What is SNP’s advice for eating sustainable seafood? Which seafood sustainability guide do you recommend?

The Seafood Nutrition Partnership is committed to the waters that provide the seafood we eat and our work is mindful of how to ensure seafood is available for future generations to come.

We are proud to have NOAA/FishWatch.gov as a partner.  FishWatch.gov provides easy-to-understand facts about the science and management behind U.S. seafood and tips on how to make educated seafood choices. Helping everyone—from chefs to consumers—understand sustainable seafood is important to SNP.

The majority of US groceries and retailers have sustainability practices in place. Always buy seafood from a reputable market where the employees are able to answer your questions. They should be able to tell you where the fish is from and when it came into the store.
For Seafood Nutrition Partnership, eating seafood and the health of the environment are inextricably linked. Seafood is a vital part of the human diet that supports both human health and environmental health. The traditional Western diet is crushing much of the world with a chronic disease crisis that can only be overturned with adoption of a healthier dietary pattern that is rich in plants and lean protein such as seafood.1 Adopting a healthier dietary pattern, however, must coincide with the ability for those foods to be produced with lower impact to the environment to stand a better chance of ensuring our future food security.2 Essentially, the outlook for human health and environmental health depend in large part with what we put on our plates each day.

To have a sustainable supply of seafood for future generations means that seafood needs to be caught or farmed in environmentally and socially responsible methods. While our mission is focused on promoting a healthier population through seafood nutrition, we are grateful for the work conducted by organizations that support sustainable and responsible seafood with frameworks for those in the seafood sector to be able to bring healthy seafood to the consumer. These organizations include:
  • UN FAO Fisheries & Aquaculture
  • NOAA Fisheries & Aquaculture, Sea Grant
  • Global Seafood Sustainability Initiative
  • Global Aquaculture Alliance
  • Marine Stewardship Council
  • Aquaculture Stewardship Council
  • Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions
  • Aquarium of the Pacific - Seafood for the Future
  • Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch
  • National Aquarium
  • Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute​
  • International Seafood Sustainability Foundation
  • FishWise
  • Sustainable Fisheries Partnership
  • NFI Better Seafood Board
  • World Wildlife Fund
  • Environmental Defense Fund
  • Sea Pact 
SOURCES
1. Fung, Teresa T; Rimm, Eric B; Spiegelman, Donna; Rifai, Nader; Tofler, Geoffrey H; Willett, Walter C; Hu, Frank B (2001-01-01). "Association between dietary patterns and plasma biomarkers of obesity and cardiovascular disease risk". The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 73 (1): 61–7. PMID 11124751.
2. http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(16)30681-X.pdf