High Mercury Levels Are Found in Tuna Sushi

[RedEarth]

Source: nyt

Recent laboratory tests found so much mercury in tuna sushi from 20 Manhattan stores and restaurants that at most of them, a regular diet of six pieces a week would exceed the levels considered acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Sushi from 5 of the 20 places had mercury levels so high that the Food and Drug Administration could take legal action to remove the fish from the market. The sushi was bought by The New York Times in October.

“No one should eat a meal of tuna with mercury levels like those found in the restaurant samples more than about once every three weeks," said Dr. Michael Gochfeld, professor of environmental and occupational medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, N.J.

Although the samples were gathered in New York City, experts believe similar results would be observed elsewhere. “Mercury levels in bluefin are likely to be very high regardless of location,” said Tim Fitzgerald, a marine scientist for Environmental Defense, an advocacy group that works to protect the environment and improve human health.






Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/dining/23sushi.html?hp

[sakabatou]

1. Kappamaki for everyone!

[kwyjibo]

2. No!!

it's so delicious! Why must everything that's tasty be so bad for you?

[MorningGlow]

3. That reminds me--how is Stephanie Miller doing?

She was diagnosed with mercury poisoning from eating too much tuna/sushi a little while ago--anybody know if she's detoxed and doing any better? Sure hope so. She's my favorite liberal talker.

[The Sushi Bandit]

4. She said that the Tuna

made her breasts bigger!

[MorningGlow]

10. Hee--were her breasts getting bigger

or was the rest of her getting smaller? She was dropping weight like crazy when she first started to realize something was wrong.

[MidwestTransplant]

5. Honest? How much was she eating?

[MorningGlow]

9. I think she said she was eating tuna every day

Canned, I think, as well as sushi. I don't know for how long, but it sounded like years!

[LisaM]

15. It made me wonder if Heath Ledger was eating a lot of fish

She said that one of the symptoms she had from mercury poisoning was that she couldn't sleep. Then one day she took sleeping medicine and slept through her show.

[mahina]

6. My nutritionist says that this is a different form of mercury

that can't harm us.

But it still really is horrible that the fish have all this mercury from the various pollution sources. If I recall, coal burning electricity generation is a big source.

[Jester_11218]

11. No forms...

Mercury is an element. There are no "forms" of mercury. It is a neurotoxin. It is in fish because humans put it there. We burn coal and we throw out batteries like they were grass seeds.

Humans, killing humans. We are the virus that will eventually destroy all.
Sad.

[trotsky]

13. Do you understand what compounds are?

And how compounds have different properties than elements?

And that elemental mercury is NOT the form found in fish?

Mercury is dangerous, and something we need to be more careful with, but let's make sure we don't spread falsehoods.

[Jester_11218]

12. Correction

I should explain more about the forms of Mercury...there are other forms of mercury...but this is not what is being found in fish. Elemental mercury is found in fish. It is poison.

On the other hand the inorganic forms of Mercury are poison as well. They will cause nerve damage and kidney failure.

There are NO safe forms to speak of.

Peace,
Jesse

[al bupp]

7. If you do eat the tuna sushi...

be sure to order some miso to go w/ it. It has the ability to chelate heavy metals, rendering them significantly less harmful.

[leftynyc]

8. Oy Vey

I had it yesterday for lunch and have it as much as 2x a week. Love the stuff.

[BreweryYardRat]

14. Fortunately, I'm too broke to eat tuna regularly anymore.

Can't STAND the canned shit. Get it fresh, vacuum-packaged, or not at all.

[Lisa]

16. tuna are predatory fish, so mercury tends to bioaccumulate in them

The recent upsurge in coal burning (e.g. all those new electricity plants in China) may be coming home to roost, as the mercury being released works its way through the food chain ...

Because there is a lot of overseas transport of sushi-grade tuna going on these days (fish sold in NY or Japan may be coming from the same source in the North Atlantic), a lot of other sushi places around the country -- or even around the world -- might have similar levels. Alarming that there isn't much monitoring of this kind of thing.