Sushi Mercury Levels Wayyyyyyy High

[liveonearth]

I guess it's just as well that I stopped eating sushi. Recent laboratory tests in New York found so much mercury in tuna sushi that two or three pieces a week at some restaurants could be a health hazard. Eight out of the 44 pieces of sushi purchased by the New York Times for testing had mercury levels so high that the FDA could take legal action

Comments

[xplorher]

wow, that's not cool. do you know about other fish?
i wonder, i don't know, if tuna is a bottom feeder?
i don't think they are..
i would imagine something like an eel would be in direct contact/consumption with mercury, being that they tunnel into the ocean floor for cover.
yikes. glad i haven't eaten alot of sushi in my life.
always LOVE it, but don't get to it often.

more than you wanted to know about fish safety

[liveonearth]

What makes a fish have high mercury is being very carnivorous and large, because the mercury concentrates in each fish. So if the fish you eat is like a tuna---very big and eats whole schools of medium sized fish which eat schools of little fish etc.... well you get the idea. Also there's more mercury in our atmosphere and waters closer to the equator, and less closer to the poles, so northern herbivorous fish are best. Not that I know of any of those. And wild is better than farmed, because the farmed ones are pumped full of shit just like farmed cows and chickens. The mercury levels in ALL fish are continuing to rise because we're burning more and more coal, that's what does it

Re: more than you wanted to know about fish safety

[xplorher]

ahhh gotcha..re: the food chain..
i thought mercury was a naturally occuring metal in the earth, and if it's exposed..then it does damage. i was imagining it to be at the bottom of the ocean in the earth..
i wonder how burning coal affects mercury levels?
ooo i remember you saying tests showed arsenic in you..and i'm pretty sure that is something allowed in drinking water, at low levels..
eeek
L was poisoning you, just with her negative vibes!

Re: more than you wanted to know about fish safety

[liveonearth]

Coal has mercury and sulfur in it, and the particulates that go into the air form sulfuric acid rain that can carry more metals because it is acid. So it comes to us by way of air pollution to poison rain to poison waters to poison fish....

Arsenic is a common pollutant in well water but not in the Flagstaff area. The spring with the fountain down on Oak Creek is high in arsenic. You can also get arsenic in you from breathing auto smog and from eating commercial chicken. The feed that corporate chicken producers feed their chickens contains arsenic. Except Tyson, their chicken is arsenic free.

Anyway.

[marijkab]

I'm very sad to hear about this- but at least it came at a good time. I'm as far from sushi as I could possibly be, and even though there are a few sushi places in Amarillo, I'd never eat at them- sushi in TX?!? it just SOUNDS wrong. :)
As far as poisoning by chemicals- 10 miles away there are 2 huge, black, nasty plants or mills or something that make something that smells terrible when the wind is right. One of my first goals is to find out what it is that they are pumping out into my air.

[liveonearth]

Yuck. What kind of smell is it?

[marijkab]

Like a sulfur smell- faint, but there.