Hi all,
I'm a big fish lover and I know that certain fish such as tuna shouldn't be eaten more than once a week on account of its high mercury levels. I happen to have quite a lot of salmon (frozen individual cuts) and am planning to eat some everyday of the week.
So my question is: Does salmon have a lot of mercury in it? If so, what's the limit I should have per week?
Salmon actually does not have that much mercury in it. To find out how much mercury you should be consuming, you can refer to this site:
Salmon has hardly any. It's not a bottom fish, so it can't get mercury from off the ocean floor, and it doesn't live long enough to absorb it just through the water.
Tunafish live way long, and catfish eat off the bottom floor, so they're the ones with high mercury.
I tried the mercury calculator and I was shocked how much I was consuming, probably because I eat canned tuna almost everyday!
Wow!
to my knowledge, the farm-raised stuff is the worst. the feed they are given is a dried feed that comes from the oceans and it concentrated, therefore, it has higher levels of the heavy metal in it. i love cold-water fish but i have cut way back on it. i would not recommend eating it daily. i treat myself to some rainbow trout about once a month. it is similar and is much cleaner. chicken is the best lean protein source out there.
dunno if this helps at all but there was a letter in the doctor's column of the local paper about this.
In reply to worries about salmon and tuna and the mercury in them, he said that the enzymes in the salmon and tuna virtually negate the murcury (making it harmless). And went on to say that the health benefits of eating these fish far out-weighed the mercury (I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea)
I continue to eat both salmon and tuna, especially since I am trying to cut out meat and poultry.
I think there is murcury in all kinds of stuff we eat that we are not aware of and I know we all have stories like these...but my father-in-law loves cat fish, eats it regularly, and he is now 83 years old... go figure.
Original Post by meleba:
Salmon has hardly any. It's not a bottom fish, so it can't get mercury from off the ocean floor, and it doesn't live long enough to absorb it just through the water.
Tunafish live way long, and catfish eat off the bottom floor, so they're the ones with high mercury.
Catfish doesn't have that much mercury in it (0.049 ppm). According to the EPA, the reason why some fish have more mercury than others is due to bioaccumulation through various levels of the food chain. So, fish that are lower on the food chain tend to have less mercury. Some of the highest levels of mercury are from fish who are much higher on the food chain (sharks and swordfish).
