Fish or poison ??

Mercury, PCD, Lead, ... Should we remove the fish from our plates?

Dear reader,

Our mothers and grandmothers encouraged us to eat good fish: " It's full of phosphorus! ".

It was thought at the time that phosphorus was "phosphorous". It meant "thinking" and so ... getting good grades.

We know today that it is false. More phosphorus is more likely to die [1].

But the fish remains excellent for health for many other reasons. Eating once a week reduces the risk of coronary heart (heart) death by 15% and reduces the risk of death from cancer and Alzheimer's disease [2]. These benefits of fish come from good proteins, iodine and selenium, vitamins and especially, for oily fish, valuable "omega-3".

Omega-3s are fatty acids that provide flexibility to the lining of our cells, maintain our fluid blood, our young arteries as well as our eyes (retina) and maintain our mental abilities and our nervous system.

Very rare in modern food, the main sources are fatty fish such as salmon, sardines, anchovies, mackerel, herring.

I recommend myself regularly (constantly!) To eat oily fish for their omega-3s.

Unfortunately, the latest news from the sea is bad, very bad.

Bad news from the sea

Actually, my fingers bleed as you write this message.

An increasing number of fish and some crustaceans are no longer consumable because of pollutants that contaminate streams, seas and oceans: mercury, PCBs, lead, cadmium, arsenic, pesticides, flame retardants.

It is therefore urgent to make a big assessment on the fish that we can still eat.

Everything is not black, I reassure you. But it is very important to read this entire message.

The little Eskimos get sick

A study published in 2015 showed that small Inuit (Eskimos) who live in northern Quebec feel the harmful effects of fish pollution [3].

Feeding on oily fish, these populations were once protected against heart disease.

It was supposed that the benefits of omega-3s and selenium in abundance in their diet were such that there was no need to worry about the "traces" of mercury that were now in their fish.

In fact, researchers found that the small Inuit who had the most mercury and lead in their blood were three times more likely to have hyperactivity, and had an average of 5 IQ points (intelligence quotient) than others.

However, the level of mercury and heavy metals in the blood of Inuit is similar to the average of the population of industrialized countries.

What happened ?

Mercury levels have tripled in the oceans

Mercury is a terrible marine poison, fortunately very rare in its natural state.

With the burning of coal, the incineration of mercury-containing wastes, gold washing (gold prospectors in rivers) and some industrial activities such as metallurgy and the paper industry, mercury has been found in large quantities in streams and seas , where he has no way to be eliminated.

Its concentration has been multiplied by three since the industrial revolution [4].

Heavy metal, it falls to the bottom of the oceans and contaminates the plankton which serves food for small fish.

These small fish are slowly becoming toxic. But carnivorous fish (monkfish, grouper, bass, sea bream, skate) that eat them concentrate the mercury in their flesh much faster. Or animal organisms are unable to get rid of mercury, or very slowly.

The very large fish (shark, swordfish, marlin, bluefin tuna, yellowfin tuna) that eat carnivorous fish, are found to be ultra-contaminated with mercury . This is the phenomenon of the "bioaccumulation" of mercury all along the food chain. We have now reached the stage where all the largest species are unfit for consumption.

As humans, we must be wary of these fish because mercury is a "neurotoxic" poison. It destroys nerve cells, so your precious neurons.

Beyond a certain rate, you lose the word, hallucinate, adopt aberrant behavior before falling into a coma and, very often, die. Women with mercury poisoning give birth to children with mental disabilities. Young people increase their risk of diabetes by 65%. The animals themselves go crazy. In Minamata, a city in Japan where there was a factory that poured mercury into the sea, we saw cats commit suicide by throwing themselves into the water. Nine hundred people died and more than 2,000 others were seriously intoxicated before the perpetrators were arrested. But the damage was done. As in Fukushima, the waters around Minamata had been severely poisoned and spread into the surrounding ocean ...

But the worst effect concerns pregnant women: the brain of the fetus bears very little mercury, with mental disabilities to the key. Young children (under the age of three), whose brain cells are multiplying at high speed, are also very sensitive to mercury and must follow the dietary restrictions on fish very seriously. Hence the problems of the small Inuit.

All that to say that the situation is serious.

We must all be careful to better select the fish we eat.

I'll give you the list in a moment. But I can not limit my warnings to mercury-contaminated fish. It is equally important to avoid PCBs and other harmful pollutants.

The formidable effects of PCBs

It is also necessary to fear the formidable effects of PCBs, very dangerous artificial chlorinated molecules diffused en masse in the environment until their prohibition in 1986, as well as of all the similar molecules which one regroups under the name of «dioxins» .

Like mercury, dioxins are "persistent organic pollutants", that is, they enter living things and stay indefinitely. They bind to the fat in our body and we are unable to get rid of it. They exert deleterious effects on our organism: in particular, cancers, problems of hormones, fertility and immunity.

PCBs were widely used as insulators in industry and agriculture in the 1970s. They accumulated in the environment, spreading in fact all over the globe since they are found today in the Arctic. as in Antarctica. They have been banned since 1986, but dairy products, eggs and beef have long remained rich, especially in industrialized countries. PCBs lodge in fat and stay there permanently. They are very little biodegradable. As a result, our organisms have become increasingly impregnated, so that the average level of PCBs in the French today is higher than it was when the product was still widely used at the end of the 1980s.

Fortunately sign, since the early 2000s, animal products in France contain less and less PCBs. It is the seafood products that have become the main source for the French (85%).

