First, where is all this mercury in the oceanic food chain coming from now if it hasn't been there all along?

Second, is this just one of the latest boogeymen in nutrition science being promoted for who knows what purpose?

Finally, at what frequency can one eat "high mercury" sea foods without consequence?

For the record, I like light tuna in water, canned clams, and occasionally canned oysters. On the rare occasions I eat sea food at a restaurant it is always a white meat and if possible catfish.

Thanks-

From what I have read and talked to a guy who runs a fish market. The mercury is in small amounts in small fish. As they get eaten by predators the amount of mercury accumulates. So basically the highest concentrations will be in predatory fish like shark, tuna etc...

ETA: Pay attention to where the fish come from. A lot of fish are farm raised in ponds. In the US they are regulated pretty well. However if you look at the country of origin you will find them raised in Thailand, China and I even saw shrimp farm raised in Saudi Arabia! Do not consume from these places as you don't know what kinds of pesticides and antibiotics are in the meat.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: p08,

The ocean is full of different minerals, hydrocarbons and metals; has been for millions of years.

Death has something for everybody. Ask Betty White.

I eat lots of tuna, mainly the albacore. Was wondering about this myself. I eat yellow fin and blue fin often but albacore is king. I never knew untill just last week the tuna is a predetor fish. I dont mind them eating small fish, lobster and mercury, I just wish they would not eat squid...yuck. Blue fins I have read can grow up to 1,500 pounds. Thats quite a fish.

There is a decent amount of mercury in tuna, even in low mercury labeled tuna. My advice would be to get a hair follicle test that shows your levels of metals and adjust your diet accordingly.

If you reload, cast lead bullets, shoot indoors, use memory foam, etc. then you should get tested.

I read that tbe mercury is present in and volatized from coal burned in power plants.

https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs095-01/fs095-01.html

The Hg in the ocean maybe mostly from the PRC. I certainly wish that mercury scrubbers would required for coal fires world wide... but that will not happen.

I love swordfish steaks but the advice is to not eat any more than once a month as they tend to have higher than normal mercury levels.

I remember this coming up a few decades ago.
Not saying it's not a concern for some, but it seems like another rehashed scare tactic from the usual suspects.

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
I remember this coming up a few decades ago.
Not saying it's not a concern for some, but it seems like another rehashed scare tactic from the usual suspects.

Not that the other posts aren't helpful, but I'm quoting this one to preface that years ago I used to eat a can of tuna and a baked potato twice a day. I didn't die. There was almost thirty pounds less of me, and what was there was much more like kevlar than flab.

Now that I'm older/heavier what I eat probably matters more, and the world has had all those years to mess up a good thing. Thus the questions.

“All things in moderation.” TM

quote:

Originally posted by p08:
From what I have read and talked to a guy who runs a fish market. The mercury is in small amounts in small fish. As they get eaten by predators the amount of mercury accumulates. So basically the highest concentrations will be in predatory fish like shark, tuna etc...

ETA: Pay attention to where the fish come from. A lot of fish are farm raised in ponds. In the US they are regulated pretty well. However if you look at the country of origin you will find them raised in Thailand, China and I even saw shrimp farm raised in Saudi Arabia! Do not consume from these places as you don't know what kinds of pesticides and antibiotics are in the meat.

Could you please put a line in your profile signature line? I keep seeing that pallbearer line and think it’s part of a reply…

I don't think it's that there's "more" mercury in fish these days, it's that we're discovering that high levels of heavy metals (including mercury, cadmium, lead) are being linked to more neurological disorders. Accordingly, the guidance as to what constitutes a "safe" level of mercury is changing and labeling requirements have expanded.

The tuna likely doesn't have appreciably more mercury this decade than last, it's just that we understand better that the mercury bio accumulates in the big fish, and that even small levels seem to be linked to nasty disorders and birth defects.

When I was in grad school the subject of mercury (Hg) concentrations in swordfish came up in the toxicology class.

