I compiled this guide by compiling data from the Monterey Bay Aquarium's popular Seafood Watch guide. I crunched the numbers by type of seafood which has the most fisheries/types listed as "Green-Best", "Yellow-Good", and "Red-Avoid". None of the Top 25 Most Sustainable are listed as "Red-Avoid" by Seafood Watch. There are some more sustainable fisheries and farms for at least some of the Top 50 Least Sustainable, but they are often few and far between. Eating seafood can be like playing Russian Roulette, as Oceana and Greenpeace claim much seafood is mislabeled, and many restaurants and seafood sellers do not know where their seafood comes from.
If you must eat seafood, I recommend sticking ONLY to the Top 25. Some on that list are bivalves which are very low-impact to farm, do not need wild-caught fish to be fed, and from an animal welfare perspective suffer much less in captivity than large predatory fish such as salmon. Most of the finfish on that list are small fish that are relatively low on the food chain, so they tend to be more plentiful, lower in mercury contamination, and killing them usually does less damage to the ecosystem than large predatory fish. Small fish are tend to be able to be farmed with less environmental impact than larger species, because they eat less, with some species even being able to be farmed on a vegetarian diet. At the very least, consider avoiding the top 10 or 25 or so of the Top 50 Least Sustainable Choices, which are REALLY bad for the oceans, and many of them contain high levels of mercury as well.
Seafood lovers of the board, what do you think, can you follow this guide and only eat the Top 25?
Top 25 Most Sustainable Choices:
(1) Arctic Char
(2) Sanddab
(3) Barnacle
(4) Wreckfish
(5) Mullet
(6) Scallops
(7) Clams
(8) Sole
(9) Mackerel
(10) Sablefish
(11) Tilapia
(12) Lingcod
(13) Bass
(14) Scad
(15) Oysters
(16) Herring
(17) Seatrout
(18) Plaice
(19) Bluefish
(20) Croaker
(21) Mussels
(22) Drum
(23) Pollock
(24) Capelin
(25) Grenadier
Avoid These Top 50 Least Sustainable Choices:
(1) Eel
(2) Shad
(3) Orange Roughy
(4) Paddlefish
(5) Weakfish
(6) Dab
(7) Conch
(8) Grouper
(9) Anchovy
(10) Octopus
(11) Alfonsino
(12) Squid
(13) Halibut
(14) Marlin
(15) Haddock
(16) Snapper
(17) Walleye
(18) Hake
(19) Butterfish
(20) Spearfish
(21) Opah
(22) Tuna
(23) Cod
(24) Crab
(25) Shrimp
(26) Shark
(27) Rockfish
(28) Flounder
(29) Swordfish
(30) Sardine
(31) Perch
(32) Salmon
(33) Skates
(34) Amberjack
(35) Lobster
(36) Toothfish
(37) Sturgeon
(38) Bream
(39) Caviar
(40) Abalone
(41) Whitefish
(42) Mahi Mahi
(43) Trout
(44) Crawfish
(45) Catfish
(46) Tilefish
(47) Smelt
(48) Sea Urchin
(49) Cobia
(50) Pompano
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