Choose Fish Carefully

Why choose fish carefully?First, fish can be highly contaminated with toxic chemicals like mercury and PCBs, so you want to avoid eating tainted species, particularly if you are pregnant, may get pregnant, are nursing, or planning to serve the meal to a child. (Government warnings have shifted and sometimes one agency's recommendations havecontradictedthose of another agency, or of respected advocacy groups.) Second, the world's stocks of commercial fish are, in many cases, being fished at unsustainable rates that are leading to collapsing populations. That said, fish are a healthy meat, so many people want to make fish a part of their diets.

A great source of information about fish comes from the Environmental Defense Fund'sSeafood Selector, which identifies which fish are both caught sustainably and are low in contaminants -- and which are not. It has a searchable database of fish, and also provides a handy wallet-sized card to take to the fish market.

According to Consumer's Union, no fish label ishighly meaningful, but each of the following will tell you something:

Dolphin Safein most cases certifies that tuna is caught without killing dolphins, but only applies to the primary fishing grounds in the eastern Pacific, not to tuna caught elsewhere.
FishWiseis very useful for choosing sustainably caught fish and "somewhat meaningful" for determining contaminant levels.
Marine Stewardship Councilis "somewhat meaningful"; while it provides consumers information about which fish are sustainably harvested, the standards used to determine what is "sustainable" can be inconsistent.
Safe Harboris "somewhat meaningful" for choosing fish that are less contaminated (below median level) with mercury, but is not useful for comparing mercury levels between species. In other words, hypothetically, you may choose a Safe Harbor-labeled tuna that is less contaminated than other tuna, but it could be still more contaminated than an unlabeled swordfish.
Seafood Safeis "somewhat meaningful" for choosing fish that are lower in two common contaminants, PCBs and mercury. The label relies on data from the tests of random samples of fish.

post by santan.., 22st.., july......