The Benefits of Eating Fish
Written by Asinus Asinum Fricat on May 10, 2008 – 9:55 am -I adore fish. My kids, however, do not eat fish unless it’s a tuna sandwich or fish fingers. I’m trying every trick in the book to lure them to eat fresh fish. I’m not succeeding so far, but this summer I’ll have an outdoor grill, so I’ll try again, I foresee lots of charred tuna steaks!
Fish is a high-protein, low-fat food that provides a range of health benefits. White-fleshed fish, in particular (the above pic is of sea bass), is lower in fat than any other source of animal protein, and oily fish are high in omega-3 fatty acids, or the “good” fats. Since the human body can’t make significant amounts of these essential nutrients, fish are an important part of the diet. Also, fish are low in the “bad” fats commonly found in red meat, called omega-6 fatty acids.
A growing body of evidence indicates that omega-3 fatty acids provide a number of health benefits. They:
- help maintain cardiovascular health by playing a role in the regulation of blood clotting and vessel constriction;
- are important for prenatal and postnatal neurological development;
- may reduce tissue inflammation and alleviate the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis;
- may play a beneficial role in cardiac arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), reducing depression and halting mental decline in older people.
The omega-3s found in fish (EPA and DHA) appear to provide the greatest health benefits. Fish that are high in omega-3s, low in environmental contaminants and eco-friendly include:
- wild salmon from Alaska (fresh, frozen and canned),
- Arctic char,
- Atlantic mackerel,
- sardines,
- sablefish,
- anchovies
- farmed oysters
- farmed rainbow trout and
- albacore tuna from the U.S. and Canada.
Besides eating fish, another way to consume omega-3 fatty acids is by taking store-bought supplements. Fish oils come from both fish caught as food for humans and from small fish caught for animal feed, such as Peruvian anchovies.
A word of caution: contaminants such as PCBs accumulate in fish oil just as they do in fish, so make sure to buy capsules that are made from purified fish oil (more on contaminants in fish oil supplements and the results of an Environmental Defense survey). I usually buy a product called Eskimo 3, made in Sweden, and it’s the real thing.
Fish is generally healthy to eat, but there are some types you should eat infrequently, if at all. Consider the following:
- For young children and women of childbearing age, consumption of mercury-contaminated fish can severely impact a child’s development.
- Older women and men may find it an acceptable tradeoff to exceed recommended seafood meal limits to increase their omega-3 intake.
- People at high risk of cardiovascular disease must weigh the cancer risk of eating fish high in PCBs with the benefits of eating fish high in omega-3s, in which case the benefits of omega-3s may outweigh the cancer risk (1 in 100,000 - the level recommended by the EPA). However, these chemicals are known to cause serious health problems besides cancer, so the trade-offs are not simple.
- The good news is that there are several low-contaminant, high-omega-3 seafood options available (see list above), so there’s no reason take the risk of eating contaminated fish. So now you know! Eat more fish! I’m going to make my kids read this…
Tags: Fish, Omega 3 Oil, Seafood
Posted in Environment, Food |
9 Comments
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When you buy fish, make sure you read this before and make a mental list of those you shouldn’t buy.
The price of wild salmon is, almost literally, breathtaking. It has to be an occasional treat. Most of the other fish on your list, I never see in markets here. Maybe farmed trout. Which is delicious.
Thank you for the info on contaminants and which fisheries don’t have them (yet). I feel more confident about fish-eating now.
Always query whoever you buy the fish from, it’s important to know that the fish you want to cook is not loaded up with mercury.
We have red snapper, mackerel, shrimp, mussels, and a fish called sarangola which I’ve never found out what it is in English. Sarangola is delicious. A very whitefish with a light flavor. It is maybe a bass.
It is fun to meet the fishing boats in the morning. When unloading it looks like they raided a tropical aquarium. I guess they did.
Sarangola is a kite in the Philippines, so it may be a fish of that shape, like John Dory, flat, a bit like a sole.
You must be right. It does taste like sole.
AAF - you have an advantage that this Statesider is extremely jealous of - you are but a coin toss away from Dingle Bay with its fine fisheries! And all over the West of Ireland (IMHO, the Best Place in the World) there are streams full of salmon and trout.
You cannot swing a fishline in the West without hitting a stream full of tasty fish.
On one of my first trips to Ireland, lost (as usual, since I was drivng) in the Gaeltacht and having zero Irish, I ate wonderful fish dishes and salmon sandwiches in little villages with names like Ballynagaill in places that looked like people’s houses where they had added on a pub bar in the corner of the living room, and the Lady would prepare the meals.
With fish that fresh, not more than a couple hours out of the water, it doens’t take much fancy cookery to make a delicious, healthy dish.
That was a very long time ago. I have learned more Irish since.
I guess we take it for granted. The fish right now is plentiful, and, well, fresh.
Oh, I kind of miss eating fish. My favorite meal was once grilled salmon, couscous, and asparagus… I haven’t had that in about two years now. My SO is not a fish eater, although every now and then I do have some shrimp or tuna. I’ve been wanting some for a bit now… I think a salad with shrimp is soon in order. Of course, being in the midwest, rather than the east coast, is also a bit of a deterrence.