Fish Used to be Good Food

Fish is good, it’s a brain food and you should eat it, right? Not so fast, Captain Jack! We are living in troubled times and there’s a lot of adventure on the high seas, but not the kind that we want to see. The fact is that we’re now living in an age of polluted oceans and not all fish is good for us. Some fish should be avoided altogether, especially if you are pregnant or susceptible to having poison enter your system.

It’s relatively safe to eat salmon from the Pacific Northwest, but stay away from swordfish and tuna. We ran a recent article on shrimp that has scared the apron off of Emeril Lagasse. The article said that the shrimp in your cocktail plate may come from a sewage pond.

Now we’re offering this chart (above) for your consideration. It has been designed and posted by Washington State Department of Health to warn and “inform” their citizens about unsafe fish.

More than wondering which fish is safe and which ones are fit to feed your family should provoke a more over-arching question: What can we do to turn this terrible situation around wherein our waters are so polluted that we can no longer enjoy seafood? Each nation is responsible for the amounts of poisons they allow to be dumped into oceans, streams, rivers, lakes and ponds. The Bush administration has set the record for lowering the standards and allowing pollution. So now instead of being a matter of politics, it’s a matter of survival; survival that begins on your dinner plate. Bon apetit!