'Super Green' seafood: good for you, good for the ocean

November 3, 8:37 AMSF Sustainable Food ExaminerJeri Lynn Chandler

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the SF Sustainable Food Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Smoked salmon / Photo by FotoosVinRobin

What are the best choices when it comes to seafood that's good to eat and good for the oceans? It's a question that is increasingly difficult to answer. To make answering it a little easier, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Environmental Defense Fund and Harvard School of Public Health teamed up to help us choose the healthiest, safest and most sustainable seafood and, in October 2009, issued their 'Super Green' seafood list of choices that are heart-healthy and vitamin-rich, safe to eat and safe to harvest.

Considering the concerns raised about fish farms in recent years (see: Fish Farming's Growing Dangers in Time magazine), it's reassuring to see quite a few farmed options on the Super Green list. Pressures on wild populations of fish and shellfish have depleted many stocks below harvestable levels and more species teeter on that brink.

Pollution has made other favorite seafoods risky choices, especially for children and pregnant women. Seafood contaminants include metals (such as mercury, which affects brain function and development), industrial chemicals (PCBs and dioxins) and pesticides (DDT). These toxins usually originate on land and make their way into the smallest plants and animals at the base of the ocean food web. As smaller species are eaten by larger ones, contaminants are concentrated and accumulated. Large predatory fish—like swordfish and shark—end up with the most toxins. (Learn more about contaminants in seafood on the Environmental Defense Fund website.)

Fortunately, the compilers of the 'Super Green' list have set some clear parameters, waded through all the information and come up with a pretty simple list of choices - even more straightforward than the Monterey Bay Aquarium's already popular Seafood Watch guide.

Olympia native oyster / Photo by Wet Feet

The 'Super Green' list includes fish and shellfish that meet the following qualifications:

* Low levels of contaminants (below 216 parts per billion [ppb] mercury and 11 ppb PCBs)

* The daily minimum of omega-3s (at least 250 milligrams per day [mg/d])

*Classified as a Seafood Watch "Best Choice"

The Best of the Best ('Super Green'):
Albacore Tuna
(troll- or pole-caught, U.S. or British Columbia)
Mussels (farmed)
Oysters (farmed)
Pacific Sardines (wild-caught)
Pink Shrimp (wild-caught, from Oregon)
Rainbow Trout (farmed)
Salmon (wild-caught, from Alaska)
Spot Prawns (wild-caught, from British Columbia)

The 'next best' choices on the new list include those that are still low in contaminants but provide a smaller amount of omega-3s compared to the choices on the 'Super Green' list (between 100 and 250 mg/d, assuming 8 ounces of fish per week). Seafood on this second-tier list also appear in the Seafood Watch "Best Choice" category.

'Next Best' Choices:
Arctic Char (farmed)
Bay Scallops (farmed)
Crayfish (farmed, from the U.S.)
Dungeness Crab (wild-caught, from California, Oregon or Washington)
Longfin Squid (wild-caught, from the U.S. Atlantic)
Pacific Cod (longline-caught, from Alaska)

Mussels / Photo by avixyz

There are nearly 28,000 living species of fish (source: en.wikipedia.org), not including the many species of molluscs and crustaceans referred to as shellfish. It's a sobering comment on the state of the world's oceans, rivers, lakes and streams that the 'Super Green' list includes just fourteen (as of October 2009).

Some of the oceans' fish stocks have shown an almost incredible resilience when left alone to recover. Perhaps as we become more aware of our impact, make better choices, and learn to raise and harvest seafod responsibly, more choices will be added to the 'Super Green' seafood list in the future.