WHAT TO DO

The primary problem with just eliminating seafood completely from your diet is that in so doing you eliminate a major source of in­expensive, tasty, and otherwise nutritious protein. Also, in spite of the increasing availability of organic meats and produce, it would

108 Optimal Nutrition for Optimal Health

seem that all of our other sources of animal protein are becoming in­creasingly contaminated as each year goes by, thanks to the unre­lenting use of pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, and other chemicals and drugs in raising livestock. Another source of toxicity is the fish meal that is variably used in the feeding of chickens, cows, pigs, and fish. Fish meal tends to be a bit pricey relative to other feeds, so the percent of fish meal in the diets of these animals tends to remain on the low side. Pigs and chickens get fed fish meal more frequently than the cows. However, what any animal is fed is highly variable from one farmer to the next, depending on financial considerations and a given farmer's philosophy on the raising of farm animals. Just remember that no plant or animal will magically destroy the pesti­cide or heavy metal that was contained in its food. It simply gets kicked up one notch higher on the food chain.

Only the purest of organic fertilization should be used in the rais­ing of crops. This would provide food animals with a much higher quality of nutrition, and it would prevent many toxins from enter­ing the food chain. Once they are present, toxins—unlike the vita­min and mineral content of harvested foods—are not easily depleted or neutralized, and they are rarely eliminated from the food chain. The only way to avoid having significant toxicity in our foods, including seafood, is to make sure that toxins never get the opportunity to enter the food chain in the first place. As a practical point, however, this goal will never be reached in the case of seafood until we can exercise complete control over the growth en­vironment of the fish from hatching to harvesting. Nothing will make seafood harvested from the oceans or our many lakes and rivers completely safe to eat.

At this point, you are probably thinking that you just can't win, and that you are going to encounter toxicity regardless of what you eat. To a limited degree, that is true. However, the purpose of this chapter, and this entire book, is to minimize toxicity as much as pos­sible. There is no nontoxic way to eat, and there is no nontoxic way

Seafood: Another Source of Toxins 109

to live. But your immune system is capable of dealing with a lot, and if you keep working to minimize the stresses that are placed on your immune system, you will be rewarded with better health for a longer time.

When it comes to seafood, then, what should you do? Practically speaking, there is no magic amount of seafood that is definitely safe to eat. Since methylmercury and other toxins found in seafood can gradually accumulate in your body over time, the fact that you don't get ill when you eat the seafood doesn't mean that the toxins you consume won't make you ill later. Probably the best advice re­garding seafood (if you are a reasonably healthy, seafood-loving person) is to have it no more than two to three times a month, eat­ing no more than 4 to 5 ounces at a sitting. However, this recom­mendation is just a compromise that pertains only if you must have some seafood in your diet, and you have determined that you will not give it up.

Speaking globally, much of the world would starve if seafood was eliminated as a food source. As a relatively inexpensive source of protein and other positive nutrients, seafood will remain a sub­stantial percentage of the diet of very many people. However, such a situation does not change the unfortunate facts about the overall toxicity of seafood. The motivated reader of this book has the right to know, as completely as possible, about the healthiest way to eat and about the dietary toxins that can be minimized or avoided. So, if you aren't hopelessly in love with the taste of seafood, the best ad­vice is to avoid eating it completely.