How Much Tuna Can You Eat Safely?

Planet Green:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) states that we can safely eat about 12 ounces of fish--about two average portions--per week, to help us fill up on the good things fish can offer, like Omega-3 fatty acids and high-quality protein, while skipping out on dietary baddies like saturated fats. Sounds easy enough--12 ounces per week--but that measurement isn't universally applicable to all fish.

As we've mentioned before, fish higher on the food chain like tuna, sea bass and swordfish bioaccumulate toxins--mercury is certainly one to keep an eye on--so eating them is going to have a different mercury load, for example, than a small whitefish like tilapia. And, your weight (and gender) also determine how much tuna you can have; for some of us, following the FDA's guidelines, and eating 12 ounces of tuna, would result in more mercury than is considered safe. So how can you tell where to draw the line?

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has created a handy tuna calculator to help determine how much tuna you can safely eat in a week, even calculating how much albacore tuna (which has more mercury) you can eat versus how much "chunk light tuna" is safe.

Read the whole story: Planet Green

Comments

[dadw5boys]

09:26 AM on 06/03/2008

I cook all my fish on an angle to drain away any of the Mercury that will break loose and never use the drippings to flavor a sauce. Throw it out.

Ithought about collecting it to see if over time any micro Mercury particles would combine and I could get and idea of how much Mercury is really in the fish.

I don't trust the government­s numbers. The Mercury Issue came up after Tuna and Salmod were being farmed in large Ocean Pools.
The Mercury I believe is in the food they feed these fish. It mostly is used in a drug in the food to makes the fish less aggressive so they will not attack and eat each other in the pools.