Sushi Shortcomings

[Mulboyne]

ABC: Actress Describes Mercury Poisoning Ordeal

Fish had become a large part of Daphne Zuniga's diet. She was eating what she described as "your average Hollywood stay-in-shape diet, a ton of fish and low carbs...I was eating tuna four times a week," said Zuniga, "I would go out for sushi and think, 'Oh great, at least we're not going for Italian, with all the oil and carbs.'"...She was also experiencing an array of mysterious health problems. In addition to severe headaches, she had cramping in her fingers and feet. She also frequently felt "a sort of tingling, as if someone was tickling you, all up and down my body and on my legs, and it got more and more pronounced," she said...Then, in February 2004, after eating sushi four times in one week, Zuniga broke out into an itchy rash all over her body that landed her in the emergency room...more...

ABC: New Test Could Reveal Mercury Levels in Fish

Nov. 2, 2005 — Right now, it is impossible to know just how much mercury is in the fish that's available in the supermarket. "You could for example have one piece of tuna which would have 300 times the mercury content of another piece of tuna," said Malcolm Wittenberg of Microanalytical Systems, a California chemical testing company. The firm says it has developed new technology that can test the mercury level in a particular piece of fish in less than a minute...The Food and Drug Administration says mercury labeling is not necessary, however, and is standing by its current guidelines. There is a concern that anything more could needlessly scare consumers away from what the FDA considers a healthy food...more...

[Taro Toporific]

"Poison Sushi"
[floatl][/floatl][SIZE="2"]Sushi may be bad for health: California group [/SIZE]
Reuters.com, Mon Mar 6, 2006pm ET1700
LOS ANGELES --- Sushi is more popular than ever before but eating it "has become the new Russian roulette" in terms of safety, a group campaigning against mercury in fish said on Monday.
Eli Saddler of gotmercury.org, a campaign of California-based Sea Turtle Restoration Project, went to six top sushi restaurants in Los Angeles to test mercury levels in the fish they serve.
"The level of mercury in tuna these restaurants serve is so high they should be keeping this food off their lists," Saddler said. "Eating sushi has become the new Russian roulette." ...more...

Mentioned earlier today, also dangerous to pets is.....

High levels of mercury found in melon-headed whales: study
Kyodo, Tuesday March 7, 5:19 AM----About a dozen melon-headed whales recently found dead in Chiba Prefecture contained 10 times the standard of mercury currently allowed by the government, a study showed Tuesday.
Tetsuya Endo, a lecturer at the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, said the high concentration of mercury was detected in the muscle of the whales washed ashore in Ichinomiya, Chiba, late last month...
....Melon-headed whales are not eaten in Japan but Endo says the public had better be cautious.
"While we were studying the whales, some of the onlookers said they looked appetizing. But I think eating is not recommended," he said.

[gkanai]

Mercury bio-accumulates in the food chain. So the big predators, tuna, shark whales, etc. who are at the top of their respective pyramids, usually have a lot of heavy metals in comparison to smaller fish.

We're over-fishing tuna worldwide, so we'll run out of tuna way before the mercury becomes a big problem.

[Greji]

We're over-fishing tuna worldwide, so we'll run out of tuna way before the mercury becomes a big problem.

I don't think we will run out of tuna per se! I think the tuna farming will keep increasing and increasing, given the price for tuna and the declining natural availability. They can farm them easier that catch them. We may see the major end to the huge resource schools of tuna in the wild, for a while. But, that will also see an end to the major fishing fleets that are jerking them out of sea at the present huge numbers. It's a big ocean and tuna would probably survive if this is the case. They would probably also rebound after the disappearance of the tuna fleets, because of the way they proliferate. Nature has that ability, but obviously, we wouldn't be around to see them come back anyway.

Just a theory and thoughts of someone who is amazed at Mulboyne's appetite for sushi!

[Mulboyne]

Center for Consumer Freedom: 'Toxic Sushi' Myth Rolls Through Los Angeles And Beyond
...The FDA has written that its mercury Action Level "was established to limit consumers' methyl mercury exposure to levels 10 times lower than the lowest levels associated with adverse effects." So, as we told reporters yesterday, STRP's most "toxic" piece of fish contained merely ten percent of the mercury level that might be a cause for concern. Thankfully, the Good Morning America segment included some sanity along with its breakfast serving of fish fear. A Consumer Freedom gold star goes to Harvard University's Dr. Joshua Cohen, whose research team concluded in October that government warnings about mercury in fish may do more harm than good. Cohen reminded viewers that the hypothetical health risks from mercury in fish would take a lifetime to accumulate anyway: "To even suggest that going to a restaurant is tantamount to playing Russian Roulette, that's just not true. Saying that a single fish can be a serious problem is like saying that eating three slices of pie at Thanksgiving will, by itself, lead to obesity ... If people ate more fish, then the number of heart attacks and strokes would decrease".