The stupid swordfish scare (SSS) was prompted by an incident with a woman in NYS, then some bureaucrat decided the fed.gov needed a water quality standard for Hg. To set these standard, EPA goes into the field to collect data. In the SSS instance, this involved taking marine environment fish, muscles, and other aquatics life killing them and determining the muscle concentration of Hg. In doing so they discovered the average Hg concentration was 5.0 milligrams per kilogram of fish muscle. That was above the standard at the time, which was 2 milligrams per kilogram.

Naturally that caused a fed.gov conniption.

Fishing boats were tested and fish above 5 mg/kg were consigned to the landfill, driving the cost of fish up, a lot. The fed.gov and stakeholders, particularly the fishermen ended up at an impasse. Finger pointing at the chemical manufacturing industry threatened to cause everything to go up in cost.

Then there was news that scientists found a 10,000 year-old swordfish in a glacier in Greenland. Thankfully a bright guy said "Hey! Let us test this fish muscle Hg concentration." So they did.

And discovered that swordfish, in particular 10,000 year old swordfish have a natural concentration of 5.0 mg/kg of Hg in their muscles.

So the standard was set at 5.0 mg/kg.

Now what prompted this?

A crazy woman in NYC who literally ate swordfish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. For more than 30 years.

Since Hg bio-accumulates in human fat, she had true full life-time dose exposure to Hg, and showed all the classic symptoms, called "Mad Hatter's Disease."

Additionally, there's two separate things to watch out for in sea food:

1) bio accumulation of heavy metals in top of the food chain fish. Heavy metals occur naturally in the environment, but accumulate up the food chain as big fish eat smaller fish. The bigger the fish and higher up the food chain, the higher the concentration of metals accumulate.

2) bio accumulation of pesticides in farmed raised fish. Pesticides used in the production of meal used to feed the fish accumulate in the fish, regardless of size.

If you pick up a DNR booklet for fishing rules and such, it has recommendations on how much and how often to eat seafood.

Forum members have done their research.

Here's a general guide-

quote:

Originally posted by apprentice:

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
I remember this coming up a few decades ago.
Not saying it's not a concern for some, but it seems like another rehashed scare tactic from the usual suspects.

Not that the other posts aren't helpful, but I'm quoting this one to preface that years ago I used to eat a can of tuna and a baked potato twice a day. I didn't die. There was almost thirty pounds less of me, and what was there was much more like kevlar than flab.

Now that I'm older/heavier what I eat probably matters more, and the world has had all those years to mess up a good thing. Thus the questions.

So mercury and other heavy metal accumulation is real. It occurs the most in long lived apex predators, like us and the fish on the "don't eat" list. The more small/medium fish you eat, the more it accumulates in your body. And it's not just fish, it's everything that accumulates heavy metals and minerals and passes that on to you, the consumer.

Now it's just silly to say things like "my great aunt Marge ate tuna every day for 96 years and died of a jealous boyfriend shooting her so there's no issue." Eating stuff that has metal poisoning is like (for example) playing Russian Roulette. The fact that some jackass played RR 16 times does not mean playing RR is not dangerous. Now expand that to a single bullet but 1,000,000 chambers. There aren't a lot of odds playing at that level. But we don't know if eating long lived apex predators reduces chambers or adds bullets or what, but it absolutely does something. As does poisoning the waters animals live in.

And it's not just you, but your children to be (for pregnant women or future dads) and for children in general because the longer you eat the tainted food, the more you accumulate.

But it's like anything. Play the game and take your risk, but don't pretend for a second that there IS NO RISK, because clearly there is. You just don't know exactly how that game of RR will turn out until after the trigger is pulled. And you might not live to regret it.

I guess I'm doomed! My dad was a plumber and I worked for him as a kid 50+ years ago.

We used to play with it, make coins slippery as snot. No telling how many of those little balls of silver stuff went down the garage drain eek: Or where those coins ended up.

To this day I have about 5lbs. of it

I've never heard of a Mercury problem with shellfish. Generally high Mercury occurs in larger pelagic fish such as Tuna, Swordfish, Wahoo, Grouper. You'd have to eat the fish more than once a week, to even think about being tested for Mercury. Yes it is real, but the only person I know that had an issue with it, ate fresh Tuna 3x a week for several years. Also, I wouldn't touch any farm raised seafood.