Currently browsing posts about: Fish

An article in Food Navigator—Asia got my attention:  “A study by researchers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and China has found that the levels of iron, chromium, cadmium and nickel in fish caught from the Red Sea exceeded the levels recommended by various authorities such as the EU, FAO, and WHO.”

Heavy metals are not just in baby foods (see post from a couple of days ago).

Now they are a problem in Red Sea fish.

This is no surprise.  Recall the enormous effort needed to  extract the 1300-foot container ship, Ever Given, from the banks of the Suez Canal.

Hundreds of ships going through the Red Sea and the Canal every week, all of them dumping waste water.

An article in the Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences observes that the Red Sea environment is heavily contaminated with heavy metals; these accumulate in fish muscles.

The concentrations of Cr, Fe, Ni and Cd, analyzed in this study were higher than other heavy metals due to the overloading of industrial waste and the disposal of the water from Jeddah. Mn, Cu, and Pb concentrations, however, were far below the levels recommended by various authorities…It was concluded that the fishes captured from Jeddah Coast, Red Sea, are still safe for human consumption, but the amount consumed should be controlled under the FAO/WHO guidelines.

So–it’s up to you to protect yourself from contaminated fish.

How about international shipping policies that restrict what ships can dump into international waters?

Seafood intake and the development of obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.  Bjorn Liaset, Jannike Øyen, Hélène Jacques, Karsten Kristiansen and Lise Madsen. Nutrition Research Reviews (2019), 32, 146–167.

Conclusion: Evidence from intervention trials and animal studies suggests that frequent intake of lean seafood, as compared with intake of terrestrial meats, reduces energy intake by 4–9%, sufficient to prevent a positive energy balance and obesity. At equal energy intake, lean seafood reduces fasting and postprandial risk markers of insulin resistance, and improves insulin sensitivity in insulin-resistant adults… More studies are needed to confirm the dietary effects on energy intake, obesity and insulin resistance.”

Funding: The present review was financially supported by The Norwegian Seafood Research Fund…The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Comment:  It is understandable that the Norwegian seafood industry would support research to promote seafood consumption.  Seafood is a demonstrably good source of animal protein but how good, how essential, and how environmentally sustainable are highly debatable.  To the authors’ credit, they acknowledge the debate when they admit that “more studies are needed….”  Industry-funded studies tend to put a positive spin on equivocal research, as this one does [I provide evidence for these views in Unsavory Truth].

Now that the FDA has approved production of GMO salmon, here they come.  Next month, a land-enclosed fish farm in Indiana will start raising these fish.

These, you will recall, are salmon bioengineered to grow throughout the year.  They end up much bigger than wild salmon.

These have been a long time coming.  As I’ve written previously,

• The FDA’s approval has been controversial
• The salmon are likely to cause problems for retailers

One big question with farmed salmon is what to feed them.  They need sources of color (there’s a dye, asthaxanthin, for that) and of omega-3 fatty acids (other fish?).

Indiana is the leading soybean-producing state.  Maybe these salmon have a handy food source?

Here’s a report that’s been sitting in my “to post” file way too long.

This SeaChoice report is another blow to the reputation of farmed salmon:

SeaChoice looked at audits of 257 salmon farms between 2014 and 2018 to see whether the farms met standards of the Aquaculture Stewardship Council.  To be certified, farms must meet 100% of the standards.

Some did, but most did not.  The results?

Farmed salmon raise many environmental issues.  If these data are correct, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council needs to do a much more rigorous job—and be much more critical—of salmon farms seeking certification.

Caveat emptor.

Tomorrow: what’s happening with GMO salmon.

Seafood fraud, long a problem (I wrote about it in What to Eat), is still a problem.  The latest evidence comes from a report from the New York State Attorney General.

Investigators tested fish and found widespread mislabeling of just about every type of fish except striped bass.

I wish the figure displayed percentages instead of absolute numbers, but you get the idea.  Examples:

• Lemon sole       87.5%
• Red snapper     67.0%
• “Wild” salmon  27.6% (in quotes because some was farmed)

Overall, the investigation found 27% of seafood purchases to be mislabeled.  Some conclusions:

• Mislabeling was worse at some supermarkets more than others; for example, five chains had mislabeling rates of 50% or higher.
• Some fish are mislabeled more than others, especially lemon sole, red snapper, and grouper.
• Substitutes were cheaper, less desirable fish, sometimes with higher levels of mercury.
• Mislabeling was common throughout the state, but the mislabeling rate for New York City was nearly 43%.

