Sustainable Seafood (PHOTOS): The Best And Worst Fish To Eat

As part of HuffPost Green's Our Oceans project, we're highlighting how you can make sustainable seafood choices. Sustainable seafood is fish that is caught in a way that doesn't impede the fish's population growth or natural habitat, as well as the habitats of marine life in close proximity. Unfortunately, many fishing practices in place today do just the opposite, shrinking their populations, ecosystems, and polluting the waters.

It can be overwhelming to know which fish to best to eat when you're literally wading through a sea of options. The Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch has compiled an extensive list of which seafoods are best, good alternatives, and which you should definitely avoided. You can print out a pocket guide on which seafoods are best for your region of the U.S. or download a convenient iPhone app. We're compiled a selection of Seafood Watch's best and worst options of fish to eat. Take a look, and vote for your favorite, or least favorite, fish.

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BEST: Wild Alaskan Salmon

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Alaska monitors their salmon populations well-- their freshwater habitats are kept relatively clean, and the salmon do not face challenges they would face in California and the Pacific Northwest, such as damming and deforestation. Wild-caught fish on the whole do not inflict damage on their environment like farmed salmon does, which releases waste into the sea and pollutes it. Alaska salmon can go by coho, sockeye, king, pink, red, and sake on the market-- always make sure to check that it's been wild-caught.

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Alaska monitors their salmon populations well-- their freshwater habitats are kept relatively clean, and the salmon do not face challenges they would face in California and the Pacific Northwest, such as damming and deforestation. Wild-caught fish on the whole do not inflict damage on their environment like farmed salmon does, which releases waste into the sea and pollutes it. Alaska salmon can go by coho, sockeye, king, pink, red, and sake on the market-- always make sure to check that it's been wild-caught.

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Comments

[SFTor]

11:57 PM on 04/13/2010

I was amazed not to find bluefin tuna on the list. Definitely avoid. Sharks also.

[tompoe]

02:29 PM on 04/11/2010

Seafood Watch got snookered by Adobe/Windows. Their site is a mess, if user is using Open Source software. What a corporate shame.

[Jimboy17]

06:59 PM on 04/06/2010

So the moral of this (non) story is to only buy US farmed or fished seafood. Period. Wow. An ad disguised as an article. Sad.

[jonoruf]

09:22 AM on 04/11/2010

No kidding...'article' also fails to mention that farm raised fish is NOT at all sustainable. Feeding corn and soy that was industrially grown using massive amounts of oil and resources is in no way sustainable. Furthermore, there is no mention about how harmful it can be to eat these disease infested fish who are fed unnatural diets...

[robertson4379]

03:54 PM on 04/13/2010

If either one of you had read the article, you would have a better basis for comment:

"Sustainable seafood is fish that is caught in a way that doesn't impede the fish's population growth or natural habitat, as well as the habitats of marine life in close proximity" (see the article)

Farmed fish, by definition, is sustainable as long as the farm is located in such a way as to avoid direct contamination of the species natural habitat. Similarly, management practices have resulted in sustainable fisheries for wild salmon and shrimp species.

Unfortunately, the article does not address the overall ecological impact of eating seafood, which is I think the basis of the points you both are trying to make. If you want to eat a sustainable diet, you would rarely eat any animal protein regardless of how the resource is managed. If a person chooses to eat seafood, however, there are more and less responsible choices, which is the point of this admittedly fluffy article.

[blueskybigstar]

05:52 PM on 04/06/2010

The best ways to keep a sustainable fish population is to make no fishing zones that repopulate the areas around them, and to eat the younger fish and throw back the older, senescent fish that have already made it to the age of reproduction and reproduce more viable offspring than the younger of their species.

Older fish don't taste as good as younger fish and carry more toxins anyway. Our rules are backwards and are causing more harm than help.

[mamacat]

09:30 AM on 04/06/2010

I am very curious about how they photographed catfish flying through the air. There has got to be an interesting story behind that picture.

[000Jade000]

09:51 AM on 04/06/2010

Mhmmm. That caught my eye until I became pre-occupied with the caption.

How in the world can farmed Catfish be one of the most sustainable fishes when they are fed a diet of corn, soybeans, and rice . . . which are all genetically modified crops and hence environmentally damaging foodstuffs?!

