Natural Catch is a seafood brand that sells canned tuna, along with other canned fish like sardines. The brand sells tuna packaged with different spices and flavors, and describes their product line as “A healthy source of Omega-3s which has various health benefits including benefits for the Heart.”
But is canned tuna actually healthy, or does its mercury content make it a bad choice? What ingredients are in Natural Catch other than fish, and are there any questionable additives? Do aluminum liners leach chemicals into food? And how do real users rate and describe the taste of Natural Catch Tuna?
In this article we’ll answer all of these questions and more as we review medical studies on tuna and its mercury content to give our take on whether or not tuna is a healthy choice.
We’ll analyze the ingredients in Natural Catch Tuna, discuss if other fish sold by the brand are a healthier option, and feature real customer reviews that describe the taste.
Key takeaways:
- Canned tuna is very high in mercury
- We tried Natural Catch Tuna ourselves and liked the taste and texture
- We do not currently recommend Natural Catch from a health perspective
Does Mercury Make Tuna Unsafe?
Due to environmental contamination, nearly all wild-caught fish contain some level of mercury, which is toxic to humans. But the levels of mercury vary significantly depending on the type of fish.
Canned tuna contains more than 100x the mercury in clams, and more than 10x the mercury in sardines, according to the FDA. This suggests that eating lower-mercury fish like sardines may have better long-term health effects.
A medical review published in the Environmental Research journal compared the benefits and risks of tuna consumption and concluded that one weekly meal poses a “very low risk.”
As we documented in our review of OmegaXL, fish oil from foods like tuna is clinically shown to have health benefits including an anti-inflammatory effect and a nutritive benefit due to the omega-3 fatty acids.
Overall, we consider tuna to be safe to eat in moderation, but health-conscious consumers may benefit from eating a lower-mercury fish because other fish have the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids with lower potential mercury exposure.
A YouTube video from TIME has over 100,000 views and discusses whether or not canned tuna is safe to eat:
Natural Catch Tuna Ingredient Analysis
The ingredients in Natural Catch’s “Yellowfin in Olive Oil” tuna product are shown above.
For a tuna product, this is a formulation we would recommend because it consists entirely of whole foods with no unhealthy additives.
The olive oil version is the healthiest product sold by Natural Catch in our opinion, because olive oil may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease according to a 2019 medical review.
Natural Catch sells three other tuna products: White Albacore in Water, Spicy Chili and Sweet Bean.
Sweet Bean is the only product we wouldn’t recommend from a health perspective, because it contains added sugar (although likely a small amount). As we documented in our article on is SPAM healthy, added sugar is clinically shown to be associated with increased risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease.
One of our concerns about Natural Catch is that the brand appears to use aluminum liners to package their products, which are often coated in plastic liners that may be endocrine-disrupting. We cannot confirm the packaging materials from the brand’s website so we hope they clearly publish this in the future.
This is the case for most canned fish products, and it may be healthier to avoid canned food entirely. A YouTube video published by Andrew Pask, who’s a BioSciences professor, highlights some of the potential health risks of BPA exposure from can liners:
We Tried Natural Catch Ourselves
As the author of this article, I wanted to try Natural Catch myself to share my thoughts on its taste and the overall product experience.
I bought a 6-pack of the olive oil Natural Catch online, and drained two packs and mixed them in with broccoli, chopped onions and hot sauce.
I'm not a tuna fan at all but the texture and thickness of this tuna was really good. It was much more like a steak cut than a runny, mushy cheap tuna brand like I've had in the past.
And although I dislike the smell of tuna, the smell of this brand is more mild than what I'm used to.
The tuna tasted good and two cans was a convenient way to get 40 grams of protein on a day that I was lazy to cook.
I don't plan to have the rest of the cans for at least a week to minimize mercury intake.
Overall, I'd rate Natural Catch 7/10 but that's mostly because I don't have a taste for tuna. If I did, I'd probably rate it 10/10.
Where to Get the Best Price
Natural Catch tuna is sold at a variety of online retailers. Here’s a price breakdown for a one-time purchase of a 12-pack of the olive oil version at the time of publishing this article:
Brand website: $48 (plus shipping – link)
Amazon: $54.95 (free shipping – link to official Amazon listing)
Walmart: $48 (free shipping – link)
Buying from Walmart may be 10-20% cheaper than buying from the brand’s website. When we input a test address, shipping from the brand’s website was $8.95.
The Walmart listing is from Natural Catch and not a third-party seller, so this may be the best option.
Real People Try Natural Catch
A YouTube creator named “SnackLin Reviews” tried Natural Catch tuna for the first time with his wife:
A video from Natural Catch’s official YouTube channel has over 3 million views and compares the quality and texture of their products to a supermarket tuna brand:
Real Customers Review Natural Catch
Amazon is a better resource for honest customer reviews than a brand’s website in our opinion.
The brand has been reviewed over 1,600 times on Amazon with an average review rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars.
The top positive review from a verified purchaser comes from a user named “My Reviews” who prefers the taste of this brand to other tuna brands:
“We've been reordering cause it's so delicious and we won't eat any other tuna. Try it and we're sure you're going to feel the same.”
The top negative review from a verified purchaser is written by a user named “Steven Han” who disliked the texture:
“The product was extremely dry and flavorless. There was one thin fillet on top, and everything else was bits and pieces under it. I would not recommend buying it. I certainly will not buy it again.”
Natural Catch has an average review rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars on the Better Business Bureau (BBB) website, which is a high mark for that site, and the brand responds to all customer complaints which is a sign of a high-quality brand.
The brand has an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars on Facebook with nearly 2,000 reviews.
Natural Catch Tuna Pros and Cons
Here are the pros and cons of Natural Catch Tuna in our opinion:
Pros:
- Most flavors contain healthy formulations
- Uses olive oil which has health-promoting effects
- Highly positive customer reviews across sales channels
Cons:
- Appears to be packaged in aluminum
- Sweet Bean product contains added sugar
- Expensive
- Tuna is higher in mercury than other fish
- Brand website charges for shipping
