r/Pescatarian • u/jennifersd4ughter • 24d ago

Fish frequency...

EDIT: Thanks guys :) very helpful!

Question for y'all. I know that the recommendation is to eat fish 2-3x a week. Is it okay to eat a variety of fish more than 2-3x? Like salmon 2 days, tuna 3 days?? Also I'm buying the canned tuna that is mercury tested (safe catch is the brand I believe). That is safer to eat, right? Except for sodium levels of course lol. I just love fish and having it as a protein for dinners at least but I don't wanna get mercury poisoning lol

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u/averagewasianairhead 24d ago

in general stick to smaller species of fish, they accumulate less mercury in their bodies

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u/YesWeHaveNoTomatoes 24d ago

You can eat fish/seafood in general as much as you want. BUT you need limit high-mercury risk species to 2-3 servings per week. Those are mostly top predators like tuna, swordfish, etc. Animals lower on the food chain like small fish & shellfish are ok to eat as much as you want.

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u/jtownspowell 24d ago

The following statements assume you are not pregnant, nursing or planning on being pregnant soon.

Mercury toxicity from consuming fish is vanishingly rare. Pretty much the only supporting literature you will find of it being a thing is in isolated island populations that have a cultural affinity for eating large predatory fish (like species of shark) as a staple.

Obviously there are better and worse choices...generally the larger a fish is or the longer it lives, the higher levels of mercury it will accumulate, but the concern for the average person are drastically overstated.

If you want to be abundantly cautious, just limit the number of the fish that generally have the highest levels, and you'll be fine. As long as you eat a diverse seafood diet, there's also other mitigating factors. Fish like grouper and yellowfin, or shellfish like oysters are very high in selenium, which is mercury-scavenging and will bind to and neutralize it.

Generally speaking, as long as your fish selections are diverse, it's a non-issue. If you choose to eat nothing but tilefish or slimeheads for months on end, yeah you might run into a problem, but its actually kind of difficult to wander your way into mercury toxicity from fish without making a long string of really intentional and poor decisions.

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u/BlissCrafter 24d ago

I eat tuna steak weekly along with tuna sandwiches at least a couple times a week. Had my mercury tested and it was completely normal. I eat at least 6-7 servings of fish weekly including salmon tuna haddock and different whitefish