Every time my mom asks me what I am in the mood for or what I want to eat for dinner I always say sushi because it is my favorite food. I love it and would eat it all the time. I know that fish and seaweed is good for you so that part of the roll is healthy. The thing that makes it unhealthy is if there is large amount of rice and if the fish inside is tempura or fried. This past weekend my mom came up for parents weekend and we went out to sushi and my friend said I have it way too much of it and that I am going to have so many health problems. I wanted to explore that further and see if there was any relation with eating too much sushi to health problems.
This study contains researchers from Rutgers that went to food stores in the Tristate area and Chicago and collected sushi to look at mercury levels as well as interviewed over 1,200 people and asked how many times they had standard fish and sushi-fish in a month. The researchers already knew that 90% of fish with mercury is methylmercury and they took that number with the average amount of meals the volunteers said that they had in a month to find that mercury levels in the fish. “Total mercury levels varied significantly by type and quality of sushi, with tuna sashimi having the highest mean levels…” the mercury exposure level was in the 90th percentile with averaged out to 19.3g of mercury per piece of fish like tuna. The conclusion was that there are high levels of mercury in sushi and that it is a risk.
When there is too much mercury it becomes toxic to our nervous system.Natural Resources Defense Council said that “in adults, mercury poisoning can adversely affect fertility and blood pressure regulation and can cause memory loss, tremors, vision less and numbness of the fingers and toe. A growing body of evidence suggests that exposure to mercury may also lead to heart disease.” So if we have a lot of sushi, which contains a high level of mercury, we can get mercury poisoning and perhaps get the symptoms mentioned above.
“Raw fish poses several potential hazards for consumers besides parasites” (Life Science staff). It is common for a fish to not be fresh and when it isn’t bacteria develops and it produces histamines, which could potentially lead to Scombriod poising. Also some fish that live in tropical water could contain ciguatera, which is a natural toxic that creates gastrointestinal and neurological problems.
My conclusion that I got is that eating fish specifically sushi could be dangerous and that although fish is good for humans too much increases someone’s chance of mercury poisoning. Also I learned that before I eat a piece of fish I am going to look at the coloring to make sure that it is fresh. If the fish isn’t fresh than I have a higher chance of getting horrible toxins in my body. I love sushi, I just have to eat it less often and to be more aware of what I am eating.
It is interesting article and send a warning signal to me as well. As yourself and many others, I’m also a big fan of Sushi. Mercury is never a good thing to our life unless it is stored in a thin glass and used as a thermometer. It is not good.
We know that mercury are easier to accumulate though the food chain. So that if the water is contaminated the seafood may be poisoned and if human intake those seafood then we the poisoned stuff get accumulated in our body system. It certainly not something we wanted. While eating Sushi may not seriously related to mercury accumulation in our body based on the article I attached below. It says that we do not have to say no to all those delicious seafoods as long as we could get the seafood from a cleaned area and watch out the amount of seafood we intake.
Regarding the bacterias, some says that Wasabi helps kills them in the seafood, especially those raw fish slices. Wasabi is a perennial plant and based on experiments it is said that they are pretty effective regarding kill bacterials. “The mechanism of action hasn’t really been discovered yet, some scientists believe these compounds break down the enzyme of the bacteria’s protein, or it might actually kill the bacteria itself by suffocating it”.
So if you love eating Sushi do not worry that much, as long as we watch the amount of seafood we intake and make sure they are from creditable resources we should not suffer any damage to our body by eating them.
http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/mercury/
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2000-12-26/news/0012260173_1_wasabi-bacteria-horseradish
This post was very interesting because I have never thought as the delicious snack of sushi as possibly harmful to our bodies. I eat sushi pretty often, so this study definitely shows I should not have it as often as I do. I looked into this topic a little bit more and happened to find a study done at the University of Michigan which talks about the mercury content in some common fishes used to make sushi. This study has been monitoring mercury levels in different types of tuna for the past few years and they say that the levels in Ahi Tuna are increasing by 3.8 percent each year. Another study by Rutgers University found that those who eat sushi multiple times per week are at an increased risk of getting mercury poisoning. Here is the website that I used to do this research (http://www.shape.com/healthy-eating/diet-tips/sushi-safety-mercury-levels-ahi-tuna-are-rising).
This is a really interesting post because I also love sushi and didn’t know it could be dangerous. This article describes a study performed by an environmental toxicologist to determine which types of tuna have the highest mercury levels. The study employs, “DNA bar coding, a technique that categorizes organisms based on specific genetic markers”. The researchers discovered that tuna sold at restaurants contained higher mercury levels than grocery store tuna, and many samples exceeded the FDA limit for mercury. This is certainly a topic that will be discussed in the future, and hopefully the FDA will take steps to enforce mercury guidelines more consistently to protect the safety of consumers.
I love sushi too! You have to be very careful when eating it though, it’s so easy to be sick after consuming not so fresh fish. I’ve never really heard about fish containing mercury so I’m very glad you wrote about it. I’ll definitely stop eating sushi so often. http://lifehacker.com/117758/how-to-tell-if-your-sushi-fish-is-fresh – I found this website on how to tell if fish is fresh. Hope it helps!
I am glad someone considered this possibility because I never have, and I love sushi. I know that sushi does not contain large amounts of fish because other things are included so I wonder how much sushi, exactly, do I have to eat for it to be considered harmful? I have heard of fish containing mercury before and I have even heard of babies being harmed from their pregnant mothers consuming too much mercury. I believe I have even heard that pregnant mothers are not supposed to eat fish at all.