Why You Should Eat Fish

People have been eating fish since the dawn of man. It’s been a staple for humankind in every area where fish can swim and has without a doubt been one of the foods that have kept humans alive, but in many more ways than offering mere sustenance. It’s a lean protein, with vitamins, minerals, fatty acids and numerous compounds that can stave off high blood pressure, macular degeneration, depression, osteoporosis and diabetes.

Another new study in the journal Circulation reveals that people who eat two or more servings of oily fish per week had a “significantly lower risk of heart attack and stroke,” even in individuals who don’t make “eating healthy” a priority. The study authors wrote:

“We conclude that one to two seafood meals per week be included to reduce the risk of congestive heart failure, coronary heart disease, ischemic stroke, and sudden cardiac death, especially when seafood replaces the intake of less healthy foods.”

One of the most glowing reviews of fish as a healthy food was in light, again, of the high levels of omega-3s, with a notation that they’re one reason the Mediterranean diet has been all the rage over recent years. Omega-3s enter your cell membranes, which is important for cell signaling and essential for an optimally functioning heart. Forbes noted a number of other perks:

“Research has focused largely on the anti-inflammatory influence of omega-3s, which counters the hardening and narrowing of arteries that characterizes heart disease. Diets higher in omega-3s are also linked to lower triglyceride levels and fewer fatty deposits that clog arteries …

But don’t think a Friday night plate of fried catfish and slaw will fill the need. Eating fried seafood doesn’t provide the same benefits, and likely contributes to the very problem eating non-fried fish helps improve. The results of one study suggested that people who ate fried fish at least once a week were nearly 50 percent more likely to develop heart failure than those who rarely ate fried seafood.”

So should you eat fish? Again, pregnant moms and young children — and really, everyone — should steer clear of high-mercury seafood, but if you choose the healthiest options, the benefits are worth the risk for most people.

As a general rule, your best choices are small, cold-water, fatty fish, which are an ideal source of omega-3s with a low risk of contamination. The healthiest fish I suggest you consider eating more often include anchovies, sardines, mackerel, herring and wild-caught Alaskan salmon — step away from farmed varieties, both for your health and for the environment.

Article Source: Dr Mercola at Mercola.com  

Toxic Threats to Farmed Fish Food

Science reported that a worldwide assessment of the threat to the salmon market as a whole can be answered by the 13 persistent organic pollutants, including PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), known as one of the most toxic and environmentally persistent chemicals ever created.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) notes that PCBs (and there are dozens of trade names for them) don’t break down, can remain for long periods cycling between air, water and soil, travel long distances and can be taken up into the bodies of small organisms and fish.

“Studies in humans support evidence for potential carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic effects of PCBs,” it notes, but the list of potential health problems for humans and animals is frankly staggering. Sure, industries are now being regulated to more stringent laws, but once it’s out there, trying to take it back is no longer possible. The EPA site details a list of life-altering and hair-raising consequences PCBs can cause or impact:

Cancer	Immune system
Reproductive system	Nervous system
Endocrine system	Neurological effects

Keep in mind that PCBs are only one of many pollutants associated with farmed fish. One of the most treacherous is ethoxyquin, a chemical developed by Monsanto in the 1950s as a synthetic tire chemical. Ethoxyquin is found only in farmed salmon — not in wild.

It’s used as a rubber stabilizer, pesticide, preservative and antioxidant all in one, and is a suspected carcinogen that “caused chromosomal aberrations, holes and fractures in chromosomes” of human cells and “was chemically toxic, destroyed chromosomes and DNA,” according to a Norwegian newspaper review.

Because it prevents fat oxidation, it’s used in some animal feeds, including fish food. According to Nutraceutical Business Review, the European Food Safety Authority’s description of the chemical was pretty clear: Ethoxyquin is “considered to be toxic to aquatic organisms based on the acute toxicity data provided for fish, daphnia and algae.”

Article Source: Dr Mercola at Mercola.com  

The Trouble with Eating Fish Today

Since then, setbacks have varied: Farmed salmon production exceeded the amount of wild-caught salmon in 1999; nearly 3 million Atlantic salmon reportedly escaped from farms in British Columbia, Washington, Maine and Scotland in 2001, the same year infectious salmon anemia forced Maine salmon farmers to slaughter over 1 million fish.

