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WASHINGTON, Mar 08, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Before you reach for another healthy mouthful of Omega-3 fatty acids with fins on, bone up on what is alarming chefs and doctors about the seafood industry. If you believe it's safe to go back into the water for food, hold that fork before you devour anything from it.
Anyone who thought that by eating fish they could eat thin, eat forever, eat safe, should know the following: Some seafood is not terrific for people who have to watch their cholesterol (shellfish). Some fish that we enjoy may not be here for our children, let alone our grandchildren (cod, salmon, crabs, shrimp, swordfish, Chilean sea bass and more). Lastly, some fish can be contaminated with harmful pollutants. Today's -- Tuesday's -- news reveals that traces of mercury have been found in fish in the Northeast, with industries in the Midwest releasing pollutants into the wind the suspected source.
In recent California lawsuits retailers and restaurants have been accused by the government of failing to inform pregnant women about polychlorinated biphenyls and mercury levels in seafood and how much is safe to consume.
This has provoked a New Hampshire company to devise a labeling scale for all fish -- fresh, frozen or packaged -- that indicates just how much a person at risk could eat of that item in a month. Seafood Safe (seafoodsafe.com) has worked with health officials and educators to come up with an "average consumer" for the sample person.
This is a woman between 18 and 45, weighing about 145 pounds. The age bracket puts her inside the childbearing range. Anyone who does not fit this profile can log on to the Web site for guidelines that match them better. The scale is based on a recommended serving amount of 4 ounces, so people who eat more each day should take note accordingly. The guide doesn't cover every single fish individually, but it is possible to extrapolate from the examples a general principle. The larger and fattier the fish, for instance, the more susceptible it is to absorbing industrial pollutants.
People who grew up having fun poking the mercury from broken thermometers about in saucers may have been astonished at the ongoing effort in a Washington, D.C., high school to clean up the mercury allegedly deliberately discharged there by two young students. But mercury targets the nervous system and kidneys. Most at risk are developing fetuses, infants and young children whose brains and nervous systems are still forming. Trimming the fat and removing the skin and organs of fish contaminated with mercury won't reduce the levels they have ingested.
So far, the advisory labels will appear principally on Seafood Safe's own EcoFish products, generally sold in natural food stores. But the threat of lawsuits may persuade the rest of the fish industry to adopt their scale in labeling.
EcoFish's foodstuffs, sold ready-marinated or spice-rubbed or with spices included, are exclusively from sustainable harvested seafood. Environmentally conscious chefs like Washington's Nora Pouillon of Restaurant Nora have contributed to its seven-item Celebrity Chef Entree Line. You can pluck her "Wild Alaskan Salmon with Asian Ginger Marinade" straight from your freezer.
Restaurateurs like her and fish suppliers are increasingly beating the drum on supporting the sustainable fishing industry. Sustainable fishing describes a method of harvesting fish so that the source is neither exhausted nor permanently damaged. Commercial trawling to supply the massive maw of seafood exchanges around the world has devastatingly depleted supplies.
"When I first bought swordfish," said Pouillon, who has relied upon sustainable seafood sources for the past 15 years, "the steaks were large. Then I noticed that they were getting smaller and smaller. I asked my supplier and he told me the older, larger fish had been fished out. This was all that is left."
You won't see swordfish on her environmentally responsible menu any more. But despite the efforts of chefs such as her to protect fish like the disappearing Chilean sea bass (less toothsomely called the Patagonian toothfish), they are still in demand with consumers. While chef Jeff Black of the newly opened BlackSalt fish restaurant in Washington won't cook with it, fishmonger Scott Weinstein running the wet fish stand at the restaurant's entrance says some customers still insist that he special order it for them to cook themselves.
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(Please send comments to nationaldesk@upi.com.)
Copyright 2005 by United Press International.
