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  

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  

The Healthy Aspects of Eating Fish

Gaskins says he believes women have been “scared off fish” because of the growing threat of mercury poisoning and adds that there’s low-level contamination in commonly eaten seafood such as shrimp and canned tuna. As healthy as it may have been to have fish on the menu at least twice a week 100 years ago, the growing problem of tainted waters has led to fish being contaminated by mercury and other pollutants.

But how does mercury get into the fish in the first place? Primarily, there are mercury “hot spots” where accumulation comes from chlorine production facilities, offshore oil-drilling platforms and coal-burning power plants. Scientific American notes that while mercury is a naturally occurring element found in plants, animals and elsewhere throughout the environment, human involvement in industrial endeavors for the last 150 years or so has “ratcheted up” the amount of airborne mercury.

It’s not a negligible amount — it’s substantial. Fish and many types of ocean life ingest the mercury — more specifically, methylmercury cysteine, the type found in seafood — until it finally reaches the humans who eat it. Live Science observes, “Mercury in humans may cause a wide range of conditions including neurological and chromosomal problems and birth defects.” Additionally:

“Once in the water, mercury makes its way into the food chain. Inorganic mercury and methylmercury are first consumed by phytoplankton, single-celled algae at the base of most aquatic food chains. Next, the phytoplankton are consumed by small animals such as zooplankton.

The methylmercury is assimilated and retained by the animals, while the inorganic mercury is shed from the animals as waste products … Small fish that eat the zooplankton are exposed to food-borne mercury that is predominantly in the methylated form. These fish are consumed by larger fish, and so on until it gets to humans.”

An example of how insidious toxic mercury contamination is has to do with larger fish, such as tuna, swordfish, shark, large bluefish and grouper, having exponentially more mercury in them because they eat smaller fish, and the contamination is cumulative.

Article Source: Dr Mercola at Mercola.com