If ever there was a call for caveat emptor, this is it.

What to do?  Ask.  Complain. Demand regulation.

Paul Greenberg.  The Omega Principle: Seafood and the Quest for a Long Life and a Healthier Planet.  Penguin Press, 2018.

This is the third installment of Paul Greenberg’s fish trilogy (the previous two are Four Fish and American Catch, both also well worth the read).

This one sounds like a book about nutrition—a nutrient—but it’s not.  It may have started out that way, as a book about omega-3 fatty acids whose principal dietary source is fish, but Greenberg soon figured out that claims for the miraculous health benefits of omega-3s don’t hold up to scrutiny.

Instead, he uses omega-3s as an organizing framework for discussing how we use and misuse fish for industrial purposes.  To do this, he travels.  He goes to the Mediterranean to examine what happens to anchovies, Peru to see what happens to anchoveta, to the Antarctic to see what happens to krill.

His point?  If we destroy the bottom of the seafood chain to make fishmeal or fertilizer, we destroy the ecology of fish higher up on the food chain.

Greenberg is a lively, entertaining writer who tells great fish tales in pursuit of a serious message: if we want food in our future, we need to eat lower on the food chain.

And the book comes with recipes.  My favorite: Roulades of Antarctic penguin breast.  It begins: “Never make this recipe, please.”

The two agencies have just issued advice to pregnant women about eating fish.

Fatty fish have long-chain omega-3 fatty acids which are good for health.

But some have methylmercury, which is toxic to the developing fetus.

And all have PCBs or other organic compounds that are unlikely to promote health.

The advice?  Eat 2 to 3 servings of lower-mercury fish per week for a total of 8-12 ounces

That’s fine, but which fish are low in methylmercury?

For this, the agencies have created an reference chart that sorts 62 types of fish into three categories:

“Best Choices” (eat two to three servings a week)

“Good Choices” (eat one serving a week)

“Fish to Avoid”

Here’s where things get tricky.

• Choices to avoid include, among others, Bigeye Tuna and Tilefish from the Gulf of Mexico.
• Good choices include Albacore and Yellowfin Tuna and Tilefish from the Atlantic Ocean.

Good luck telling the difference.

As I’ve written before (and also see this post and this one about fish politics), if you want to avoid methylmercury during pregnancy, it’s best to avoid tuna.  Consumer Reports advises pregnant women not to eat tuna at all.

Center for Science in the Public Interest says:

The best advice for pregnant or nursing women and parents of small children is to choose fish that are low in mercury and high in omega-3 fatty acids, like salmon and sardines. They should avoid albacore tuna altogether, and consume tuna labeled as ‘light tuna’ very sparingly — no more than two ounces per week for women and one ounce per week for kids.

And are PCBs a non-issue?  Could fish politics have anything to do with this?

Here are the documents

• Eating Fish: What Pregnant Women and Parents Should Know
• Federal Register Notice Announcing the Advice
• FDA and EPA final advice (this updates advice proposed in June 2014)

Miriam Horn.  Rancher, Farmer Fisherman: Conservation Heroes of the American Heartland.  WW Norton, 2016.

Actually, this book should be titled “Rancher, Farmer, Riverman, Shrimper, Fisherman: Conservation of Life around the Mississippi River.” It consists of deep interviews with one person in each category who is working hard to protect some part of the environment.

My favorite is the shrimper, the truly remarkable woman who is devoting her life to saving the livelihoods of the people engaged in Louisiana’s highly endangered—by hurricanes, floods, oil spills, and regulators—shrimp-fishing industry.

Each of the people highlighted in this book is doing something for conservation, not always in the ways you and I might choose.  As Miriam Horn explains in her introduction,

Which is not to say they have found the perfect way to fish or farm; they would be the first to acknowledge that there is no such ideal.  Rather, their heroism lied in the depth of their commitment to consider the largest implications of what they do, across geographic and generational lines; to forever listen more intently, weight each choice for the impact it will have on their neighbors and all of life, challenge themselves to do better as they understand more and the world changes around them.