When people think about the health implications of fish, mercury tends to stand out among their concerns. How much should you worry about it? How much can you eat without putting yourself at risk? We want you to feel at ease when you dine on our seafood at our Seattle Korean restaurant, so we offer the following advice:
In truth, you can’t expect to entirely avoid mercury no matter what you eat. It exists naturally, with more of it released naturally into the atmosphere every year from the Earth itself than from human pollutants. It finds its way into sea plants, which are eaten by small fish, which are eaten by larger fish, and so on up the food chain. The question should therefore be how can you limit your intake and counter the harmful effects associated with it.
The good news is that the FDA minimum safety level is set at one part per million (ppm), and most fish feature a mercury level of between 0.01 ppm to 0.5 ppm. The minimum safety level by itself is a conservative number, significantly below the level present in fish that have historically been found to cause mercury poisoning. Meanwhile, many seafoods have been found to boast properties that serve to reverse the negative impacts of mercury and purge such toxins from your system. A wisely-planned fish diet is therefore considered to be highly beneficial.