Tag Archives: Fish

Don’t kiss fish

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I’ve written extensively about the salmonella-related dangers of kissing pet turtles during my time as an emotionally-vacant adolescent.

Martin Armstrong, a member of the Fisheries Advisory Council, a life member in Trout Unlimited and a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America, asks in The Advocate, ever watch a competitive angler on TV kiss a big fish that he just caught?

Did you ever kiss a big fish that made your day or, better yet, win a party boat pool?

Well, when you kiss that big fish you are risking contracting a bothersome intestinal parasite.

Giardiasis is a diarrheal illness caused by a microscopic parasite, Giardia intestinalis (also known as Giardia lamblia or Giardia duodenalis). Once a person or animal has been infected with Giardia, the parasite lives in the intestine and is passed in feces. Because an outer shell protects the parasite, it can survive outside the body and in the environment for long periods of time — often several months or even a year or more.

 

FDA and EPA acting fishy about mercury

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I love fish, and would eat it at every meal if I could.  But I know quite a few people that can’t stand it.  Some claim the smell, it’s so…. fishy.  Why eat fish in the first place? According to the American Heart Association, fish is a good source of protein and, unlike fatty meat products, it’s not high in saturated fat. It’s also a good source of omega-3 fatty acids, which benefit heart health.

When choosing what kind fish to eat, pregnant women and young children should stick with sea creatures with the lowest known levels of mercury, such as shrimp, oysters, clams, sardines, anchovies and herring, as well as hake, tilapia, crayfish and whiting.  Large predatory fish, such as shark and swordfish, are very likely to contain high levels of mercury and consumption of them should be restricted if not avoided by high-risk individuals.
FDA and EPA experts currently advise pregnant women and women of childbearing age, who may become pregnant, that they can safely eat up to 12 ounces — roughly two servings — of most fish a week, but should limit their intake of albacore tuna to 6 ounces a week.

Now the two agencies are in disagreement over the two-serving limit.  The F.D.A. has circulated a draft report suggesting that the vast majority of fetuses and infants would actually benefit if their mothers ate more than two servings of fish a week because fish contain highly beneficial nutrients that aid in brain development and that those benefits outweigh any potential harm.  Those contentions are sharply disputed by specialists at the E.P.A. who charged that the report had “serious scientific flaws,” relied on questionable models and should not be used as a basis for decision-making.

We’ll have to see where the final lines are drawn.  Until then, enjoy moderate amounts of safe seafood.  As with all meat products consumed by pregnant women, the fish should be thoroughly cooked and properly stored.  Pregnant women should always avoid sushi and other kinds of raw meat.

 

No nail jobs in Washington fish tanks

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The Washington state Department of Licensing has decided that pedicures by fish — the use of live, tiny carp to clean feet — is unsanitary and illegal.

Christine Anthony, spokeswoman for the department, said it’s impossible to sanitize the live fish.

"You can clean the tank, you can clean the water, but there’s no guarantee that the fish aren’t carrying something from the previous customer."

The Seattle Times reports that the pedicures, popular in Turkey and other Asian countries, started gaining attention in the states after a Virginia-based spa talked to the media this summer about the benefits of using the fish instead of razors to slough away scales and calluses.

At Peridot, the only Washington salon believed to offer the nail job, an employee who declined to give his name, said he was "speechless" about the state’s ruling.
 

Cats eating better than their owners

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I’ve just started my first year of veterinary school, and after only two days into the program, I’ve been contacted by at least five pet food companies touting their premium pet food that is healthy for pets and tasty as well.  I suppose that pets enjoy the variety of flavors, but a new study from Australia suggests it’s doing more harm than good.

Deakin University scientist Dr Giovanni Turchini has discovered an estimated 2.48 million tonnes of forage fish – a limited biological resource – is consumed by the global cat food industry each year.

This puts cats ahead of people as far as consumption rates go; pet cats are eating an estimated 13.7 kilograms of fish a year, which far exceeds the Australian average (human) per capita fish and seafood consumption of around 11 kilograms.

