Most adults can safely eat two to three servings of canned salmon per week, with each serving being about 4 ounces. That works out to 8 to 12 ounces total. Salmon lands on the FDA and EPA’s “Best Choices” list for fish, meaning it’s among the lowest-mercury options available and one of the safest to eat regularly.
Why Salmon Gets a “Best Choices” Rating
The joint FDA-EPA advisory on fish consumption divides seafood into three tiers based on mercury content: Best Choices, Good Choices, and Choices to Avoid. Salmon, whether canned, fresh, farmed, or wild, falls into the Best Choices category alongside shrimp, sardines, tilapia, and pollock. Fish in this tier are low enough in mercury that you can eat two to three servings a week without concern. A single serving is 4 ounces, roughly the size of the palm of your hand.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends at least 8 ounces of seafood per week on a 2,000-calorie diet. That’s a floor, not a ceiling. For low-mercury fish like salmon, eating up to 12 ounces a week stays well within safe limits.
What You Get From a Can
Canned salmon is nutritionally dense in ways that go beyond protein. A 3-ounce serving of canned pink salmon delivers about 493 IU of vitamin D, nearly two-thirds of the 600 IU daily target for most adults. It’s one of the richest food sources of vitamin D available.
The omega-3 fatty acids are the other major draw. Per 100 grams of fish, pink salmon (the most common variety in cans) provides about 0.4 grams of EPA and 0.6 grams of DHA. Sockeye, another popular canned variety, offers slightly more: 0.5 grams of EPA and 0.7 grams of DHA. Eating two to three servings a week easily meets the general recommendation of at least 250 to 500 milligrams of combined EPA and DHA per day for heart health. Canned salmon with bones also provides a significant amount of calcium, since the canning process softens the bones enough to eat.
Watch the Sodium
The one nutritional catch with canned salmon is salt. A 3-ounce serving of regular canned pink salmon contains about 324 milligrams of sodium. That’s roughly 14% of the recommended daily limit. If you’re eating two or three servings a week, that adds up but remains manageable for most people.
If sodium is a concern, look for cans labeled “no salt added.” The difference is dramatic: the same 3-ounce serving drops to just 64 milligrams of sodium, about 80% less. Draining the liquid before eating also helps reduce sodium in regular varieties.
Safety During Pregnancy and Breastfeeding
Pregnant and breastfeeding women can follow the same two-to-three-serving guideline for salmon. The EPA and FDA specifically encourage these groups to eat fish, not avoid it, because omega-3s support fetal brain development. The key is choosing from the Best Choices list, which salmon is on, and steering clear of high-mercury fish like swordfish, shark, and king mackerel.
Some women cut back on fish entirely during pregnancy out of mercury fears, but with low-mercury species like salmon, the nutritional benefits clearly outweigh the risks. Canned salmon is actually a convenient option during pregnancy because it’s shelf-stable, affordable, and doesn’t require handling raw fish.
How Much for Children
Children can eat canned salmon too, but in smaller portions. The FDA recommends two servings a week from the Best Choices list, with serving sizes scaled by age:
- Ages 1 to 3: 1 ounce per serving
- Ages 4 to 7: 2 ounces per serving
- Ages 8 to 10: 3 ounces per serving
- Age 11: 4 ounces per serving
For toddlers, that means about 2 ounces of salmon total per week. For an 11-year-old, it’s closer to 8 ounces, the same minimum recommended for adults.
Wild vs. Farmed Canned Salmon
Most canned salmon is wild-caught pink or sockeye from the Pacific. Some people wonder whether contaminants like PCBs (industrial chemicals that accumulate in fish fat) differ between wild and farmed salmon. A study analyzing Atlantic salmon fillets found that farmed salmon actually had lower levels of dioxin-like PCBs than wild salmon, likely because farmed fish feed has become more tightly regulated in recent years. Both wild and farmed salmon had PCB levels well below safety thresholds set by regulators.
From a practical standpoint, the PCB levels in either type of salmon are low enough that they shouldn’t factor into your weekly consumption decisions. The mercury content is what matters most for setting safe intake limits, and both wild and farmed salmon are consistently low in mercury.
Can You Eat More Than Three Servings?
The two-to-three-serving recommendation is designed to apply across all fish you eat in a week, not just salmon. If salmon is your only fish, staying at three servings (12 ounces) keeps you well within safe mercury exposure levels. If you’re also eating other low-mercury fish like shrimp or tilapia, the combined total should still land around two to three servings from the Best Choices list.
Some people eat a can of salmon daily without obvious harm, and there’s no strong evidence that four or five servings of a low-mercury fish causes problems. But the formal guidance caps at three servings because long-term data beyond that threshold is limited. Practically speaking, the bigger issue with eating canned salmon every day is likely sodium intake (if you’re not buying the no-salt-added variety) rather than mercury or other contaminants.