Should Mercury-Filled Canned Tuna Be Legal?
Low in fat, high in protein, and filled with omega-3 fatty acids (which protects against heart disease and stimulates brain activity), canned tuna is a wonder food on paper. Until it starts making your hair fall out.
As Mother Jones reports, Deborah Landvik-Fellner ate canned albacore tuna daily for 12 years until her hair started falling out and her speech started slurring. When she got her blood tested, frightening results came back: it had 48 parts per billion of mercury, nearly ten times the Environmental Protection Agency's notion of "safe."
Shouldn't tuna be labeled if it's so dangerous? The Tuna Foundation sure hopes not. They know mercury scares will cause sales to plummet. In 2005, tuna companies launched a $25 million campaign to counteract the FDA's advisory. They ran full-page newspaper ads touting tuna's on-paper perks ("Tuna: A Smart Catch") and used celebrity doctors as endorsement bait. Do mercury levels in canned tuna scare you? Or do you eat it anyway?
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18 Comments:
My mom said she ate a can of tuna a day when she was pregnant with me--she's good, I'm good (for now). Disturbing story. I know there were specific circumstances around her consumption, but eating the same food (especially a protein) every day for 12 years.. that would just make me vomit ... probably after a week.
Allison Hemler at 8:25PM on 09/08/08
Living near a Star-Kist canning factory for a couple of years cured any desire I might have had for canned tuna. That place was so nasty that I can't think of canned tuna without getting queasy.
Both the waters that tuna are fished from and the condition of the factories that can the stuff should give anyone serious pause before opening a can of tuna.
jenilowrance at 8:44PM on 09/08/08
i have a tuna sandwich at my local cafe once or twice a month. jenilowrance may have just talked me out of it, though.
cybercita at 9:33PM on 09/08/08
While I feel terrible for Deborah Landvik-Fellner and her suffering, I think that we might be jumping to a knee-jerk reaction here. The question posed here: "Shouldn't tuna be labeled if it's so dangerous?" is rather leading. The woman in this story ate it daily for 12 years; any food eaten in that quantity would have negative side effects, I would think. Even carrots can turn your skin orange, if you eat enough of them. So no, I don't think there's necessarily a need for labelling tuna as a harmful substance -- consumers must take at least some responsibility for knowing what they're putting in their bodies and for varying their diets. Putting a label on tuna cans of sort of like putting a label on a package of bacon, warning that it might cause you to gain weight.
blondewithabrain at 1:14AM on 09/09/08
@ Amy Hemer Your right, who eats the same thing day in day out for 12 years? Pukesville!! I didn't really know about the Mercury but it isnot going to stop me because I rarely eat tuna.
pjracz10 at 6:52AM on 09/09/08
I eat the "normal" tuna, shooting for about a can a week. (I'm pregnant.) I don't eat albacore right now - it's a bigger fish, and thus, higher mercury levels. (Go, Go Alton Brown! He taught me that. :-))
Teahlo at 8:40AM on 09/09/08
Why not! they put warnings on smoking products and alchol......you know they should just be done with it and slap a warning on your behind when your born, which says "living maybe hazardous to your health!"
Markbb at 8:50AM on 09/09/08
How about the Tongol Tuna in a can packed in olive oil? The italians produce an excellent product. In the jar it can be a bit pricey. In the can from Trader Joe's it is reasonably priced. Any mention of high mercury levels in that product or would it be considered the same? Curious.
dianeb at 9:03AM on 09/09/08
@dianeb
Currently, pretty much any ocean-going fish you buy, as well as many fresh water fish, will contain at least some mercury. Also, the higher up the food chain you go, the more mercury accumulates, hence the problem with tuna (big fish, ocean-going, top of the food chain, lots of fat).
