Tips for Eating Fish

By Gailon Totheroh

CBN News Science & Medical Reporter

A. Excerpted from Food and Drug Administration:

Depending on the amount and type of fish you consume it may be prudent to modify your diet if you are planning to become pregnant; pregnant; nursing; or a young child.

1. Do not eat Shark, Swordfish, King Mackerel, or Tilefish because they contain high levels of mercury.

2. Eat up to 12 ounces a week of a variety of fish and shellfish that are lower in mercury.

3. Five of the most commonly eaten fish that are low in mercury are shrimp, canned light tuna, salmon, pollock, and catfish.

4. Another commonly eaten fish, albacore tuna has more mercury than canned light tuna. So, when choosing your two meals of fish and shellfish, you may eat up to 6 ounces of albacore tuna per week.

5. Check local advisories about the safety of fish caught by family and friends in your local lakes, rivers, and coastal areas. If no advice is available, eat up to 6 ounces per week of fish you catch from local waters, but don't consume any other fish during that week.

6. Follow these same recommendations when feeding fish and shellfish to your young child, but serve smaller portions.

B. Excerpted from Environmental Defense's Pocket Seafood Selector

Note: These are based on both health and environmental concerns.

Best Choices:

Abalone Anchovies Arctic char Catfish Caviar Clams Crab, Dungeness Crab, snow Crab, stone Crawfish Halibut, Pacific Herring, Atlantic Mackerel, Atlantic Mahimahi Mussels Oysters Sablefish/black cod Salmon, wild Salmon, canned pink/sockeye Sardines Scallops, bay Shrimp, northern Shrimp, Oregon pink Shrimp Spot prawns Striped bass Sturgeon Tilapia

Worst Choices:

Caviar Chilean seabass/toothfish Cod, Atlantic Grouper Halibut, Atlantic Marlin Monkfish/goosefish Orange roughy Rockfish/rock cod Salmon, Atlantic Shark Shrimp/prawns Skate Snapper Sturgeon Swordfish Tilefish Tuna, bluefin

C. Excerpted from a Cornell University summary of a study on wild and farmed salmon:

In general, a new study shows that the net benefits of eating wild Pacific salmon outweigh those of eating farmed Atlantic salmon, when the risks of chemical contaminants are considered, although there are important regional differences.

The researchers' benefit-risk analysis showed that consumers should not eat farmed fish from Scotland, Norway and eastern Canada more than three times a year; farmed fish from Maine, western Canada and Washington state no more than three to six times a year; and farmed fish from Chile no more than about six times a year. Wild chum salmon can be consumed safely as often as once a week, pink salmon, Sockeye and Coho about twice a month and Chinook just under once a month.

CBN.com

Nov. 15, 2006