How much mercury is in your tuna sandwich? Find out here

If you love seafood, someone is looking out for you.

Food & Water Watch recently posted a 2010 Smart Seafood Guide. This is an exhaustive analysis of more than 100 varieties of seafood. It tells you which fish are likely to contain health hazards (antibiotics from farmed fish, mercury, PCBs, etc.) and which types are endangered by overfishing.

For instance, the “Dirty Dozen” lists these varieties with significant mercury problems: orange roughy, Atlantic bluefin tuna, shark, Chilean seabass, and American eel. While Atlantic flatfish and Atlantic cod are both seriously overfished and should be avoided.

If you live on the Left Coast, you can use the Pacific Guide to find a list of nine recommended varieties, including different types of shrimp, lobster, crabs, and cod. Same for New England, Gulf of Mexico, and Mid/South Atlantic.

You can also search by seafood variety. So if you have a passion for tuna, the “Steak-like Fish” category will fill you in on high and low mercury levels in different types of tuna. (Unfortunately, every tuna type delivers some amount of mercury.)

You can find all these guides at foodandwaterwatch.org.