Is fish really good for you?

[SandwichShortOfAPicnic]

Reckon it depends on precisely how poisonous something is.

Gauging the reaction on here to the idea that fish might not be quite so good for you anymore I suspect it would still get eaten if it glowed in the dark

I’m waiting for someone to post a glow in the dark fishy now

 

[blades]

Eating fish once a week isn’t exactly excessive, it is also unlikely to have much impact on your overall weekly calorie consumption.

I agree. My wife loves fish so it is regular fare for us. I manage to add calories with my beer batter and the french fries for fish and chips and the wine, mustard, cream sauce on the swordfish which is sauteed in butter. No shellfish, however. My wife is allergic to it or says she is. If not I would make up a luscious paella.

 

[karadekoolaid]

Truth be told I went off to research mercury in fish. One of my greatest loves is oysters and I wondered if I'd been poisoning myself!

Since about my second year in Venezuela, when I would scream, rant and swear at drivers who didn't indicate when going left, or cut in front of me, or stopped for no reason (and no brake lights)... I suddenly saw the light.
And the light was: If there's a new law, or scientists declare that meat is poisonous, or you can't smoke in public, or you have to wear a helmet when riding a motorbike, or wolf-whistling at a pretty girl (never did it, btw ) is considered discriminatory, there's nothing you can do about it.
And if there's nothing you can do about it, then why worry? It's out of your hands.
Consequently, if scientists have done their studies and decided that fish could, or might, or may possibly contain unsavoury heavy metals, then damn! I'm going to eat it anyway, because that's probably been the case for many years. At one stage, we were told that fried foods could be carcinogenic, that peanuts were harmful, that too many eggs increased your cholesterol levels, that more than 15 "units" of alcohol per week would kill you, that mustard oil (consumed by hundreds of millions of Indian inhabitants) is dangerous, that leaving rice on the kitchen table is an invitation to immediate food poisoning, that Energy Drinks should be banned for under 18s (why 18? Why not 45?), etc.
I'm in no position to challenge these scientific investigations. On the contrary, I applaud them. But I've been doing all that stuff for 70 years and I'm still here. I accept the risks.

 

[SandwichShortOfAPicnic]

Since about my second year in Venezuela, when I would scream, rant and swear at drivers who didn't indicate when going left, or cut in front of me, or stopped for no reason (and no brake lights)... I suddenly saw the light.
And the light was: If there's a new law, or scientists declare that meat is poisonous, or you can't smoke in public, or you have to wear a helmet when riding a motorbike, or wolf-whistling at a pretty girl (never did it, btw ) is considered discriminatory, there's nothing you can do about it.
And if there's nothing you can do about it, then why worry? It's out of your hands.
Consequently, if scientists have done their studies and decided that fish could, or might, or may possibly contain unsavoury heavy metals, then damn! I'm going to eat it anyway, because that's probably been the case for many years. At one stage, we were told that fried foods could be carcinogenic, that peanuts were harmful, that too many eggs increased your cholesterol levels, that more than 15 "units" of alcohol per week would kill you, that mustard oil (consumed by hundreds of millions of Indian inhabitants) is dangerous, that leaving rice on the kitchen table is an invitation to immediate food poisoning, that Energy Drinks should be banned for under 18s (why 18? Why not 45?), etc.
I'm in no position to challenge these scientific investigations. On the contrary, I applaud them. But I've been doing all that stuff for 70 years and I'm still here. I accept the risks.

I agree with most of that. The constant scare mongering over what food is going to kill you next is exhausting and not helpful.
I worked in medical research for a while, for something to be considered by medicine as proven the results must be replicated across other studies. They prefer for there to be a minimum of 10 studies and a meta analysis of all these before something is accepted as likely being true.

A lot of the food messaging we get is based on the flimsiest science from one study, it’s not replicated or proven in any sense that matters. When I read them I can’t stop my eye’s rolling.

Publicising your research brings coins to the coffers, researchers always promote their study because they want to secure further funding. If they don’t that job comes to an end and as they’ve invested a lot of time and energy into it they don’t want it to finish. Even if it is finishing they want to attract more work so they have to promote themselves or the company/university they work for.

The newspapers love these research headlines, selling it as fact that if you’re eating a particular food you are killing yourself and as you know the worried well adore imposing unnecessary dietary restrictions on themselves

So yes a lot of it is tiring tosh and yes we are all gonna die someday anyway.

However every now and then (rarely) there is some science that is good, that is robust but sadly that information gets lost in a sea of other restrictive lifestyle instructions none of us actually want, it gets ignored due to message fatigue.

Toxins in fish is one of those messages, the research is easily replicated and robust but it‘s almost impossible to hear it among the stream of other unwanted ’advice’ about how to live your live.

At your age (and mine for that matter) we think meh, I like fish, I’m going to carry on eating it. But I do it aware of the dioxins, pcbs, pesticides and mercury I’m ingesting.

Now would I regularly feed fish to my 6 month old niece knowing the science is sound and the toxins involved are well known teratogens that will accumulate over her lifetime increasing the chances of any children she has having a birth defect or being disabled? Nope.

Mmm all this has me in the mood for some scallops.

 

[karadekoolaid]

Mmm all this has me in the mood for some scallops.

On another site, there are often wide eyed and faintly hysterical posts like:
"I chopped up some garlic and left it in oil in the fridge overnight. Will I get botulism?" or
" How long can I leave cooked rice in the fridge? Made some yesterday and now I'm not sure. Should I chuck it?"
I'm tempted to say " Well ask 1.2 billion Chinese; they should know"...