Just as obesity has become a major epidemic among Americans, it is also an epidemic among pets.  These tasty canned foods with enticing flavors such as “shredded yellowfin tuna fare” only encourage pets to grow wider around the belly all while pet food companies continue to cook up new ideas for making cats want their food.

What happened to cats eating regular dry food?  Though, even the dry food goes overboard for Fancy Feast, which touts three different flavors for the finicky cat.  With the slogan of “A bowl full of ‘I love you,’” Fancy Feast has definitely gone overboard in pampering cats.  If you love your pet, then why are you feeding it a high-fat meal?

The luxury products containing fish unfortunately are contributing to the overfishing problem worldwide.

Phony fish on some menus in New York

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Two high school students have determined that 25 per cent of 60 seafood samples from New York sushi restaurants and seafood markets are fakes, often cheap fish posing as fancy – and more expensive.

The New York Times reports that,

"Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss, who graduated this year from the Trinity School in Manhattan, took on a freelance science project in which they checked 60 samples of seafood using a simplified genetic fingerprinting technique to see whether the fish New Yorkers buy is what they think they are getting.

"They found that one-fourth of the fish samples with identifiable DNA were mislabeled. A piece of sushi sold as the luxury treat white tuna turned out to be Mozambique tilapia, a much cheaper fish that is often raised by farming. Roe supposedly from flying fish was actually from smelt. Seven of nine samples that were called red snapper were mislabeled, and they turned out to be anything from Atlantic cod to Acadian redfish, an endangered species. …

"The results of Ms. Strauss and Ms. Stoeckle’s research are being published in Pacific Fishing magazine, a publication for commercial fishermen. The sample size is too small to serve as an indictment of all New York fishmongers and restaurateurs, but the results are unlikely to be a mere statistical fluke. …

"Ms. Stoeckle said the underlying message of the research was simple: “If you’re paying for white tuna and you’re eating tilapia, I think you’d want to know that.”
 

A nail job in a fish tank

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Local health inspectors may have a new task to add to their burgeoning workload: inspecting salons that offer pedicures in tanks filled with toothless fish that nibble away at dead skin.

MSNBC reports that fish pedicures are creating something of a splash in the Washington D.C. area, where a northern Virginia spa has been offering them for the past four months.

John Ho, who runs the Yvonne Hair and Nails salon with his wife, Yvonne Le, said 5,000 people have taken the plunge so far.

"This is a good treatment for everyone who likes to have nice feet," Ho said.

He said he wanted to come up with something unique while finding a replacement for pedicures that use razors to scrape off dead skin. The razors have fallen out of favor with state regulators because of concerns about whether they’re sanitary.

Ho was skeptical at first about the fish, which are called garra rufa but typically known as doctor fish. They were first used in Turkey and have become popular in some Asian countries. …

First time customer KaNin Reese, 32, described the tingling sensation created by the toothless fish: "It kind of feels like your foot’s asleep," she said.

The fish don’t do the job alone. After 15 to 30 minutes in the tank, customers get a standard pedicure, made easier by the soft skin the doctor fish leave behind. …

State regulations make no provision for regulating fish pedicures. But the county health department — which does regulate pools — required the salon to switch from a shallow, tiled communal pool that served as many as eight people to individual tanks in which the water is changed for each customer.

The communal pool also presented its own problem: At times the fish would flock to the feet of an individual with a surplus of dead skin, leaving others with a dearth of fish.

"It would sometimes be embarrassing for them but it was also really hilarious," Ho said.

Michelle Mazur, guest barfblogger: Risking your life for a meal?

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Most would shy away from fugu, or puffer fish, but the Japanese love it. The internal organs and skin of the puffer fish contain a deadly poison called tetradotoxin, which causes paralysis of the diaphragm and death due to respiratory failure. It must be prepared by licensed cooks in order to remove the poisonous areas. Though it’s a dangerous meal, it’s been eaten for centuries.

It’s not just that one-in-one thousand fish are poisonous; each fish comes packed with a dose of death if not properly prepared. Statistics from the Tokyo Bureau of Social Welfare and Public Health indicate 20-44 incidents of fugu poisoning per year between 1996 and 2006 in the entire country, leading to 34-64 hospitalizations and 0-6 deaths per year, for an average fatality rate of 6.8%

Not only is it deadly, but fugu is costly. Most people consider it to have a weak taste, but Japanese gourmets will disagree. Chefs spend 7 to 8 years training in order to be certified to serve this treat.

