Should I be afraid to eat fish because of the mercury level?

take those omega 3 pills
If that’s what you’re talking about

Don’t eat things you don’t like.
Stop believing TV news.

Mercury wont be found in farmed fish.

You should, as in all things, be moderate.

Usually unless you are of childbearing years, once a week is OK. Some fish should be avoided.

Here is a good resource.

@Noel_S_Leitmotiv Farmed fish is quite an unwise foodstuff to eat. PM me for relevant links if you are curious.

It depends A LOT on the species of fish. Here’s a chart from the FDA (if you trust them) and the American Heart Association (if you don’t).

Please be aware that farmed fish has other things to be worried about, like PCBs. Or not.

Garlic is reputed to be greatly protective against and curative of mercury poisoning.

If you don’t like fish don’t eat it. Over fishing is endangering entire species so they could probably do with the break.

What about fish and chips?

I LOVE FISH AND CHIPS
Death to all who oppose!!!!!!

I prefer the British style

I only eat fish occasionally, and the lower mercury level fish. Even while pregnant, I still eat it.

fish is good for you. eat it. especially salmon.

Sashimi!
BANZAIIII

the japanese will go down first with their fish diet infested with mercury

RIP Freddie Mercury
One of the greatest singers ever

Too late for moderation, in my opinion. We are all now loaded with toxins of every kind. Farmed salmon may not have mercury in it, but they are grey and died the pink of your choice from a color chart and fed a really noxious swill. (Even breathing is no longer a good idea.)

“Farmed fish, on average, showed a level of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, about seven times higher than that of wild fish. The average dioxin level in farm-raised salmon was 11 times higher than in wild salmon.

The key difference is what the fish eat—the same difference that prompted last year’s controversy over artificial coloration of farmed salmon. Many many sources: One

Farmed fish are fed a mixture whose creation relies heavily on catching fish such as small anchovies, then processing them into fish oil and fish meal. This concentrates contaminants that have scattered across the globe. PCBs, a family of chemical compounds used in industrial lubricants and coolants, were banned in this country in the 1970s but still are used overseas.

Wild salmon eat a variety of other fish, including tiny shrimp known as krill that give their flesh a reddish orange color. Farmed fish would be gray without artificial coloring.

“This is a product that does contain great beneficial nutrients, but it also contains PCBs at levels that are expected to cause cancer in the population,” said Jane Houlihan, an environmental engineer with the Environmental Working Group. “They know how to remove the PCBs from the feed and the fish.”

@YARNLADY Mercury can be a risk, but it’s by far most dangerous for women who are pregnant, breast-feeding, or plan to have children. I think the danger of mercury is far worse in children, so it’s not as much of a problem for men or women who don’t plan to have any more kids.

That being said, I still aim to eat fish with less mercury (bigger fish, like tuna, have much more. There are many lists for high and low mercury fish).

Finally-if you don’t like fish, don’t eat it. If you want the health benefits of fish, you can take fish oil supplants (which have all the mercury filtered out).

One caveat about fish oil supplements. Do NOT take them if you take blood thinners. Speak with your doctor first.

edit: dyed (No one noticed?)

@gailcalled I noticed, but didn’t see much point in making anything out of it.

@Quagmire Thanks for the caution, I don’t take any, but I will talk to my doctor about supplements.

If it don’t have mercury and lead, it has TCP’s that aren’t reported, and other goodies – just wonderful what action the Clean Water Act has done for us don’t you think. Seriously, the fish are much better now, they are starting to habitate in the Connecticut River after 200 years. Besides all the bad tuna aren’t allowed into our markets, just Asian markets-got to have sushi.

I take Omega-3 gel caps…1250 mg/daily.

Just make sure you get your 2 to 1 ratio.

Little fish are better than big fish, mercurially speaking.

@Garebo: I don’t get what you mean by 2 to 1 ration. Please clarify.

Yeah, King Oscar lightly smoked packed in olive oil sardines from Norway.
Those are exquisitely delicious little darlings, especially on a cracker as a late breakfast. Best of al, they are from the pristine fjords of Norway and packed with omegas-at least I hope.

If you check out the Sierra Club’s mercury website at www.sierraclub.org/mercury, you can download a pocket guide to mercury in fish, which shows you which fish are safe to eat and which have higher levels of mercury. Mercury comes from coal-fired power plants where it rains down into rivers and streams and gets eaten by small fish, which in turn get eaten by bigger fish, and the biggest fish of all have the highest levels of mercury (this process is called bioaccumulation). Stick to smaller fish, and you should be fine. Or limit your intake of tuna and other big fish to once or twice a month.

If you are concerned that your levels are already high, you can buy a hair-testing kit on the Sierra Club’s site for around $30. You snip a piece of your hair and send it to a lab at the University of North Carolina – they will test it and let you know how much mercury has been in your body (mercury is excreted through the hair, so this will give you an approximation of how much mercury has been in your body over the past few months). If you are seriously concerned, you should talk with a doctor (I can’t offer medical advice – I am not a doctor – but I do know quite a bit about this since I work for an environmental group).

The good news is that mercury cycles out of your body in a few months, so if you do test high, you don’t need to panic – you can simply reduce the amount of fish you eat and your mercury levels will go down.

Mercury poses the biggest risk to pregnant women and women who are planning to have children, since it can affect a developing fetus. If you are not planning to become pregnant soon, it is less of a risk – although it is still a toxin and has been shown in some studies to be linked to other health problems such as heart disease in men.

The real truth though, is that while we can each do our part to protect ourselves, the best way to protect ourselves from mercury is to get the coal-fired power plants cleaned up. The technology already exists to significantly reduce mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants – but we need our government to require the best available technology and enforce it.

@occ Thank you so much for your detailed answer. I have had my mercury levels tested because of heavy exposure when I was a teenager, long before the dangers were known. I obtained a liter of mercury and transformed myself into a silver space alien by covering my body with the stuff. I am truly afraid of it, even the tests came back negative.

@occ: If you expect our government to indirectly implement the best available technology-then that’s what you will get-the post office. I agree on continued and consistent enforcement of preserving new technologies and not allowing them to leave this country by the interest of self interested politicians.

@gailcalled: I apologize for not answering sooner. What I know is you try to keep a 2 to 1 ratio of omega 3’s to 6’s, and of course that comes with exceptions. The American diet tends to get enough 6 and not enough 3. Good fish oil is great, but so is flax, hemp, borage and primrose oils-so it is a real balancing act.

@Garebo: I grind my own flaxseed in a little Krups coffee grinder. I have 1 T/daily. It is delicious and nutty. (I also plant a few seed in planters during the summer and get a lovely little blue flower.) My borage plant finally died, but it had never occured to me to attempt to eat any part of it.