[Mulboyne]

Kyodo via Criscross: New pollution substance found in fish

A new pollution substance similar to polychlorinated biphenyl or PCB has been found accumulated in food fish such as mackerel and sardines, a research group in Japan said Monday. The substance, called PXB, features a structure and toxicity similar to coplanar PCB, which weakens immunity and induces deformity, and it is likely the accumulation level of the pollutant in the fish is sufficient enough to affect human health, according to the group led by Soichi Ota, an associate professor at Setsunan University. The group will report the finding, the first in the world, at an academic meeting to be held in Sendai from Tuesday.

[Taro Toporific]

[floatl][/floatl]

10% of tuna at sushi bars unfit to eat, report says
August 31, 2006, Chicago Sun Times
Pregnant, or planning to be? Don't eat tuna when you go out for sushi.
That was the urging of researchers who on Wednesday released a study that found dangerous mercury levels at 10 top Chicago-area sushi restaurants.
Seventy percent of samples exceeded the mercury threshold at which Illinois advises women of childbearing age -- and young children -- not to have more than one serving a month.
"Toxic Tuna," a report by Environment Illinois and California-based GotMercury.org, said 10 percent of the tuna sushi samples they tested shouldn't be eaten by anyone -- man, woman or child -- because they had more mercury than the FDA's "actionable level." That's the level that would prompt the feds to seize the contaminated fish....more...

[Charles]

...Seventy percent of samples exceeded the mercury threshold at which Illinois advises women of childbearing age -- and young children -- not to have more than one serving a month...

Yeah, and we used to play with quicksilver with our bare hands, back when we were kids. I remember my high school chemistry teacher used to give us a beaker full of it and we'd do experiments by floating metal objects in it. Recently HazMat squads have shut down schools for a total decontamination over smaller mercury exposures.
I remember a chemistry professor once told me about how they'd initiate new grad students, by pouring liquid mercury into a beer and then challenging the student to chug it. He would drink down the mercury without realizing it, and then about a half hour later, gravity would cause the mercury to work its way through their intestines, then it would leak out their anus, and they'd have the oddest sensation of having crapped their pants. Oh what a laff riot. I dearly hope the old prof was pulling my leg. But I don't think he was. Hell, I've done stupider chemistry stunts than that, it's a miracle I'm still alive.

[Mulboyne]

Meanwhile, over in China:

Shanghai Daily: Sushi not edible in Zhejiang

MOST of the sushi sold in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province is severely contaminated with coliform and other bacteria, according to a city-wide sample inspection, China News Service reported today. The provincial business administrative authority has warned people in Zhejiang to be more cautious of the Japanese food they eat. Some of the samples reportedly had bacteria levels that were 23 times the standard. Yuanlu, a local sushi chain restaurant, flunked in all seven of the sample inspections...In Hangzhou's Carrefour, a large hypermarket, a batch of sub-quality sushi was found on its shelves. They have withdrawn the product and have announced they will no longer sell it...more...

[Mulboyne]

[Taro Toporific]

Beware 30-Foot Tapeworms, Tuna Pirates as Sushi Conquers Planet
Aug. 9 (Bloomberg) --Sushi's migration from Tokyo food stalls to the aisles of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. so horrifies purists that it sparked a government plan last year to certify the authenticity of ``Japanese'' food served abroad. ...
...highlight[s] how U.S.-style sushi blends tradition and innovation... who creates such concoctions as Russian Roulette sushi laced with wasabi.
For sushi diehards, that kind of experimentation may border on blasphemy. Yet both authors convincingly argue that innovation lies at the core of why sushi is so popular in the first place....more...