Like mercury, PCBs have accumulated at the bottom of the oceans in marine plankton and are experiencing the phenomenon of bioaccumulation. But they are, in a way, worse than mercury because of their propensity to bind to fats.

Indeed, this affinity of PCBs with fats means that it is the oily fish that are the most contaminated with PCBs. But these fatty fish are precisely those who are the richest in these precious fats that are omega-3, the best for our health.

A report from INRA in 2002 specifically questioned herring, whose dioxin content can reach 10 times that of mackerel, salmon, trout, and 25 times that of cod [5].

Thus, sardines are, according to the French food safety agency (ANSES), the biggest contributor of PCBs and other organic pollutants in our food.

Regarding fish from rivers and lakes, the problem is the same, if not worse. Eels, carp, catfish (catfish) are so polluted that they are unfit for consumption. Industrial sites that discharge PCBs and mercury first and foremost pollute lakes and streams before they spill into the sea.

As in the sea, predatory fish at the top of the food chain concentrate the most toxins in their flesh, and are the worst.

Other pollutants in fish

In addition, we also dumped cadmium and lead (heavy metals), as well as pesticides and flame retardants, found in many seafood products.

Sardines in particular, already heavily contaminated with PCBs, also contain a lot of lead, flame retardants and pesticides. Analyzed samples of preserved sardines revealed 17 out of 32 pesticides.

Mussels, like sardines, also contain a lot of PCBs, lead, flame retardants and cadmium.

The sole contains a lot of lead, cod a lot of cadmium, which is particularly unfortunate because, otherwise, these two fish would have been good choices because they are not too contaminated with mercury and PCBs.

Lead and cadmium are also found in shellfish and calamari that otherwise would have been good to eat!

Finally, there is a lot of pesticides and retardants in farmed salmon. For salmon, choose the wild Alaskan salmon, which is the least polluted.

What to do ?

So what to do?

First, avoid any paranoia.

If awareness is necessary, we must beware of any catastrophism, any exaggerated pessimism.

Yes, it is urgent to stop polluting our oceans. Everyone must act, support and engage in citizen movements to put an end to this irresponsible madness. Pregnant women should avoid eating fish more than twice a week (150 g per serving), as well as children under three, because of the effects of mercury on the fetal and small brain.

However, they must be careful to eat a fatty fish once (for omega-3s) and once a lean fish a week, avoiding the most polluted.

Here is the list of fish not to eat more than once a week (take the list with you to the fishmonger):
Fish highly contaminated with mercury (not more than 150 g per week): Monkfish (or monkfish), Atlantic wolf, skipjack, eel and glass eel, emperor, orange roughy or Mediterranean roughy, pomegranate, halibut Atlantic, megrim, mullet, pike, palomete, capelin of the Mediterranean, common pailona, ​​rays, great redfish, sailfish of the Atlantic, silver saber and black scabbard, dorado, pageot, escolar black or stromaté, rouvet, escolier snake, sturgeon , tuna, swordfish.

Nevertheless, you will not fall dead while eating fish, even if you like it a lot, even if you are a very big eater!

Horror stories that are read about mercury, lead, or dioxin poisoning are related to industrial or ecological accidents, not to the normal state of fishing grounds.

As for PCBs, as you understand it, they have been banned for thirty years. As they were mostly used in livestock, it is their sharp decline in meat, eggs and milk that makes fish, by contrast, become our primary food source. But the trend is now stabilized. There is no fear of a sudden and catastrophic increase in PCB contamination now.

It is true that we fear a "cocktail effect": harmless individually, having all these "low levels" of pollutants simultaneously could cause health problems.

This is a possibility, more exactly a theory, which is not proven to date for the products found in fish. Once again, this justifies being vigilant, not being paranoid.

Then there are natural products that naturally bind to mercury, and severely limit intoxication when you eat fish: chlorella (a detoxifying algae) and selenium (a trace element).

That's right, and it works. You will be less afraid of the effects of mercury if you take care to swallow with your fish meal four capsules of chlorella (available in all organic stores) and some Brazil nuts (very rich in selenium).

For lead, it is possible to "chelate", that is to say, inject a product into the blood that binds to the lead molecules and is eliminated through the urine. This product, EDTA (ethylene diamino-tetra-acetic acid), reduces the amount of lead in the blood by 40 to 50%.

Finally, from the moment you avoid the biggest fish (swordfish, marlin, bluefin tuna, yellowfin tuna), eating fish safely is, in fact, a matter of choice.

There is a consistent list of good fish that are still poorly contaminated. According to the large Calipso study carried out in four fishing zones representative of the fish found in France, all the gadids (whiting, cod, pollack, saithe, pout) and their cousin hake, saint-pierre, grenadier , haddock, julienne, anchovies are among the healthiest, both from the point of view of trace elements and persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Sea bream is healthy too, a little more marked however by organic pollutants.

The bar and salmon are intermediate, but better to avoid mackerel and sardines. On the other hand, tuna, swordfish and, especially, eel are to be avoided.

For other seafood products, shellfish outside the mussel (scallop shell, periwinkles, cockles, oysters, scallops) are of an acceptable cleanliness. The hull is the healthiest in its class. The langoustines, prawns and sea urchins are healthy. Cuttlefish and squid are also blameless.

The hump is reassuring, except for a slightly stronger level of arsenic. Octopus, crab and spider crab, heavily loaded with heavy metals and POPs, should be avoided.

This leaves us a wide choice to organize delicious meals that will be good for our taste buds, our guests and our health!

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