 

[SandwichShortOfAPicnic]

Mr SSOAP rang and said “I’m just heading into Sainsbury’s do you want anything?”
I reply ooh yes I really fancy some scallops.

Cue spending an hour imagining plump roe on scallops fast seared in smoked garlic butter yum.

Yer well Sainsburys has other ideas.
Mr SSOAP said these were all that they had…

The penny is for reference.
Not worth wasting gas on are they

 

[SandwichShortOfAPicnic]

And pan fry in 4 minutes? Imagine these tiny bullets after four minutes

 

[Morning Glory]

Expensive tastes ay

Yeah - I have expensive tastes but a a dozen oysters can be bought for £12.50. Well, plus postage. But cheaper than lobster or turbot which are also favourite catches. And, a lot cheaper than caviar.

For me I look at how much pleasure I’ll get from eating something compared to the risk.. then generally I decide it’s worth eating

Good point. At my age I'm past caring really. Oysters are low calories and full of vitamins and minerals. Zinc in particular is abundant in oysters.

The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition that states all adults should consume a minimum of two portions of seafood per week. This recommendation is endorsed by the Food Standards Agency, the British Heat Foundation, and the British Nutrition Foundation.

Simply Oysters.

 

[SandwichShortOfAPicnic]

Yeah - I have expensive tastes but a a dozen oysters can be bought for £12.50. Well, plus postage. But cheaper than lobster or turbot which are also favourite catches. And, a lot cheaper than caviar.



Good point. At my age I'm past caring really. Oysters are low calories and full of vitamins and minerals. Zinc in particular is abundant in oysters.


Simply Oysters.

I’m aware they recently changed some of the advice back, they say because pollutant levels have dropped and as I said before I’m dubious the sea’s are less polluted. Especially while they are busily publishing data show declining fish population due to pollution.
The fishing industry has been lobbying for the advice to change..

The official NHS advice still explicitly tells girls and women of child bearing age to avoid certain types of fish, it is an indication all is still not right.

 

[blades]

Since about my second year in Venezuela, when I would scream, rant and swear at drivers who didn't indicate when going left, or cut in front of me, or stopped for no reason (and no brake lights)... I suddenly saw the light.
And the light was: If there's a new law, or scientists declare that meat is poisonous, or you can't smoke in public, or you have to wear a helmet when riding a motorbike, or wolf-whistling at a pretty girl (never did it, btw ) is considered discriminatory, there's nothing you can do about it.
And if there's nothing you can do about it, then why worry? It's out of your hands.
Consequently, if scientists have done their studies and decided that fish could, or might, or may possibly contain unsavoury heavy metals, then damn! I'm going to eat it anyway, because that's probably been the case for many years. At one stage, we were told that fried foods could be carcinogenic, that peanuts were harmful, that too many eggs increased your cholesterol levels, that more than 15 "units" of alcohol per week would kill you, that mustard oil (consumed by hundreds of millions of Indian inhabitants) is dangerous, that leaving rice on the kitchen table is an invitation to immediate food poisoning, that Energy Drinks should be banned for under 18s (why 18? Why not 45?), etc.
I'm in no position to challenge these scientific investigations. On the contrary, I applaud them. But I've been doing all that stuff for 70 years and I'm still here. I accept the risks.

My abuelita used to say "If you can't fix it then worrying about if won't fix it either." I have been in the traffic mess in Caracas some of the worst traffic on the planet. I always wondered why they didn't install some traffic laws. If they have such laws, nobody seems to pay attention to them.

 

[Morning Glory]

Mr SSOAP rang and said “I’m just heading into Sainsbury’s do you want anything?”
I reply ooh yes I really fancy some scallops.

Cue spending an hour imagining plump roe on scallops fast seared in smoked garlic butter yum.

Yer well Sainsburys has other ideas.
Mr SSOAP said these were all that they had…
View attachment 109237
The penny is for reference.
Not worth wasting gas on are they

Really the only way to cook these is to flash fry as fast as possible.

I agree with most of that. The constant scare mongering over what food is going to kill you next is exhausting and not helpful.
I worked in medical research for a while, for something to be considered by medicine as proven the results must be replicated across other studies. They prefer for there to be a minimum of 10 studies and a meta analysis of all these before something is accepted as likely being true.

I'd be interested on your take on this: The Salt Myth

 

[SandwichShortOfAPicnic]

Really the only way to cook these is to flash fry as fast as possible.



I'd be interested on your take on this: The Salt Myth

I think I’m gonna dip out of health and medical discussions from now on MG.

But before I do as you have asked - on the salt front I’d say yes the science is very very shaky.
Our body is constantly working to maintain homeostasis and its electrolyte balance.
Some individuals are sensitive to salt, essentially they hold onto too much.
Conversely some people hold onto too little but you rarely hear about that.

About 10 years ago after a healthy debate with a couple of professors, a respected nurse and a consultant I used to work with we concluded more or less unanimously everyone is told to eat less salt even though it looked like that may help only 10% of the population (of the UK).
That it was likely detrimental to the other minority that struggled to maintain an electrolyte balance because they excreted too much.
Of course we would continue to tow the line on the approved advice but none of us were convinced.

I decided to season my food as I wanted it seasoned and not concern myself about it.
This is very much my personal choice and absolutely NOT what is recommended.
If I had high blood pressure I would definitely want to know if I was one of those minority that reducing salt made a difference to but until then