Tuna and mercury......

RimBlock

RimBlock

RimBlock

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There seems to be some big concerns about mercury in tuna.

Considering a lot of people here use tuna as an excellent cheap source of protein I was wondering what their view were.

A mercury content calculator is available here. I have nothing to do with it or it's accuracy but if accurate then the results are pretty worring fro tuna eaters.

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Cheers
RB
 
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I eat it twice a week, if you've got a healthy lifestyle eat lots of anti oxidants and drink plenty of water it really shouldn't be too much of an issue, but it is not a good thing to have in excess and I've met a couple of bodybuilders who had to have some consultancy from doctors for the mercury in their body. Heavy metals in the body aren't good, but they're all around us, we breathe them in, we eat them we can't really get away from them. There are ways of getting rid of heavy metals, look it up as it will make more sense to you as you know your body better than anyone else.

Back to the point at hand, unless you have health issues and aren't pregnant there's nothing wrong with tuna and other big predatory fish - however, the key is variation and a balanced diet - sure they're great for low fat high protein, but so are other smalled predatory fish.

Think about it this way, the smaller the fish the smaller the amount of toxins, the big fish eats the little fish, which is eaten by a bigger one, then a bigger one eats that one etc... the concentration builds up. Unlike land animals the food chain is usually herbivorous - in the sea there is very much a food chain.

Don't be too excessive on your paranoia it doesn't make sense, everything in moderation. Though a point to note is that toxicity levels have risen within big fish in coastal areas - owing either to natural factors, human factors or just general increase in waste etc...

Ultimately you won't do yourself any harm, but I wouldn't rely on it for daily part of your diet.
 
I prefer salmon so it is not such a big deal for me although my wallet will suffer.

I will try and cut down to two tins a week now though...

"Don't be too excessive on your paranoia it doesn't make sense"

I agree. The point of the post was to prompt people to get informed and not to incite terror of the tuna :D.

RB
 
Depends where it came from. Chances are deep Atlantic fish aren't going to have any significant concentration of those elements.

That is a US calculator by the way: they have a huge issue when it comes to inland water pollution so I wouldn't take it as representative of seafood available here in the UK.
 
To me this is just something else to worry about that I can't be bothered to worry about. Like the BBC's incessant 'scientists link baked beans to genital warts' type news articles.
 
Agreed entirely. However I wouldn't have the same meal every day, not for health issues, just because it's boring as sin! And the key to a good lifestyle is variation.
 
I think Charcoal is supposed to help reduce Mercury absorption into the body.

Might not help, but it may help you think it helps :p
 
Have a read here. fish and mercury has been blown all out of proportion by media

http://www.healthytuna.com/safety/tuna-low-mercury-fish
According to testing conducted by FDA, canned light tuna has an average of 0.12 parts per million (ppm) of methylmercury per can. Canned albacore tuna has an average of 0.35 ppm. To put these amounts into perspective, FDA has set a limit of 1.00 ppm for mercury in fish – and the 1.00 ppm limit has a ten fold safety factor. Meaning – you would have to eat ten times more fish than the current safety threshold of 1.00 ppm everyday for the rest of your life to reach a level associated with any known risk. That’s a lot of tuna!
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Indeed, support the lesser known fish! They need eating too!

Haddock, Pollock, Rock and even fried Whiting - all cheaper than your bog standard Cod.
 
Yeah I won't pay much attention to it, it's not like I eat 4 cans per day every day so I highly doubt i'm getting too much exposure.
 
WantoN said:
I eat a tin a day. I'm not dead yet :)

Ant :cool:
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Jeffstar said:
Always makes me laugh when people obsess over things like this. Get a life :D

Tuna = muscle food, get it down ya!
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Same here. But I get plenty of other variety of meats and fish in my diet too. I also drink more than enough water, probaly too much!

There are far more important things to worry about in life than the mercury content of Tuna :o

I appreciate your efforts to make sure we are well informed however there are a fair few threads on this topic, one of which created by me I believe! :p
 
I remember reading somewhere something along the lines that even if you are remotely worried about these claims, eat just 2 brazil nuts a day and they will have enough selenium in them to transport the mercury off off and away.
 
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