Pescatarian Diet
Plant-forward eating with fish and seafood as the main animal protein.
What Is It?
A pescatarian pattern is vegetarian at its foundation but includes fish and seafood. Vegetables, fruit, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and seeds do most of the work, while seafood adds protein, vitamin B12, iodine, and long-chain omega-3 fats.
How It Works
Build most meals around plants and choose fish or shellfish a few times each week. Dairy and eggs are optional. The quality of the pattern matters: vegetables, beans, intact grains, and minimally processed seafood make it quite different from simply removing meat.
Potential upsides
- Flexible plant-forward structure
- Fish supplies EPA and DHA omega-3 fats
- Can be rich in fiber and micronutrients
- Easier social transition than full vegetarian eating
- Fits Mediterranean-style cooking
+ Common foods
- •Fish and shellfish
- •Vegetables and fruit
- •Beans, lentils, and peas
- •Whole grains
- •Nuts, seeds, and olive oil
- •Eggs and dairy, if desired
− Typically limited or excluded
- •Red meat and poultry
- •Frequent fried or heavily breaded seafood
- •Highly processed meat substitutes
- •Fish species high in mercury, especially during pregnancy
Sample day
An illustration, not a personal meal plan.
EVIDENCE What the research says
Large observational cohorts have associated fish-eating patterns with lower rates of ischemic heart disease than meat-eating patterns, but those studies cannot prove that the diet alone caused the difference. Seafood choice also matters because mercury exposure and sustainability vary by species.
Read the evidence