Now, for that average person who eats fish as part of a balanced diet (and isn't pregnant or otherwise needs to be sure to limit mercury exposure as much as possible), that's not a big deal. Despite accumulating in hair and fat deposits, simply 'not eating' fish will reduce the mercury levels in the body in short order.
stratusgd at 9:27AM on 09/09/08
I don't eat it ever day for 12 years... I have it maybe once or twice a week for awhile, then get tired of it and lay off the tuna for a month... I'm not really concerned about the mercury because I don't eat that much of it.
ronzoni at 9:48AM on 09/09/08
I thought that the chunk "light" instead of white, let alone albacore, had much lower/safer levels of mercury? I switched to the light about a year ago bc of concerns about mercury.
rockandroller at 10:17AM on 09/09/08
I don't agree with labeling tuna as a dangerous product. Anything that comes out of our polluted oceans can have traces of Mercury, and is not limited to canned tuna. Swordfish is another fish that comes to mind that can have a higher than average mercury content. However, we shouldn't outlaw these foods from our diet since they can be beneficial. Eating anything for an extended period of time can be hazardous to your health, and we shouldn't let this one story be used as a scare tactic. The key is eating these types of seafood in moderation. Besides, nutritionists recommend having an extreme variety of foods in your diet to get all of your required vitamins and nutrients.
ekrenek at 10:54AM on 09/09/08
The high BPA content of canned foods like tuna is just as worrisome.
Luther at 12:07PM on 09/09/08
@ blondewithabrain-yep, you can absolutely turn orange from eating crazy amounts of carrots. my great aunt was living proof. she also asked my dad to paint her living room black using charcoal at one point. luckily, i take after my grandma who believed that a big hunk of strawberry shortcake was perfectly acceptable for dinner. ;)
as for cans of tuna? i eat them on occasion, but i don't fret much about the mercury content.
gastronomeg at 12:55PM on 09/09/08
Like others have said- most things in moderation won't hurt you. Eating something daily for 12 years is another story.
cmtigger at 11:13PM on 09/09/08
I'm all for labeling products with warning labels but this smacks a little bit like spilled hot coffee and not knowing it was going to be hot. It has been known for years that everyone should limit their consumption of canned tuna to no more than 3X a week and if you are pregnant, a child or have an auto immune deficiency to no more than 2X a week. This woman ignored those warnings and ate tuna every day for 12 years. What exactly did she expect?
I eat tuna about 1X a week and have for years and a warning label wouldn't stop me from continuing to eat a can every week. Given what we've done to our environment, everything we eat has higher than probably good for us levels of heavy metals.
breadchick at 11:20PM on 09/09/08
Here's a direct quote from the FDA website about mercury levels in fish, and mentions canned tuna levels specifically:
"Nearly all fish contain trace amounts of methyl mercury, some more than others. In areas where there is industrial mercury pollution, the levels in the fish can be quite elevated. In general, however, methyl mercury levels for most fish range from less than 0.01 ppm to 0.5 ppm. It's only in a few species of fish that methyl mercury levels reach FDA limit for human consumption of 1 ppm. This most frequently occurs in some large predator fish, such as shark and swordfish. Certain species of very large tuna, typically sold as fresh steaks or sushi, can have levels over 1 ppm. (Canned tuna, composed of smaller species of tuna such as skipjack and albacore, has much lower levels of methyl mercury, averaging only about 0.17 ppm.)
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/reprints/mercury.html
ekrenek at 2:30AM on 09/10/08
There are a number of problems with the Mother Jones article that is cited and a review of those issues can be found here:
http://www.aboutseafood.com/press/media-blog/mother-jones-tuna-surprise-not-much-a-surprise
However, aside from that review there's a point of fact found above that should be addressed. The assertion that "tuna companies launched a $25 million campaign to counteract the FDA's advisory" is false. In 2005 The Tuna Council ran a test market campaign with the goal of learning more about whether an ad campaign could improve sales. It was not designed to counteract the FDA's advisory and in the end was never launched.
Gavin Gibbons
National Fisheries Institute
Gavin at 9:23AM on 09/10/08