A 130-pound woman can eat almost two six-ounce cans of light tuna a week and stay within the EPA-recommended safe zone for mercury. If you or your kids regularly eat canned tuna, stick to light or skipjack tuna, and limit it to less than two servings a week. Tuna is the most common source of mercury exposure in the country. Women who are pregnant or nursing or who plan to become pregnant within a year should avoid eating these fish. King mackerel, marlin, orange roughy, shark, swordfish, tilefish, ahi tuna, and bigeye tuna all contain high levels of mercury. For more information about the specific mercury levels of your favorite fish, see our Smart Seafood Buying Guide. But you don’t need to eliminate fish altogether to stay in the mercury safe zone. Cooking has no effect on it, and you can’t avoid it by cutting off the skin or other parts of the fish. You can’t see, smell, or taste mercury contamination in fish. Big predatory fish, like sharks or tuna, can have especially high concentrations in their bodies. That pollution can travel halfway around the world and then settle into lakes, rivers, and oceans, where it is absorbed or ingested by small organisms and then starts working its way up the food chain, its concentration rising with each step. Mercury is spewed into the air from coal-burning power plants and factories. Be finicky about fish.Įating contaminated fish is the number one cause of mercury exposure in America. Here are a few easy ways to minimize exposure. ![]() NRDC puts that number as high as 265,000 newborns every year.īut enough of the scary stuff. Environmental Protection Agency estimates-conservatively-that more than 75,000 babies are born each year with a greater risk of learning disabilities because of their mothers’ mercury exposure. Even small amounts of mercury can interfere with brain development, making exposure particularly risky for children younger than six and women in their childbearing years. While mad hatters are a thing of the past, mercury exposure is now a serious and widespread health problem. ![]() Before scientists became aware of the toxic effects of mercury-it poisons the kidneys and nervous system-this seemingly magical metal was widely used in medicine, cosmetics, and industries like hatmaking.
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