Fish Safety

I believe that human beings were meant to consume large amounts of fish and other seafood, considering that it is one of the best sources of many of the essential vitamins and minerals.  Fish is one of the few foods on earth that requires little (if any) work on the part of humans to grow and is abundant pretty much anywhere (minus the desert, of course). 

The problem is that modern life has contaminated many of the world's bodies of water, leaving the fish living there unsafe for human consumption.  The main source of contamination that people are aware of in seafood is mercury, but that is only one concern.  Many other toxins are common, including: flame retardants, PCBs, chlorinated dioxins, pesticides, oil, arsenic and melamine, just to name a few.  These toxins are either present in the water in which the fish live, or in the food they are given.

Living in Ohio, there are many streams and lakes nearby for fishing, but after speaking with an ichthyologist at a local university who has tested toxicity, I don't feel safe eating anything that lives in them.*  Since I try very hard to only eat local and ethically-raised meat sources, this leaves me with very few options.

But as the mother of a dairy-allergic child, I realize how important the calcium and vitamin D that seafood provides is for my son.  His options for foods high in these two nutrients are more limited simply because he cannot drink milk.

I have found that the Environmental Defense Fund has some excellent resources for seafood safety.

Here is a complete list of Seafood Eco-Ratings.  According to this chart, you shouldn't consume any of the following items due to high mercury or PCB content:

All bluefish

Chilean sea bass

Blue crab

Summer flounder

All lingcod

All marlin

All opah

All orange roughy

Yellow Perch from Lakes Huron and Ontario

All rockfish

All salmon (except wild Alaskan)

Mutton snapper

Summer flounder

Atlantic sturgeon

Imported wild sturgeon

All swordfish

All tilefish

Canned white/albacore tuna

Bluefin tuna

All wahoo

All walleye

Some people choose to take a fish oil supplement in order to get their nutrients.  The Environmental Defense Fund also has a list of the safest supplements to take.  Never take the following brands of fish oil:

Kmart brand

Omega Protein

Rite Aid

Solaray

To learn about the best sushi choices (both for your health and the environment) check out this list.

So it looks like for me and my family, with a very limited selection of seafood in the grocery store, our safest bet is to stick with wild Alaskan salmon, shrimp from Oregon, U.S. tilapia, and U.S. or Canada albacore tuna. 

-Jessica

* Except for the fish from one river about 45 minutes away that he said had been tested as clean.  This stream runs from a mountain at a high elevation and if you catch fish from higher up, they are less toxic.  This ichthyologist said that is a good rule of thumb for eating fish that you have caught - the higher the elevation (so long as it is upstream from any potential pollution sources), the safer the fish.

Source - Environmental Defense Fund.   http://www.edf.org/