Whether you’re a meat-eater who’s recently been spurred to abstain from mammals or a vegetarian seeking more flexibility in your food choices, the pescatarian diet might be what you’re looking for. It opens your nutrition to an entire ecosystem that may not occupy your plate regularly, while providing serious benefits for your heart, brain, and overall health.
Here’s how to follow a pescatarian diet and why you’d want to in the first place.
What Is a Pescatarian Diet?
A pescatarian diet follows a mostly vegetarian diet, apart from the addition of fish and seafood. Some pescatarians also include dairy and eggs in their diet, while others do not.
“Most pescatarians eat many vegetarian meals and only include fish or seafood a few times per week,” says Jenn Cassetta, CN, MS, master of science in nutrition and certified nutritionist in Santa Monica, who has been on a pescatarian diet for more than 15 years.
Benefits of a Pescatarian Diet
According to Monika Jacobson, RDN, a registered dietitian nutritionist in Spokane, Washington, the pescatarian diet can offer significant benefits:
1. Brain and heart health
Many fish — like salmon, sardines, and mackerel — are high in omega-3s, which are beneficial for cardiovascular and glycemic health and may support brain health.
2. Weight management
“Eating fish or shellfish alongside a healthy diet rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, healthy fats, and whole grains at the appropriate calorie range is very beneficial for weight loss,” Jacobson says.
3. Lean protein
Most seafood is high in protein but lower in calories and saturated fat than other types of meat, allowing you to meet your protein requirements with fewer calories.
4. Sustainability
A pescatarian diet is generally more sustainable than eating meat, as fishing can have a smaller carbon footprint than raising the animals we consume.
What to Look Out for on a Pescatarian Diet
Nutrients
When done right, a pescatarian diet can have great health benefits; it’s traditionally lower in saturated fats and focuses on nutritious plant foods and lean protein.
However, “there are always ways to turn healthy diets unhealthy,” says Ha Nguyen, RD, LDN, a registered dietitian in Philadelphia. “Technically, a pescatarian diet can be Pop-Tarts for breakfast, frozen fish sticks for lunch, and French fries for dinner.”
So instead of filling up on processed or fried foods, Cassetta recommends grilling, baking, or poaching your seafood and choosing plant-based protein sources such as beans, nuts, and seeds.
For example, try a lentil salad or hummus as a side dish instead of potatoes and other simple starches. Or go for a single-serving pack or two tablespoons of almond butter with some fresh vegetables as a midday snack instead of a coffee-shop pastry or whatever’s in the nearest vending machine.
Mercury
The state of our environment means that nearly every fish contains mercury. But that isn’t a reason to eliminate fish from your diet or avoid the pescatarian diet.
“Levels of mercury in fish range dramatically, but if you pick the right seafood, you’ll have very little exposure,” says registered dietitian Janis Jibrin, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.
This table from the FDA is a good resource for keeping track of the latest recommendations about mercury in fish. But as a rule of thumb, Jibrin suggests avoiding larger catch like swordfish, shark, king mackerel, and tilefish because they have more time to accumulate greater levels of mercury.
Low-mercury options include shrimp, salmon, pollock, and catfish. While canned light tuna is safe for regular consumption, canned albacore tuna is very high in mercury and should be consumed sparingly.
Quality
Your guiding principle for getting the best quality of seafood is to choose wild-caught fish whenever possible and avoid those that are farm-raised.
“When buying any animal protein, always choose the best quality that you can afford,” says Cassetta. “When it comes to fish and seafood, I like to go to a fish market where I can speak to someone and find out what’s freshest and be able to see where the fish comes from. Wild-caught fish eat what they are naturally meant to eat, and therefore usually have greater ratios of omega-3s. Farm-raised fish eat corn and soy and are fed antibiotics.”
Most fish can also be purchased frozen, which means it can be thawed and eaten when needed so that you don’t worry about wasting any. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, most frozen seafood today is equal in quality to fresh. Check out their tips for buying and handling seafood.
How to Get Started on a Pescatarian Diet
Ready to try out a pescatarian diet? Sharon Palmer, R.D., suggests creating a few go-to recipes that you enjoy and are easy to prepare, like black bean tacos or vegetarian stir-fry. “That way, you can make these recipes as easy go-to’s on your busiest days.” It can also be as easy as subbing the beef or chicken in some of your favorite recipes with fish.
Set up a meal prep schedule that works for you, Nguyen suggests. Since fresh seafood should be prepared in one or two days, start with that at the beginning of the week and have frozen options stored in the freezer for mid-week.
“Shrimp is great for stir-fry dishes, fish can be roasted in a pan for easy cleanup, and mussels and scallops are great for big batches of seafood pasta,” says Nguyen. “Look to canned tuna and sardines, which are both high in omega-3s, for easy lunch options.”
For vegetarians to ease into the diet, start by dropping in a seafood dish a few times a week, Jibrin suggests. “Being a pescatarian is basically being a vegetarian with the addition of seafood, so the transition for vegetarians is really easy. You could be a vegetarian on Monday, a pescatarian Tuesday, and a vegan on Wednesday.”