Healthiest Seafood Options, Ranked

If you’re looking for a mild-tasting fish that’s packed with protein, consider adding cod to your diet. A 180-gram cod fillet provides an impressive 41 grams of protein, which can help support satiety, blood sugar regulation, and muscle mass maintenance.²⁴

Choosing lower-calorie, higher-protein foods, like cod, can promote a healthy body weight by increasing feelings of fullness, which may curb your appetite, reduce snacking, and help you cut back on your calorie intake.²⁵

The mild flavor of cod makes it a good choice for people who want to add more seafood into their diet, but don’t like strong-tasting fish.

12. Tuna

Tuna is one of the most affordable and accessible types of seafood. Canned tuna is inexpensive and shelf-stable, meaning it doesn’t require refrigeration.

Tuna is also nutritious, providing a number of essential vitamins, minerals, and omega-3 fats. In addition to omega-3 fats, tuna provides nutrients like B12, vitamin D, iron, and selenium, which are lacking in many people’s diets.²⁶

However, raw and canned tuna contains the heavy metal mercury. Some tuna species, such as bigeye tuna, are especially high in mercury and should be avoided. Canned light tuna, the lowest in mercury, can be enjoyed up to three times per week.²⁷

13. Mussels

Mussels, especially farmed mussels, are more environmentally-friendly compared to other animal proteins, such as beef, which is associated with high greenhouse gas emissions. Swapping beef with farmed mussels can reduce your carbon footprint, which lowers your environmental impact.²⁸

A 100-gram serving of mussels contains 23.8 grams of protein, which is just 1 gram less than what’s found in the same serving of ground beef. Mussels are also a good source of vitamins and minerals, like B12 and iron.²⁹³⁰

14. Scallops

Scallops are a source of lean protein that’s high in the amino acids taurine and glycine. These amino acids may protect against the development of atherosclerosis, or the thickening or hardening of the arteries caused by a buildup of plaque. Atherosclerosis is the main cause of heart disease.³¹

These amino acids may help reduce blood lipid levels and decrease oxidative stress, which may help protect against atherosclerosis development. Scallops are also low in mercury and high in nutrients like B12, zinc, and selenium.
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15. Halibut

Halibut is a mild-tasting white fish that’s high in several important nutrients, such as protein, selenium, B12, and B6.

While halibut is nutritious and tasty, it is higher in mercury than other fish. For this reason, the FDA recommends limiting your halibut intake to one serving per week.³³

Risks of Eating Seafood

While seafood can be a nutritious choice and help fill dietary nutrient gaps, there are some environmental- and health-related concerns related to seafood consumption.

For example, seafood can contain toxins and other compounds like viruses, parasites, and bacteria that can make you sick. Therefore, you want to cook fish and shellfish thoroughly. According to the USDA, most seafood should be cooked to an internal temperature of 145 degrees.³⁴

Mercury and Other Contaminants

Certain types of seafood are high in contaminants that can harm health if over-consumed. For example, certain fish are high in mercury, a heavy metal readily absorbed by the body. Larger fish tend to be higher in mercury than smaller fish because their diet consists of smaller fish that consume mercury-rich plankton. This is why larger and older fish tend to be the highest in mercury. 

Mercury is toxic to the body, and regularly consuming foods high in mercury can lead to mercury accumulation, which can cause health issues such as high blood pressure, heart attack, and developmental delay in offspring.³⁵

Certain populations, including pregnant and breastfeeding women and children, are more vulnerable to the effects of mercury.

Though mercury accumulation in seafood is a concern, avoiding mercury-rich seafood, such as shark, certain types of tuna, swordfish, tilefish, and king mackerel, and opting for low-mercury options, like trout, cod, oysters, clams, herring, salmon, and sardines, can help prevent dietary mercury exposure.³⁶

Microplastics

Another concern related to eating seafood is that seafood is contaminated with microplastics, or  tiny pieces of plastic measuring less than 5 millimeters in length. Due to human-generated pollution, microplastics accumulate in marine habitats like bays and oceans.

Not only do microplastics harm the environment, but experts warn that consuming seafood high in microplastics can harm human health. Microplastics are absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract and may trigger inflammation and damage cells. Although it’s clear that microplastics are harmful to health, more research is needed to understand how consuming seafood containing microplastics impacts disease risk.³⁷

Environmental and Ethical Concerns

In addition to human health concerns, there are environmental and ethical issues related to consuming seafood. The growing population has put immense pressure on marine environments, and the high demand for seafood has led to overfishing, destruction of fragile marine environments, and dwindling populations of vulnerable marine species like turtles, sharks, and dolphins.³⁸

This is why it’s critical to choose seafood caught or produced using sustainable practices. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch offers an online database that can help you narrow down the most sustainable types of seafood. Also, though seafood can be a part of a healthy diet, you can further reduce your environmental impact by cutting back on your animal protein intake and replacing animal proteins with plant-based proteins, like beans and lentils.

Tips for Adding Seafood to Your Diet

Eating seafood can boost the quality of your diet and support and protect your health. However, it’s important to consider the nutrition and environmental impact of seafood when narrowing down options to add to your diet.

Here are a few tips that can help you add seafood to your diet in a healthy and environmentally friendly way:

• Choose sustainable seafood: Some types of seafood are more sustainable than others. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, U.S. and Canadian wild-caught salmon, U.S.-farmed rainbow trout, Atka mackerel caught in Alaska, and clams are among the best choices.
• Limit fried seafood: Frying seafood leads to the formation of harmful compounds, such as heterocyclic amines (HCAs), acrolein, and aldehydes, which may increase the risk of certain health conditions, like cancer. This is why it’s best to limit fried food intake and choose healthier cooking methods like baking or sautéing whenever possible.³⁹
• Avoid seafood high in mercury: Because mercury can harm health, it’s best to choose low-mercury seafood like trout, herring, clams, and oysters and avoid high-mercury fish like tilefish, marlin, swordfish, and shark.⁴⁰ 
• Include seafood as part of a well-rounded diet: Though seafood is highly nutritious, including seafood in your diet is just one way to improve your health and the quality of your eating pattern. In addition to seafood, it’s important to consume other healthful foods, such as fruits and vegetables, beans, nuts, and seeds.

Following these tips can help you include more nutritious and sustainable seafood options. 

A Quick Review

Eating more seafood, like fish and shellfish, can increase your intake of essential nutrients, like protein, vitamins, minerals, and healthy fats, and may reduce your risk of several common health conditions.

While there are a number of healthy seafood options available, sardines, salmon, oysters, mackerel, trout, and clams are among the most nutritious and sustainable choices.

Try preparing these seafood options using cooking methods like baking and sautéing for an easy and delicious way to support your health.