From the traces of illegal antibiotics found in an Asian shrimp farm in 2002 to the gross violations of the Clean Water Act in a Maine-based salmon farm in 2003, and certainly the toxicology tests revealing farmed salmon to be one of the most toxic foods in the world — more than five times more toxic than any other food tested — clearly the industry as a whole has some explaining to do.

The guidelines for clean-eating seafood are the same for everyone as they are outlined for pregnant moms: Fresh-caught Alaskan salmon, sardines, mackerel, herring and anchovies are your best bets in regard to healthiest seafood. Some people might think farmed fish must be the healthiest and most environmentally responsible choice, but in many respects, fish farming, aka aquacultured fisheries, aren’t much different from the land-loving CAFOs — concentrated animal feeding operations.

One of the worst problems is salmon pens placed next to wild salmon runs, which seriously threatens the viability of wild-caught salmon, especially since the farmed variety are often carrying diseases such as infectious salmon anemia virus, and that’s just one of several.

Article Source: Dr Mercola at Mercola.com  

Threats to Fish Farming Culture

A Timeline of U.S. and World Aquaculture indicates that the multimillion-dollar fish farming industry began, no doubt, with the very best intentions (like feeding people), but as with arguably every other global enterprise, problems occur (and continue to occur) that are as varied and unpredictable as your average fishing expedition. Some highlights:

Carp were farmed in China in rice paddies and freshwater ponds as early as 3500 B.C. Egyptian hieroglyphics show tilapia being rounded up into aquacultures, with Japan joining the ranks in 2000 B.C.

The first real fish farming as we know it may date to the 1400s, when Indonesians trapped young milkfish in coastal ponds when the tide was high. True modern-day methods may be traced back to a German farmer who gathered trout eggs, fertilized them, then nurtured the hatched fish to maturity.

Then in 1853, a trout farm in Ohio became the first official fish farm in the U.S., as it was the first to artificially fertilize its fish eggs. The concept grew to similar endeavors in New England in the late 1800s to raise lobsters and flounder, and Idaho for trout in 1909.

Franklin D. Roosevelt even had a farm pond program in which the concept was encouraged and federal subsidies offered for farms willing to build and stock fishponds. Similar operations began in the Caribbean, South America, the Mediterranean, Norway and Scotland by the 1960s and, by 1985, Australia.

No one could have predicted some of the problems: Sea lice caused the collapse of an Irish Sea trout fishery; Alaska banned netpen fish farms, shrimp farms collapsed worldwide due to disease; British Columbia placed a moratorium on new salmon farms to conduct an environmental review; and Canadian researchers procured a patent for transgenic (aka genetically engineered or GE) salmon. And that was just in the 1990s.

Article Source: Dr Mercola at Mercola.com  

Harmful Effects of Eating Certain Fish

Monterey Fish explains that the above ocean fish should be avoided, and includes King mackerel, barracuda, marlin, conger eel, jacks and Gulf of Mexico tilefish. Similarly, steer clear of certain wild freshwater fish, as well, including whitefish, pickerel, pike, walleye and lake trout due to potential mercury contamination. However, here’s an interesting twist to the narrative.

In some cultures, fish is on the menu far more often than in the U.S., especially Japan, a relatively small nation entirely surrounded by water. In fact, it’s consumed four to five times more there than in the U.S. The people have regularly consumed the largest tunas they could catch for centuries, so it’s very likely they accumulated large amounts of methylmercury, apparently without causing problems. But there’s more:

“A number of studies have found that the essential element selenium, high amounts of which are found in ocean fish, sequesters mercury, thus neutralizing its toxic effects. This may be the reason why studies have never shown an epidemic of child developmental problems in coastal populations whose diets have been comprised in large part of seafood.”

Further, the omega-3 fatty acids in healthy seafood, namely fresh-caught Alaskan salmon, sardines, mackerel, herring and anchovies, are essential for your overall health. If you do not eat fish for whatever reason, I recommend that you take a quality supplement to supply it.

My best recommendation is krill oil, which is animal based and contains the highly crucial EPA and DHA omega-3s your body needs. EPA and DHA are important for your heart and brain, cellular and mitochondrial function, bone health and mood regulation, as well as for healthy fetal development and pregnancy.

On the other hand, methylmercury poses the greatest threat to the nervous system while unborn babies and newborns are developing — their brains, immune and nervous systems and retinas, in particular. It easily penetrates the placenta, where the mercury concentration in red blood cells may be 30 percent higher than in those of the baby’s mother.

Article Source: Dr Mercola at Mercola.com