Brooklyn Queens Land Trust

Ecological Meanderings

Jan 27, 2006

Best & Worst Seafood Choices

Our guide shows which fish are healthy for the oceans and can help you choose fish that are safe to eat. (Learn about seafood and your health and fish to avoid.) The website Oceans Alive has included a chart called Health Alerts with suggestions including, "The fish listed below should be eaten in limited quantities or not at all because of contamination." The chart is at

http://www.oceansalive.org/eat.cfm?subnav=healthalerts

Starred text ** indicates a health advisory for mercury, PCBs, dioxins or pesticides; see individual fish pages for more information. Not all fish have been sufficiently tested for safety. As a precaution, it is recommended that you not eat the same kind of fish more than once a week.

This information came from Ocean's Alive website http://www.oceansalive.org and there you can find the:
Seafood Selector FAQ: Get answers to your common questions.
Pocket Seafood Selector: Print out a wallet-sized copy.

ECO-BEST

Abalone
U.S. farmed

Anchovies

Arctic char
U.S. and Canadian farmed
Catfish
U.S. farmed
Caviar
U.S. farmed paddlefish and sturgeon eggs
Clams
butter, geoducks, hard, littlenecks, Manila
Crab
Dungeness, snow from Canada, stone
Crawfish
U.S.
Halibut
from Alaska
Herring
Atlantic sea herring
Mackerel
Atlantic
Mahimahi/dolphinfish
U.S., from the Atlantic
Mussels
farmed blue, New Zealand green*
Oysters
farmed Eastern, European, Pacific*
Sablefish/black cod
from Alaska
Salmon -- wild from Alaska: chinook, chum, coho, pink, sockeye

Sardines

Scallops
farmed bay
Shrimp -- Northern from Newfoundland, U.S. farmed

Spot prawns

Striped bass -- farmed

Sturgeon -- farmed

Tilapia - U.S.
ECO-WORST

Caviar
wild sturgeon

Chilean seabass/toothfish **

Cod
Atlantic

Grouper **

Halibut
Atlantic

Marlin

Monkfish/goosefish

Orange roughy**

Rockfish -- Pacific (rock cod/boccacio)

Salmon
farmed or Atlantic**

Shark**

Shrimp/prawns
imported

Skate

Snapper

Sturgeon
wild **

Swordfish** - imported

Tilefish**

Tuna
bluefin**


Try to find mollusks that are grown suspended in the water. Mollusks raised on bay bottoms are often harvested by dredging, which damages bottom habitat.


Limited consumption or in some cases no consumption is advised due to chemical contamination.

To my vegan friends, I am a carnivore but have cut down on my meat consumption due to your influence and a desire to live healthily to an old age...like my ancestors. Since I believe that we each have to march to our own tune, I include this information for those of us who eat healthily and realize that diet has the word die in it, we choose to say that we eat healthily instead. Now, if the bad fat melts away, that is a bonus. Ed.
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