[Doctor Stop]

Meguro Parasitological Museum

[Mulboyne]

Sushi dirty secret: High in mercury

The tuna at some of New York's best sushi restaurants may come with something more dangerous than wasabi - high levels of mercury. A study by the environmental group Gotmercury.org found that three out of seven raw-fish palaces sampled served tuna the feds would deem unfit for human consumption. The restaurants cited include four-star Masa in the Time Warner Center, where a prix fixe dinner costs $400 per person. Sushi Yasuda on E. 43rd St. also sold tuna that exceeded government mercury limits - as did Haru on W. 43rd St. The findings surprised patrons at Haru, which is part of a chain owned by Benihana. "I can't believe it," said Mike Garcia, 18, a college student from Sunset Park, Brooklyn. "I personally think it's one of the best restaurants in the city." Anne Harris, 30, said she would avoid mercury, a toxin that can cause health and developmental problems, particularly in infants and children. "I think I'll stick to the edamame and sake," she said. Haru manager Seth Frederich said his restaurant shouldn't be singled out. "Our fish comes from the same place as everyone else's fish. Everyone uses the same three Japanese distributors," he said. Masa had no comment, and the general manager of Sushi Yasuda shrugged off the findings. "Usually tuna has mercury," Shige Akimoto said. "That's why pregnant [women] can't eat it."

[prolly]

there has been a big boom in nyc japanese noodle joints lately; no sushi served. i guess business will be increasing as people read articles like the ones above and stop ordering/wanting sushi for a year or so.

[GuyJean]

[dimwit]

I saw some bioluminant shrimp the other day. They looked cool, but I let everyone else eat them.

[kamome]

Sushi of Gari is pretty tasty! But if you want more authentic (and slightly more affordable) sushi, go to Sushi Den on Madison and 49th. I wish they had tested Sushi Den's tuna, but I suspect it would have roughly the same amount of mercury as all the other restaurants in the city.

[Charles]

I wish they had tested Sushi Den's tuna, but I suspect it would have roughly the same amount of mercury as all the other restaurants in the city.

It all comes from the same ocean.

[kamome]

It all comes from the same ocean.

Even though they "all came from the same ocean," the chart shows that the levels of mercury in tuna served in New York varied from restaurant to restaurant, so your comment is a little off the mark.

[Greji]

Even though they "all came from the same ocean," the chart shows that the levels of mercury in tuna served in New York varied from restaurant to restaurant, so your comment is a little off the mark.

If your sushi glows in the dark, you might reconsider it as a dinner choice!

[doodles2k8]

This proves something, Japanese sushi is bad for your health!! Wanna know why? Bar Masa, which I live a few blocks up from in Manhattan, is an extremely over rated sushi den by this Japanese guy, who flies in all of his fish from Tsukiji! To sit down and have dinner at this restaurant, a sushi dinner mind you, run's $400 (42,000 Yen) a person! It really goes to show another side of Japanese food scandal's from an American view point. I'll never pay more then $6 (800 yen) for a plate of Tuna roll again.

[Charles]

Even though they "all came from the same ocean," the chart shows that the levels of mercury in tuna served in New York varied from restaurant to restaurant, so your comment is a little off the mark.

I wonder what level of accuracy the measurements were, it looks like most of the samples were within the margin of error, with a few big exceptions. Surely they all are contaminated to some small degree, though. The proper level of mercury in fish is zero. I just worry that one of the pieces of sushi I eat will turn out to be a quicksilver bullet.

[Blah Pete]

[Iraira]

no standard error, standard deviation, confidence intervals around those means....outliers could be skewing the data. One fish who spent his of her life next to an old style thermometer recycling center could account for some of the high figures, but nevertheless....I'm cutting back on my kaiten sushi to 13 times a week.

[kamome]

This proves something, Japanese sushi is bad for your health!! Wanna know why? Bar Masa, which I live a few blocks up from in Manhattan, is an extremely over rated sushi den by this Japanese guy, who flies in all of his fish from Tsukiji! To sit down and have dinner at this restaurant, a sushi dinner mind you, run's $400 (42,000 Yen) a person! It really goes to show another side of Japanese food scandal's from an American view point. I'll never pay more then $6 (800 yen) for a plate of Tuna roll again.

You're right that it's insane to charge $400/person for sushi. My theory is that there's fresh fish and less fresh fish, so once you choose to go to a restaurant that can obtain fish of the ultimate freshness, the difference in price comes down to things like trendiness, location and decor and not the food. In other words, I'm not sure you're getting markedly different quality or taste for the difference between, say, a $100 sushi dinner and a $400 sushi dinner.

[Greji]

You're right that it's insane to charge $400/person for sushi. My theory is that there's fresh fish and less fresh fish, so once you choose to go to a restaurant that can obtain fish of the ultimate freshness, the difference in price comes down to things like trendiness, location and decor and not the food.

