Choosing among hundreds of seafood options is difficult enough if you are only weighing price and flavor. Add considerations of sustainability and mercury levels, and you could spend hours deciding what to feed your family. To make things easier, we compiled a chart below that shows each species’ approximate cost, sustainability rating, and mercury content.
Seafood Selection Guide
Rating Key
Rating Key:
Back to Chart
Mercury:This column tracks seafood’s mercury content based on ratings provided by the Natural Resources Defense Council (following mercury level and safe consumption information from the FDA & EPA) using their scale: from “Least” to “Highest”.
According to the NRDC, fish rated “least mercury” are safe to enjoy anytime, consumption of “moderate” fish is recommended to be no more than six servings a month, “high mercury” fish should be limited to three or less servings per month, and “highest” fish should be avoided. Some of our seafood has not been rated by the NRDC and is marked “NR.”
(Based on NRDC ratings & definitions as of 2/2/15)
Sustainability: This column tracks seafood’s sustainability based on ratings provided by The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch. Monterey Bay has three ratings based on sustainability of fish stocks and environmental impact.
The best (green) rating is “Best Choice,” a good, but not great rating (yellow) is “Good Alternative” and their lowest rating (red) is “Avoid.” A few varieties of seafood that we offer have not been rated by Seafood Watch, and are marked “NR.”
(Based on MBASW ratings & definitions as of 2/2/15)
Price:The dollar signs in this column (“$” to “$$$”) give you an idea of how expensive this seafood is relative to our other offerings. Because shellfish and fish roes are generally priced on different models than other seafood, their cost ratings should be considered relative to other items in their categories only. Further, keep in mind that seafood prices can fluctuate. This is our best estimate.
At Marx Foods we strive to only feature “Good Alternative” or better rated seafood on our site, with a strong bias towards “Best Choice” seafood.
Note: We have not discussed our specific product offerings with Monterey Bay Aquarium or the Natural Resources Defense Council. This list is based on comparing our products & their specifications with those rated on the Seafood Watch sustainability & NRDC mercury guides.
1These items, when an origin is not specified, could have been caught in various places in the ocean, but are always wild.
2The rating for this fish varies with how it was caught, and at this point we cannot specify that a single technique was used. For information on how the fishing method effects this seafood’s rating, visit the Seafood Watch website.
3The ratings for this product depend on the variety of tuna used, and at this point we can’t list a specific species.
4Depending on how the Whitefish for this caviar were caught, the rating is either green or yellow.
Comments 5
good questions! My husband and I were just talking about this over the weekend. It’s hard to find not-farmed fish in Michigan (and obviously we don’t have much fresh, unless you catch it yourself). Good to know you sell fish 🙂
Pingback: I read a lot of food news today. Stoked to find that some of it was good. « Justin Marx's Blog
I see that you have Petrale Sole with a green rating, Where do you get your Petrale Sole from? Is this green rating from seafood watch? Also I see that you sell Petrale Sole for a little under the Dover sole price,is there a reason for that. It has always been my experience that Petrale Sole is a much higher price than Dover.
Hi Tiffani,
The ratings on this chart were indeed pulled from Seafood Watch, but we did so in 2010. It’s time they were updated and we’ll get started on doing so soon. Thanks for the reminder!
I’m not sure why our Petrale Sole is a lower price than the Dover. It’s likely just due to market forces at the distributor level.
Matthew
Marx Foods
Tiffani,
Just wanted to let you know that we’ve checked & updated the sustainability and mercury levels, so the chart should be up to date!
Matthew
Marx Foods