An outbreak of E.coli in spinach or Salmonella in tomatoes leads to national recalls and mass consumer aversion as products and produce become stigmatized. Yet a fish that is positively poisonous is still sought out in countries like Japan and Taiwan. There is some speculation as to how popular fugu would be if it was known to be completely safe. Would there be a sharp decrease in demand for the dish, or would it continue to be a special meal?

The acceptance of fugu in Japanese culture is completely opposite of the Japanese attitude towards beef with BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) commonly known as mad cow disease. Any meat that is at risk for containing traces of BSE is immediately removed from the food supply. What is the difference between dying from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human variant of BSE, and being poisoned by fish?

Whether it’s the taste of the fish or the thrill of knowing it could be the last meal, I plan to stick to salmon instead.
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Michelle Mazur is a first-year veterinary student at Kansas State University, hailing from Wichita, Kansas.  She is an avid dog lover, a crafty seamstress, and a bit of a workaholic. She recently spent two weeks in Japan and took a lot of pictures of bathrooms.

Pregnant women should eat lots of fish low in mercury

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Knowing what to eat when pregnant can be tough. Like any other area of food safety, different governments and experts often make different recommendations. This can lead to confusion. I got a PhD in food science and struggle with this stuff all the time.

So here goes.

Dr. Emily Oken of Harvard Medical School in Boston and her colleagues reported in the May 15 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology that three-year-olds whose mothers ate more fish while pregnant with them score better on several tests of cognitive function than their peers whose mothers avoided seafood.

However, the researchers also found that the amount of mercury in a woman’s body rose with the amount of fish she had consumed — and that children exposed to more mercury performed worse on these tests. Based on the findings, they say, it’s possible fish could have even greater brain benefits for babies if mothers-to-be consumed seafood with lower mercury levels.

The authors wrote,

"Recommendations for fish consumption during pregnancy should take into account the nutritional benefits of fish as well as the potential harms from mercury exposure. …  Maternal consumption of fish lower in mercury and reduced environmental mercury contamination would allow for stronger benefits of fish intake."

My take is — and I know more about bugs than I do about chemicals — pregnant women should eat plenty of fish that is low in mercury. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued some decent advice in 2004, and has tables of fish lower in mercury. The Australian New South Wales Food Authority also has a decent overview.

The FDA says:

• do not eat Shark, Swordfish, King Mackerel, or Tilefish because they contain high levels of mercury;

• eat up to 12 ounces (2 average meals) a week of a variety of fish and shellfish that are lower in mercury; and,

• five of the most commonly eaten fish that are low in mercury are shrimp, canned light tuna, salmon, pollock, and catfish.

Sleeps with the fishes – Australian style

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The Sydney Morning Herald reports that organized crime in Australia is targeting mud crabs, prawns and barramundi to fuel an illicit domestic seafood market.

A study by the Australian Institute of Criminology warns that thieves – including bikie gangs – are exploiting  national parks in New South Wales by using illegal divers and families using the guise of indigenous hunting.

Oyster theft is so well organised that thieves use lifting equipment on vehicles to steal whole racks from farms, the report says.

The report says that while the main market for abalone and shark fin is Hong Kong, there is "an extensive illicit Australian market for these other species. The market includes clubs, restaurants, hotels, fish and chip shops."

The study was prompted by research showing there had been growth in organised crime involving abalone and rock lobster, and an increase in criminals using the industry to launder money and make drugs at aquaculture farms.

Restaurant criticized for keeping fish in a urinal

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A Chinese restaurant in Changchun city has been criticized for keeping 20 fancy carp in an over 12-foot-long urinal trough in the mens’ bathroom.

The restaurant says the fish are not in any danger and that the water is running and staff change the water at least twice a day and add oxygen into the water much like a regular fish tank.

The restaurant’s owner adds the fish are just an attraction and not used in dishes.

Guests say they’re surprised to see the fish swimming in the trough which has a sign saying, "Please urinate here" above it.