When someone mentions blue foods, I bet you think about blueberries. In this article, we’re talking about aquatic foods, also known as blue foods (because water is blue). Aquatic or blue foods include any animal, plant, or microorganism that originates in water. The blue foods include fish, crustaceans (crabs, shrimp, krill, prawns, lobster), octopus, squid, mollusks (clams, cockles, sea snails, mussels, scallops), aquatic plants like water spinach or watercress, seaweed, and other aquatic animals such as sea cucumbers, sharks, and eels. There are over 2500 different types of blue foods that contain important nutrients for optimum health. 

Global blue food production

Blue foods can be caught or harvested in the wild from lakes, rivers, wetlands, or oceans. Some blue foods are farmed, which started 3000 years ago in China. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), aquaculture—the breeding, rearing, and harvesting of animals and plants in all types of water environments—is one of the most resource-efficient ways to produce protein. In today’s world, aquaculture is a worldwide business in over 35 countries, with the major producers in China, India, Viet Nam, Bangladesh, and Egypt. Farmed species imported to the United States include shrimp from Asian countries and Ecuador, Atlantic salmon from Canada, Norway, and Chile, shellfish, and tilapia.

Aquaculture is present in every region in the United States, including shellfish and aquatic plants in Alaska; salmon, oysters, clams, mussels, and sea vegetables in the Middle Atlantic; oysters, mussels, shellfish, salmon, and algae in the Pacific Northwest; oysters, clams, red drum, spotted sea trout, flounder, snook, pompano, black sea bass, and algae in the Southeast and mussels, oysters, red abalone, rock scallops, and seaweed in California. Even though aquaculture is growing in the US, we import 70–85 percent of our seafood. Globally farmed seafood production is now almost equal to seafood from wild fisheries and is expected to continue to grow.

Why include blue foods in your meals?

There are three primary reasons to choose blue foods in your weekly meals:

• Improved health 

• Decreased greenhouse gas emissions

• Additional food options as the climate changes

Blue foods are sources of important nutrients, including omega-3 fatty acids, protein, zinc, iron, magnesium, selenium, iodine, copper, and vitamins A, B6, B12, and D. All of these nutrients are vital for good health, and omega-3 fatty acids are especially important for cardiovascular health. Omega-3s are particularly high in oily fish like salmon, sardines, tuna, and mackerel.

In fact, the top 7 categories of nutrient-rich animal foods are all blue foods, including the wide variety of different types of fish, clams, mussels, oysters, octopus, and squid – ranking above land-based animal protein foods such as beef, chicken, and pork.

Blue foods improve our health in three important ways:

• Provide essential vitamins and minerals that are key for optimum health, including Vitamin A, calcium, and iron

• Contain omega-3 fatty acids that reduce the risk of heart disease and promote brain and eye health

• Do not contain saturated fatty acids found in red and processed meats that increase the risk of hypertension, stroke, heart disease, diabetes, colorectal cancer, and breast cancer.

Sea vegetables are another nutrition powerhouse, excellent sources of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants.

Aquaculture generally is better for the environment than land-based proteins, and unfed aquacultures, such as seaweeds and filter-feeding shellfish, can improve water quality through nutrient uptake. Fishing and aquaculture produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions than land-based protein production. Increasing consumption of a diverse range of blue foods can build resilience and offer more nutrient-dense foods in areas that might be most impacted by climate change.

Our tips:

• Swap out land-based animal protein for aquatic protein:

• Enjoy a grilled fish sandwich instead of a burger

• Use tuna or salmon instead of lunchmeat in a sandwich

• Instead of beef stew, make fish stew

• Include sea vegetables like seaweed and watercress into your vegetable line-up:

• Sauté sea greens in olive oil the same way you would sauté spinach

• Use nori sheets instead of tortillas or wraps

• Toss watercress into a salad, use it to make pesto, or add to smoothies instead of spinach.

• Choose sustainable types of seafood that use environmentally responsible practices and prevent overfishing.

• NOAA has an online tool to search for seafood caught or farmed in the US that provides specific information on sustainability and nutrition facts at https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/topic/sustainable-seafood/seafood-profiles

• The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch has pocket guides that assess how specific fisheries or farms perform against our rigorous environmental sustainability standards and then assign ratings based on the outcomes from Best Choices, Good Alternatives, and Avoid. https://www.seafoodwatch.org/recommendations/download-consumer-guides 

References:

1. Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. The Nutrition Source. Aquatic Foods. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/aquatic-foods/ last reviewed September 2021; accessed 4.22.23

2. Blue Food Assessment. https://bluefood.earth/ accessed 4.22.23

3. Alimentarium. The History of Aquaculture. https://www.alimentarium.org/en/fact-sheet/history-aquaculture  accessed 4.27.23

4. NOAA Fisheries. Aquaculture. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/topic/aquaculture  Accessed 4.27.23

5. NOAA Fisheries. Global Aquaculture. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/aquaculture/global-aquaculture  accessed 4.27.23

6. NOAA Fisheries. U.S. Aquaculture. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/aquaculture/us-aquaculture  accessed 4.7.23

7. Golden, C.D., Koehn, J.Z., Shepon, A. et al. Aquatic foods to nourish nations. Nature 598, 315–320 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03917-1

8. Lomartire S, Marques JC, Gonçalves AMM. An Overview to the Health Benefits of Seaweeds Consumption. Mar Drugs. 2021 Jun 15;19(6):341. doi: 10.3390/md19060341. PMID: 34203804; PMCID: PMC8232781.

9. Atalah, J. and Sanchez-Jerez P. On the wrong track: Sustainable and low-emission blue food diets to mitigate climate change. Front. Sustain. Food Syst., 11 November 2022. Sec. Aquatic Foods. Volume 6 - 2022 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2022.994840

10. Crona, B.I., Wassénius, E., Jonell, M. et al. Four ways blue foods can help achieve food system ambitions across nations. Nature 616, 104–112 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05737-x