-ounce servings of the species a woman of childbearing age can safely eat per month. (Find consumption recommendations for other demographics at SeafoodSafe.com.) Expert-reviewed independent testing of random samples of the fish currently monitors mercury and PCB levels. Lovejoy advises that other toxins will be added to the testing platform in the future.

“My dream is to have all seafood sold in the U.S. qualify to bear the Seafood Safe label, because consumers deserve to know what they’re eating,” says Lovejoy. “We need to be a lot more careful in how we use toxic chemicals and where we put them.”

Retail Ratings

Some retailers also provide details on their seafood sourcing. Whole Foods, for example, offers complete traceability of the fish and shellfish they carry, from fishery or farm to stores. Their fish, wild-caught or farmed, frozen or fresh, meet strict quality guidelines in regard to exposure to antibiotics, preservatives and hormones. They also display Seafood Watch and Blue Ocean Institute ratings at the seafood counter.

Wise seafood choices feed and sustain our families, foster a healthier seafood industry, support responsible local fisheries and keep Earth’s water resources viable.

 

Judith Fertig blogs at AlfrescoFoodAndLifestyle.blogspot.com from Overland Park, KS.