It sounds like you’re using tuna as a staple. Keep in mind that tuna is quite high in mercury. Consumer reports, after measuring the mercury content of some of the common brands, concluded no more than a can a week should be consumed to stay within guidelines on mercury consumption. I’d recommend replacing some of the tuna with herring or salmon, both very low mecury fishes with great omega 3 content.
Thank you! Apparently this is fairly common knowledge (when I mentioned this to several friends they thought it was obvious). But I hadn’t been aware, and that could have been very unpleasant.
I’m going to switch “tuna” to “canned salmon” in my post, and I’m trying out canned salmon today. Interestingly, when on sale there’s not much difference in price between canned tuna and canned salmon, at least where I live.
Requesting a source for this. I was aware of some mercury in fish, but to my understanding the levels were around about—“its okay to eat 3 serves of fish per week without worrying about it” (this includes salmon and tuna)
and “if you eat 7+ serves of fish a week, you might want to check your metal poisoning levels after about two years”
I would like to be wrong; but I have no sources for this.
This is, unfortunately, complex—the levels of mercury in fish depend on the kind of fish and where it was caught. So a study of, say, tuna in Tsukiji (Tokyo’s fish market) will tell you nothing about the mercury content of your sardines and vice versa. You can estimate averages, but the error bars are going to be pretty big.
It sounds like you’re using tuna as a staple. Keep in mind that tuna is quite high in mercury. Consumer reports, after measuring the mercury content of some of the common brands, concluded no more than a can a week should be consumed to stay within guidelines on mercury consumption. I’d recommend replacing some of the tuna with herring or salmon, both very low mecury fishes with great omega 3 content.
Thank you! Apparently this is fairly common knowledge (when I mentioned this to several friends they thought it was obvious). But I hadn’t been aware, and that could have been very unpleasant.
I’m going to switch “tuna” to “canned salmon” in my post, and I’m trying out canned salmon today. Interestingly, when on sale there’s not much difference in price between canned tuna and canned salmon, at least where I live.
Also, frozen salmon burgers are fairly cheap and very convenient. They’re $1 each where I live.
Requesting a source for this. I was aware of some mercury in fish, but to my understanding the levels were around about—“its okay to eat 3 serves of fish per week without worrying about it” (this includes salmon and tuna)
and “if you eat 7+ serves of fish a week, you might want to check your metal poisoning levels after about two years”
I would like to be wrong; but I have no sources for this.
This is, unfortunately, complex—the levels of mercury in fish depend on the kind of fish and where it was caught. So a study of, say, tuna in Tsukiji (Tokyo’s fish market) will tell you nothing about the mercury content of your sardines and vice versa. You can estimate averages, but the error bars are going to be pretty big.
What’s the mercury content of kipper like? Kipper is cheaper than everything but tuna where I used to live.