Edible Fish: Best Fish to Eat by Taste and Mercury

Most fish sold at a fish counter are edible, and the practical question is which ones to eat often. Two public lists answer it: taste and texture, which decide how a fish cooks, and mercury, which decides how often to eat it. Fish is a large share of the world's food: Wikipedia, citing the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, puts food fish consumption at 20.2 kg per person in 2015, up from 9.0 kg in 1961, with Asia eating more than two-thirds of a global 149 million tonnes.

Being edible is not the same as being safe in every case. Where a fish was caught, how it was stored and how it is prepared all matter; the risks are covered further down.

Wikipedia groups common food fish by flavour and firmness:

• Mild and delicate: flounder, hake, rainbow trout
• Moderate: cod, haddock, salmon, tilapia
• Full-flavoured and firm: tuna, swordfish, halibut, grouper

Edible Boston's guide (Sarah Blackburn, 2016) sorts New England fish another way, into flatfish such as flounder, fluke and halibut; stronger, oily fish such as striped bass, bluefish and mackerel; and underused 'trash fish' such as scup, sea robin and dogfish. Two tips from it: small whole fish roast well and the bones lift away once cooked, and bleeding a bluefish right after it is caught turns its flavour from fishy to mild. See our sea robin and summer flounder pages to identify them.

The US Food and Drug Administration sorts fish into three mercury groups (page updated 5 March 2024). For adults, including people who are pregnant or breastfeeding, one serving is 4 ounces; eat 2 to 3 servings a week from Best Choices or 1 from Good Choices.

• Best Choices include anchovy, Atlantic mackerel, black sea bass, catfish, cod, flounder, haddock, hake, herring, mullet, perch, pickerel, pollock, salmon, sardine, shad, sole, tilapia, trout, canned light tuna and whitefish, plus shellfish such as shrimp, crab and scallops
• Good Choices include bluefish, carp, Chilean sea bass, grouper, halibut, mahi mahi, rockfish, sablefish, sheepshead, snapper, striped bass, Atlantic tilefish, albacore and yellowfin tuna
• Choices to Avoid: king mackerel, marlin, orange roughy, shark, swordfish, Gulf of Mexico tilefish and bigeye tuna

Where fish on this site fall: channel catfish, yellow perch, chain pickerel, rainbow trout and mullet are Best Choices; common carp, sheepshead, striped bass, grouper and mahi-mahi are Good Choices. Children need smaller servings: the FDA gives 1 ounce at ages 1 to 3, rising to 4 ounces at age 11.

The National Fisheries Institute's 2023 list puts US seafood consumption at 19.1 lb per person, of which the top 10 species account for 14.69 lb, or 77%. Shrimp stays at number one and salmon is second at 3.51 lb per person; NFI also notes rising consumption of Alaska pollock and of the farmed whitefish tilapia and pangasius, and earlier NFI headlines put shrimp and canned tuna at the head of the list. The full ranked list is published as a graphic on the NFI site.

These are the hazards Wikipedia lists for fish as food. This page does not say any particular fish is safe; follow official advice and see a doctor if you feel unwell after eating fish.

• Mercury: highest in species such as shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish
• Ciguatera: from tropical reef fish; symptoms can last weeks to years
• Scombroid poisoning: linked to fish such as tuna and mackerel; symptoms usually last four to six hours
• Pufferfish (fugu): contains tetrodotoxin, which can kill; in Japan only licensed chefs may prepare it. See our puffer fish page
• Parasites in raw fish: Wikipedia gives freezing to an internal -20°C for at least 7 days as the standard for fish eaten raw

For fish that you or friends catch, the FDA says to check local fish advisories, and where there is none, to eat only one serving that week and no other fish. If someone has symptoms after eating fish or shellfish, contact a doctor or your local poison control centre.

Every list above depends on knowing the species: sheepshead and king mackerel sit on different mercury lists. If you catch something you do not recognise, photograph it side-on and let FishLens suggest the species, then check it against the FDA list and your local advisory. An ID is a starting point, not a safety check.

Research and drafting for this page were assisted by AI and checked line by line against the sources listed below. Every number names the organisation it comes from; where sources disagree we say so instead of picking one silently. Prices and counts are given with the date we checked them. If you find an error, tell us and we will correct it.