So according to Canada’s Food Guide, we’re supposed to include fish in our diet at least twice a week, but we are also supposed to watch how much fish we eat because of high levels of mercury… anyone else confused??
I decided to look for an answer that would reconcile these two contradicting recommendations, and I actually found one! We need fish in our diet because fish oils contain omega-3 fatty acids that our bodies need but cannot make and hence have to be consumed. However, you should be picky about which types to eat. Fish that are predatory, have a long lifespan and are large in size contain higher levels of mercury. Think of it this way, the higher on the food chain a fish is, the more mercury it contains because it’s eating all the smaller fishes and things start accumulating. Basically, try to stay away from tuna, and definitely don’t overdo your shark-eating experiences. Fish that would be good choices are salmon, sardines, herring and trout.
Some of you (Jark) might cleverly ask, where is all the mercury coming from? Well, it seems that some of it is naturally occurring, but man-made pollution also plays a big part.
IMAGE CREDIT: http://www.lonvig.dk/noosa-na-butterfly-fish.jpg
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This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 8:26 pm and is filed under Controversy, Education, Environment, Fitness, Food/Restaurants, Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Thanks for anticipating my question. But you know, any thoughts about the hormones in the ocean waters. I recall you mentioned that what we flush down the toilets actually affects the genders of the fish in the deep waters. I think that’s another good topic for another post. Don’t you think? haha