Fish is protein rich and contains Omega-3 essential fatty acids, which are heart-healthy and may protect against some cancers. But many fish are contaminated, in short supply and endangered through overfishing. Farmed fish is no simple solution. Farmed salmon, for example, contains high levels of PCBs.

Oceans Alive is a non-profit organization offering a list of best and worst seafood choices. Their guide claims to show “which fish are healthy for the oceans” and offers to help consumers “choose fish that are safe to eat.”

Oceans Alive issues warning labels with health advisories for mercury, PCBs, dioxins or pesticides. “Not all fish have been sufficiently tested for safety,” they say. “As a precaution, it is recommended that you not eat the same kind of fish more than once a week.”

They provide notes on fish habitat and ecology as well as health advisories. For example if you look up haddock (which I’ve noticed reappearing in supermarkets) you find this under Eco Comments:

Haddock populations in the Western Atlantic crashed in the 1990s, however U.S. and Canadian populations have rebounded in recent years. Management is improving, but the majority of haddock is still landed by bottom longlines and trawls, which also catch depleted groundfish (e.g. cod).

For mackerel they give a “Do not eat” health warning for king mackerel, a consumption advisory due to mercury warning for Spanish mackerel and an “Eco best” green label for Atlantic mackerel with health comment:

Our data indicate that contaminant levels in this fish do not warrant a consumption advisory. EPA and FDA recommend that people not eat the same kind of fish more than once a week, to protect against excessive intake of mercury.

The EPA’s advisory What You Need to Know about Mercury in Fish and Shellfish, which is available in English in Spanish, tells us “Eat up to 12 ounces (2 average meals) a week of a variety of fish and shellfish that are lower in mercury.” But it makes this advice nowhere near as appetizing as does Oceans Alive.

Each recommended fish page lists nutritional content and links to recipes, some pretty exotic. For mackerel, their suggestion is to cook it like Mahimahi, for which one of their recipes is Mahimahi baked in grape leaves . You might try our simpler baked fish recipe.

Another voluntary fish-labeling organization is Seafood Safe, which targets companies, retailers and restaurants.

Barbara Knuth, a professor of natural resources at Cornell, serves as a scientific adviser to Seafood Safe. She says it is “a testing program for mercury and PCBs in seafood, two of the most prevalent contaminants found in seafood today.”

“The program uses certified, independent laboratories to test for environmental pollutants, particularly mercury and PCBs, in fish,” Knuth says.

She helps Seafood Safe to help develop testing methods, standards and labels to communicate a product’s risk to consumers. The labels indicate how many meals consumers can consume of the product each month without being exposed to dangerous levels of contaminants. The labels use standards derived from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines.

Seafood Safe was founded in early 2005 by Henry Lovejoy, president of EcoFish, a New Hampshire-based company that produces frozen fish dinners with sustainable harvested seafood and is sold to natural food stores. They have recipes too.

Oceans Alive is a branch of Environmental Defense and links with ActionNetwork