[Moneypolitics]

04:46 PM on 04/06/2010

Stick a current in the water and it forces fish to jump.

[isaidit]

02:51 AM on 04/06/2010

I avoid them all. Too fishy.

[ThomasPaine1776]

02:31 AM on 04/06/2010

STOP EATING FISH. THATS THE ONLY "SUSTAINABLE" CHOICE.

HP: SHAME ON YOU. "SUSTAINABLE FISH" is just like "CLEAN COAL". It's what people wanna hear, but its not possible.

Our oceans are dying, fast. Were RAPIDLY murdering all the life in all our oceans.

HUMANS DO NOT NEED TO EAT FISH. ITS BAD FOR US under any circumstances. Fish is the most poisonous thing to eat.

Humans are HERBIVORES and eating fish or any animal is unecessary and dangerous.

Just eat vegan and be done with it. Seriously.

[NOOTPOSTSFORISREAL]

03:52 AM on 04/06/2010

I'm going to kill an endangered animal and leave it to rot.

[eudaimoniac]

08:38 AM on 04/06/2010

i'm a vegetarian and your response to the above post was still funny.

[Moneypolitics]

05:07 AM on 04/06/2010

Herbivores? Where did you get that from? People can choose to be vegetarians however we biologically are omnivores.

[AjaStrandski]

11:34 PM on 04/05/2010

I Love this article. The wife lead me to and now I fully accept a life without beef, poultry (still eat eggs and drink milk though) or pork. Though I still hold onto the fish. Jumping Catfish in Olathe Kansas is the bomb.

[hottingers]

10:36 PM on 04/05/2010

Worst: Lindsay Lohan

[rf dude]

10:33 PM on 04/05/2010

'
If you're a fish, you're probably rooting for the "Beef - It's What's For Dinner" ads...

[mamacat]

09:32 AM on 04/06/2010

Good one. I can picture some fish working in a smoke-filled back room somewhere, plotting a campaign to promote the eating of beef.

[rf dude]

10:40 AM on 04/06/2010

'
Either a salmon or a herring...

[NaBa]

10:19 PM on 04/05/2010

When in doubt, refer to:
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx

[deweaver]

10:00 PM on 04/05/2010

Looks like the same mis-information about seafood. Wild salmon is "better" than farmed salmon because farmed salmon are fed 1 to 2 (actual numbers, not the 3 claimed) kg of forage fish/krill in their diets to produce 1 kg of farmed salmon. In reality, that wild salmon consumed 6 to 10 kg of forage fish/krill to gain a kg in weight. The big difference is that the wild salmon had to catch a dinner that didn't want to be caught and wasted a lot of energy getting dinner. The farmed fish just ate slow moving pellets that didn't try to get away.

The primary reason fish meal is used in fish diets is that it is the most economical protein source available -- it isn't required, it is just cheaper. Before aquaculture existed, fish meal was used in chicken and pig diets. The world wide harvest of fish for fishmeal hasn't changed in 30 years while aquaculture has grown into a real industry. The only thing that changed is the market for fish meal shifted from chickens to fish as the price increased (fish oil is no longer being used as fuel for the fishing boats, it is worth more as fish feed).

[skippyB]

09:50 PM on 04/05/2010

Great Article - except for one thing -

THERE IS NO GOOD FARMED SALMON - There is this company that spews all of this pr garbage about this "different" , "new and improved" farmed salmon from the pure waters of Scotland and all of that.... same, same, just marketed to within an inch of its life - and it tastes like goldfish, pink dye and all -

DON'T BE FOOLED

Support and eat WILD Salmon and the ecosystems where it can thrive.

[bbriani3842]

11:49 PM on 04/05/2010

You've sampled goldfish? Please tell me you are referring the cracker. . . .

[The Cause Endures]

08:27 PM on 04/05/2010

One feature of imported shrimp is that it is often farmed by slaves. HP should point that out.

[aznurse]

07:09 PM on 04/05/2010

I just watched a special on tv that said farmed fish causes more damage than anything.
The feed the farmed fish thousands of pounds of sardines to produce hundreds of pounds of Salmon.
they said it would be best to eat smaller fish like the sardines and anchovies.

[mamacat]

09:33 AM on 04/06/2010

Most Americans hate sardines and/or anchovies. Good sardines and anchovies used to be much easier to purchase than they are today.