Online tool helps rate seafood for sustainability and health

A new online tool helps consumers decide which seafood is not only the most sustainable, but also the healthiest.

The online tool, released by the Environmental Working Group, ranks seafood’s levels of mercury, as well as its levels of healthy omega-3 fatty acids. It pairs that information, from the federal Food and Drug Administration, with information from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program that tells you whether it was caught or farmed in ways that promote healthy oceans.

Federal officials in June urged pregnant and nursing women to increase their fish consumption to eight to 12 ounces of seafood per week and encouraged young children to eat fish twice a week.

The online calculator contains more detailed information for consumers than the federal health guidance provides.

The top choices identified by the new Seafood Calculator include wild salmon, sardines, mussels, rainbow trout and Atlantic mackerel. They’re all high in omega-3 fatty acids, low in mercury and are designated by Seafood Watch as a “Best Choice.”