One very popular option, swordfish, may be the worst example. Swordfish is high in mercury and other contaminants. These contaminants can be harmful to your health, and may outweigh the benefits of eating fish.
Here’s Why Swordfish May be the Worst Seafood You Can Eat
- Thread starter Jake 10
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johndiver999
Contributor
yeah but it is soo expensive and tastes so good, it is probably worth the risk, once in a great while.
Most of the pelagic species are relatively high in mercury/contaminants by virtue of what they eat. Being near the top of the food chain means you get all the crap your food source eats and can't get rid of. If you're going to avoid fish on this basis, you gotta cut out a bunch of others, including some types of tuna.
Here is the FDA chart on mercury levels in fish. Swordfish is indeed near the top, just under golden Tilefish. I have had both in the past few weeks.
www.fda.gov
Mercury Levels in Commercial Fish and Shellfish (1990-2012)
Mercury Levels in Commercial Fish and Shellfish from 1990-2012 by Species
One of many issues associated with these studies, was a long-outdated sky-high assumption on the bioavailability (the amount actually accumulated into, say, blood, brain, and some other tissue) versus bio-accessibility effects (the role of digestive processes, etc and partial elimination) of MeHg (methyl mercury); and a staggering lack of actual sampling from naturally contaminated fish muscle (only 2 of 24 studies ever dealt with them) in terms of Hg or the documentation of AEs ("assimilation efficiencies" -- basically, the ingested versus excreted) amounts of either MeHg or Hg -- rarely, if ever, taking into consideration serving sizes; what portions of the fish were actually consumed (organs versus muscle, fat, etc); Hg's about fifty-day biological half-life; or even some cooking methods, where boiled or fried fish of many species were 40-60% lower in bio-accessible Hg than its equivalent raw consumption (what older Hg studies stressed almost exclusively) -- even missing out on the role posed by the intestinal mucosa, a natural barrier to some Hg absorption.
Eat that pelagic 1˚ predator or bottom-feeding species of fish with gusto; or with hand-wringing if that better suits you; but I would have far more Hg and MeHg concerns over that steaming rice beside your seafood entrée, from inland China (the biggest producer in the world), which is typically consumed in far greater amounts than any yup-scale fish, and where cinnabar (HgS -- mercuric sulfide) is heavily mined and Hg-rich coal burned (the source of something like eighty percent of the energy production for Guizhou's thirty eight million, plus, residents), than on that very occasional, pricey swordfish steak.
Truly, there is no free lunch; please pass the anchovies . . .
Eat that pelagic 1˚ predator or bottom-feeding species of fish with gusto; or with hand-wringing if that better suits you; but I would have far more Hg and MeHg concerns over that steaming rice beside your seafood entrée, from inland China (the biggest producer in the world), which is typically consumed in far greater amounts than any yup-scale fish, and where cinnabar (HgS -- mercuric sulfide) is heavily mined and Hg-rich coal burned (the source of something like eighty percent of the energy production for Guizhou's thirty eight million, plus, residents), than on that very occasional, pricey swordfish steak.
Truly, there is no free lunch; please pass the anchovies . . .
Or just choose to not eat fish at all which is what I did when I became an instructor. I thing those critters are tasty but haven't touched eaten them based on a personal decision.
It makes me feel like a hypocrite when I show divers how beautiful the marine life is and discuss why it is important to protect the oceans only to surface and order fish. It is merely a personal decision for me and I don't tell anyone else what to do or how it should make them feel.
It makes me feel like a hypocrite when I show divers how beautiful the marine life is and discuss why it is important to protect the oceans only to surface and order fish. It is merely a personal decision for me and I don't tell anyone else what to do or how it should make them feel.
@ScubaWithTurk , how about invasive species? Lionfish are beautiful ... in the regions they are native.
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