Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumShould we stop eating fish?
This article doesn't even take into account the most current questions about the effects of radio activity from Japan or the chems and damage in the Gulf oil spill. Sadly I've given up eating fish and I've read that many cautious people in Japan are changing their diets away from fish. Maybe one positive result will be that in reducing fish in our diets we'll give the sea a much needed rest. When will we learn to practice and enforce sustainable fishing practices?
--------
SHOULD WE STOP EATING FISH?
Fish has long been associated with a healthy diet. Its low in calories and rich in beneficial Omega-3 fatty acids. Whether we order fish off a restaurant menu or buy it at the fish market to cook at home, it is a popular and healthy meal choice. So, eat fish and be healthy, right? But there's a catch. Due to pollution and other environmental factors, some fish contain unhealthy amounts of mercury, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl), and parasites. In order to gain the health benefits of fish while avoiding the toxins and other dangers associated with it, its important to understand which types of fish we should be eating and how much is safe to eat.
How do toxins get into the fish? Chemical manufacturers and coal-burning industrial plants are the main source. These facilities release mercury into the air and rain washes it down into our rivers, lakes, and oceans, where interaction with anaerobic organisms converts it into methylmercury. Fish and shellfish absorb this toxin as they feed and it builds up in the tissue of the animal over time. Thus, the larger the fish, the higher its mercury content.
What are the risks to fish eaters from these substances?
MORE
http://www.thedailymeal.com/should-we-stop-eating-fish/42314
liberal N proud
(60,335 posts)Specifically fresh water fish but not too keen on any of it. And it has always been my concern for what they were swimming in.
I think it comes from eating fish where you could taste the mud in the water from which they came.
pscot
(21,024 posts)madokie
(51,076 posts)but for some reason when my neighbor brings me over a mess of Crappie or Catfish I can't help myself. Eating it knowing full well that its full of all kinds of shit that is bad for me but eat it I do.
Hell I'm 66 and counting and gonna have to die from something so it might as well be from eating the locally caught fish.
Surely I don't need the sarcasm tag here do I?
Actually I don't eat commercially caught fish unless its raised in a local fish farm. The last sea food I eat was shrimp and it made me sick, sick sick. I can't even smell shrimp now without about throwing up. I think it was from the gulf right after BP's poisoning of that water. Didn't realize it at the time or I wouldn't have eat it.
If there is anything that we old hippies failed on, it was pollution. I thought we had the laws passed to at least half ass protect our environment but was I ever wrong on that. Our corporations just moved the manufacturing to places where the local governments didn't give a shit about the air or water.
After all we all breath the same air and drink the same water whether it be in Oklahoma or in China, ultimately that is.
Lodestar
(2,388 posts)Forget not eating fish....I'm not going swimming either. Horrific!
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)NickB79
(19,246 posts)I'll make an exception and eat some cod every now and then (the local VFW has an amazing Friday fish fry here).
My only guilty pleasure is shrimp: at least once a month I have to make a pot of shrimp-corn-potato chowder with a nice warm loaf of French bread.