March 29, 2006
I seem to be on a food safety jag these days.
I don’t think I’m looking for things to worry about,
but I do keep running into a lot of articles about the subject
in the professional journals I read.
The one that grabbed my attention this week is about
fish and mercury content. I posted a note about fish
and mercury on this
blog several months ago, but I totally forgot about it.
So assuming many of you did, too, I thought I write
again on the subject.
The dieters and ex-dieters among
us surely remember (and may still partake of) those endless
lunches of canned tuna sans mayo over lettuce.
Canned tuna was a simple lunch and fairly satisfying,
if you liked it. Plus,
tuna and other fish seemed to be just the food to help us
reach healthy
weights – rich in
protein with the right kind of dietary
fat that made the
American Heart Association recommend eating fatty fish twice
a week for heart health.
But
in recent years, we’ve been warned away from eating too much
tuna and other high-fat fish because of its mercury content.
Which, of course, made me worry how much mercury my
body had accumulated from those years of tuna lunches (and
dinners). I don’t
have any answer for that except to think that I should probably
get tested to put my mind at ease, or to find I need to take
some steps to detoxify – whatever those steps are.
I have no idea.
Aside
from airing my neuroses, I thought readers might appreciate
a look at how different fish rank in mercury content, as listed
in an article in Nutrition
Reviews titled “Too Much of a Good Thing? Update
on Fish Consumption and Mercury Exposure.”
It was written by two seemingly credible folks – a
professor with the Program in Neuroscience and the Department
of Nutrition, Food & Exercise Sciences at Florida State
University, and another PhD with the Florida Department of
Environmental Protection.
It
appears you can’t access the journal online without a subscription
so I’ll just repeat the bottom line here.
It lists tilefish from the Gulf of Mexico (also known
as golden snapper), mackerel from the Gulf (also known as
gulf king mackerel), shark and swordfish as fish that should
not be eaten by men or women (based on a 154-pound man and
110-pound woman. Women
weighing 100 pounds or less also apparently should avoid grouper,
orange roughy and marlin.
If your weight is higher, you can probably feel safe
eating those latter fish, but I wouldn’t recommend anyone
eating the others, even if you do weigh more than 154 pounds.
Other
fish – including tuna – appear to be okay to eat especially
if fish is eaten in 3-ounce portions not more than twice a
week. If fish
is eaten daily, fresh and canned albacore tuna falls off the
list of okay to eat, as well as bluefish, Pacific croaker,
saltwater bass, halibut, sable, snapper, monkfish, Spanish
and south Atlantic mackerel and Atlantic tilefish.
Fish that are low in mercury (listed from lowest to
highest) include whiting, ocean perch, fresh salmon, tilapia,
sardines, freshwater haddock, freshwater trout, herring, mullet,
catfish, Atlantic croaker, flounder/sole, North Atlantic mackerel,
Pollack, squick, shad, whitefish, Pacific mackerel, cod, canned
light tuna. Lobster
ranks up with bluefish in its mercury content, so it shouldn’t
be eaten daily by women (as if).
Crab, crawfish, oysters, shrimp, clams and scallops
are all fairly low in mercury
Hope
this post gives you some good info and doesn’t warn you off
fish altogether! The
authors of the journal article did conclude that the AHA recommendation
to eat at least two 3-ounce servings of fish a week was supported
by their review. They
conclude with this recent advisory from the Environmental
Protection Agency:
1) Do not eat shark, swordfish, king mackerel or tilefish.
2) Eat up to 12 ounces (two average meals) a week of a variety of fish and shellfish that are lower in mercury; and
3) Check state advisories about the safety of fish caught by individuals in local lakes, rivers, and coastal areas. If no advice is available, eat up to 6 ounces (one average meal) per week of fish you catch from local waters, but do not consume any other fish during that week.
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