Which kinds of fish are safe to eat regularly?

[Smokering]

We've recently started eating fish once a week on shopping day. Our supermarket stocks (off the top of my head):

gurnard
terakihi
salmon
hoki
monkfish
lemon fish
snapper
red cod

...and I'm sure a few other species I've forgotten about. Plus of course tuna in cans. I feel vaguely virtuous for eating fish, but I don't know anything about mercury content and so on. Are there any species I should avoid? Are any of the above vastly more nutritious than any others? What should I know?

[Sayward]

I don't know which species carry the most contaminants (only that the higher up the food chain they are, ie the larger carnivorous species, the worse it is)

But I would strongly urge you to consider the environmental impact of your choices. I do not personally believe that anybody should be eating fish/seafood, but if you do there are definitely *more* environmentally responsible choices. This website seems to have an easy (and printable) list - http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1521

[MyLilPwny]

Here is a mercury calculator for fish: http://www.gotmercury.org/article.php?list=type&type=75

I order my fish from www.vitalchoice.com because they test their fish in labs. "All Vital Choice seafood is sustainably wild-harvested" so its good for the environment too (similar to how supporting grass-fed beef farming is good for the environment too).

[Smokering]

I should probably have mentioned I live in New Zealand. I'm not sure how that affects fishing practices and so forth. I assume fish all over the world have similar mercury issues by species?

[WorldsBestMom]

Salmon, red snapper, red cod those are pretty okay to cook. Only thing one has to worry about with those seafood is that they are not from polluted water.

[hjrowan]

I found this on the NZ dietetics site... it's a pregnancy fact sheet but gives info on Mercury in fish (looks like you're ok with the Terakihi)!

Cheers

http://www.dietitians.org.nz/assets/...et-revised.pdf

[ollyoxenfree]

I believe all salmon in the Southern Hemisphere is farmed, so I would avoid it because of the environmental impact of fish farming. I may be wrong though, so I hope to be confirmed/corrected. Unless you are eating a Southern Hemisphere fish labelled salmon, but it isn't either of the Northern Hemisphere Atlantic or Pacific salmon species. I know there was an issue in Australia a while ago about re-labelling their fish to better distinguish what was actually sold in the markets.

I would eat local wild caught smaller fish more frequently than larger fish, and imported and farmed fish only occasionally or not at all. Larger fish are higher up the food chain, so mercury and other toxins will be concentrated in their flesh.

[Smokering]

This is probably a silly question, but what would you consider a bigger fish? Most of the fish I buy are fillets maybe as long as my forearm: is that, er, big for a fish, species-wise?

[ollyoxenfree]

Good question! It might be easier for me to say what I consider a small fish. Herring, smelts, anchovies - tiny, oily fish.

I consider tuna, swordfish, salmon, barramundi as large fish.

It sounds like you are buying "medium" size. I'm sorry, that's not very helpful to you, is it?

[Smokering]

Medium fish. Got it.

[ollyoxenfree]

Originally Posted by Smokering

Medium fish. Got it.

Maybe it's a Dr. Seuss thing:

One fish
Two fish
Red fish
Blue fish

Small fish
Lots of fish
Big fish
Toxic fish

Ummm, no, maybe not.

[KatWrangler]

Check this out from Monterey Bay Aquarium.

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/c...endations.aspx

[Chicky2]

Ok, not to hijack, but here's a ?...

What about fish you catch yourself, in small ponds? We catch perch, and blue gill, and sometimes trout.

[Sayward]

Originally Posted by Chicky2

Ok, not to hijack, but here's a ?...

What about fish you catch yourself, in small ponds? We catch perch, and blue gill, and sometimes trout.

Totally depends on the contaminants in the area and the diet of the fish you catch. Fish that eat plants are less worrisome than fish that eat little fish, which are less worrisome than fish that eat bigger fish. This is because each step up the trophic level, the toxins become exponentially more concentrated.

But again, it also really depends on the water quality and pollution in your area.