Fish may not be as healthy as you thought

Today we have more options than ever for what to eat, but less and less of those options are healthy. Fish has traditionally been one of the healthiest foods you can eat, but that isn’t true anymore.

One problem is that unless you catch it yourself you can’t be sure of what you are getting. You are paying for red snapper, but in a recent study 87 percent of samples of red snapper turned out to be something else.

Tuna had similar with 84 percent of the samples labelled tuna actually being a fish that can cause explosive, oily and orange diarrhea. These samples were taken from sushi bars, restaurants and grocery stores. Geographical location does not protect you from this type of fraud. Tuna is also one of the types of fish that collect mercury in their tissues. These tend to be in the muscles in greater quantity than the fat, so cooking doesn’t get rid of it.

Salmon is another one that is found to be fraudulent. Wild Alaskan Salmon is still considered healthy, but unless you can prove that is what you are actually getting you could be eating a farmed salmon or an Atlantic salmon. Both are considered unsafe for human consumption. Many of the farmed fish are genetically modified, but don’t have to be labelled as such. Unfortunately the farmed salmon are killing off the wild salmon populations. The second problem is that the viruses that are spreading from the farmed salmon to the wild salmon are also infected humans.

All farmed fish have been shown to have less Omega 3 fats than their wild counterparts. They have been fed antibiotics, pesticides, other chemicals and hormones as well as genetically modified soy. This equates to the factory farms on land, but now in water. One problem is that the water is not isolated; it mixes with the natural water sources, contaminating them as well. More and more species of fish are being farmed, and they don’t have to be labelled. Even shrimp is not safe anymore.