One-quarter of adult New Yorkers, roughly 1.4 million people, have elevated levels of mercury in their blood, mainly from eating certain fish, according to survey results released yesterday by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The elevated mercury levels that were found pose little, if any, health risk for adults, but may increase the risk of neurological damage in fetuses and infants whose mothers pass on the mercury through their bloodstreams during pregnancy or through breast milk.
Interestingly, the article notes that “the report attributed elevated mercury levels among higher-income New Yorkers to possibly eating more expensive varieties, like swordfish or sushi-grade tuna, that are higher in mercury.”
In my book The Zen of Fish, I tell the terrifying tale of mercury poisoning from fish in the Japanese town of Minamata, where cats danced uncontrollably in the streets and women gave birth to a generation of deformed children. The mercury danger we’re talking about here is much less severe. Indeed, there are advocacy groups that argue on both sides of the issue.
In 2006, an advocacy group called Got Mercury? that plays up the danger purchased sushi from five of Southern California’s most highly-rated restaurants and, instead of eating it, snuck it off for testing at a nearby lab. As reported in the L.A. Times:
The mercury levels of the 12 tuna samples averaged about double the FDA standard, and a quarter of the orders were near or above the limit where the agency says fish should not be sold, said Eli Saddler, a public health analyst and attorney for GotMercury.org.
"Eating sushi has become the new Russian roulette," Saddler said.
The advocacy group focused on sushi because the popular food has become one of the largest sources of fresh tuna consumption.
Meanwhile, a restaurant and food industry project called Fish Scam cites a variety of “mercury myths,” and argues that the FDA limits are purposefully set much lower than they need to be. Their website cites evidence that women who eat more fish during pregnancy give birth to smarter babies.
If you want to read more about this whole question, The Chicago Tribune conducted an eight-month investigation on mercury in fish in 2005, which was published as a three-part series that you can view online.
To my mind, all this is just another reason to forgo tuna at the sushi bar, especially the fatty cuts ... in addition to the environmental, cultural, and culinary reasons that I discussed in my Op-Ed piece in the Times earlier this month.
That doesn’t, of course, solve the big conundrum about this whole fish/mercury thing: Omega-3 fatty acids are good for your health and the health of your fetus, but the high-level fish you want to eat to get those omega-3s are often some of the worst offenders when it comes to mercury.
I’d like to suggest a radical alternative: other sources of omega-3s, such as fish oil supplements. Generally these are produced from more sustainable, lower-level fish populations, and the oils have been filtered to remove toxins such as mercury. And heck, if you’re vegetarian, or just don’t want to consume so much fish or fish products, there’s always flax-seed oil—but the seafood industry certainly won’t tell you about that.