Bird, it is also interesting to note the definition of fresh. If it is used to define a tuna that is hooked, snagged, netted, noodled, or otherwise nailed when the trawler was on its first run out of port, then it is probably in the freezer for three to six months before it flops on the plate in front of you. I don't know where exactly fresh comes in. Fresh out of the freezer?

[kamome]

Bird, it is also interesting to note the definition of fresh. If it is used to define a tuna that is hooked, snagged, netted, noodled, or otherwise nailed when the trawler was on its first run out of port, then it is probably in the freezer for three to six months before it flops on the plate in front of you. I don't know where exactly fresh comes in. Fresh out of the freezer?

If you're paying $400 for 3 month old sushi, you've definitely been had, Greji!

[Greji]

If you're paying $400 for 3 month old sushi, you've definitely been had, Greji!

Bird, over here it's probably older than that when it hits Tsukiji! Fresh, means the guy picked it up a Tsukiji sometime within the last month, or two!

I was in Hongkong a while back and the Director of our HK shop took us to a sushiya in their building that claimed the freshest sushi in HK. The taisho claimed it was flown in daily from Tokyo. It still looked like the rainbow colored left overs in the neighborhood joint, but it did allow them to give us a bill in HK dollars in excess of 10man yen for the three of us. This didn't bother me, being skilled in such matters, my colleague and I deftly out fumbled the HK Director at the cash register, so he probably had to write us off to office supplies.

[Mulboyne]

Newsweek: Would You Like Mercury With Your Sushi?

I consider myself an open-minded person. So just because a group attacks drunk-driving laws and anti-smoking regulations, just because it opposes replacing the junk food in school cafeterias and vending machines with healthy snacks, just because it opposed reducing the blood-alcohol level that constitutes the legal definition of drunk, and just because it calls concerns about obesity “hype,” do I dismiss its defense of mercury in tuna fish? Of course not...So when the Center for Consumer Freedom sent me (and probably scores of other reporters) a press release slamming yesterday’s New York Times story chronicling the high mercury levels the newspaper found in tuna sushi served in New York City restaurants and sold in upscale stores...I looked into its accusations. What I found:

*The Center claims that the Food and Drug Administration’s “Action Level” for methylmercury, the form that poses the health threat, “includes a generous ten-fold safety cushion.” Implication: even though the sushi the Times tested exceeded the Action Level, don't worry.

No. The Action Level was established in the 1970s. It does not define a “safe” level of mercury. (Methylmercury can damage the brain, especially in fetuses and young children, putting them at risk for attention problems and poor language, visual-spatial, memory and coordination skills, as well as lower IQ.) The Action Level is a completely different kind of limit with the purpose of defining a mercury level―greater than 1 part per million--that makes fish “adulterated” under the law. “Adulterated” means FDA can immediately remove the food from the market. That's why it’s called an Action Level. The concept of a safety margin is incompatible with the legal concept and purpose of an Action Level.

In fact, FDA originally set the level at 0.5 ppm. But it was sued by the U.S. fishing industry, which argued that the economic impacts of that limit would be devastating. A judge agreed with the industry, and FDA had to raise the level to 1 ppm. The actual basis for the current level of 1 ppm is therefore avoiding economic impacts on the fishing industry, not safety.

More crucial, there is no single “safe” level of mercury in fish. But the Environmental Protection Agency’s reference dose, which is not a concentration like ppm but an amount of mercury consumed daily, is 0.1 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day. That is presumably safe.

By this measure, a woman who weighs 60 kg (about 130 pounds) can consume 42 micrograms of mercury per week (0.1 ug/kg/day x 60 kg x 7 days) without exceeding the “presumably safe” dose. If she eats 4 ounces (120 grams) of fish four times a week, and the fish contains on average 0.1 ppm mercury (which would be low, given the mercury content of most fish on the market; the Times analysis found levels of .5, .6, .8 . . .up to 1.4 ppm), she would exceed the dose, getting 48 ug of mercury in a week. If she ate 16 ounces of swordfish, averaging 1 ppm, in a week, she’d ingest 480 ug of mercury, or more than 11 times what the EPA considers a red flag.

*The Center for Consumer Freedom also claims that “by definition, it’s not possible for anyone to exceed a reference dose with a single week’s worth of exposure.”

Someone needs to go back to 4th grade math. A single can of albacore tuna exceeds the weekly reference dose for a 60-kg woman (180 g x 0.36 ppm = 65 ug of mercury, and the allowed dose is 42 ug.)

*The Center for Consumer Freedom also claims that you’d have to exceed the allowed dose by 10-fold every day for your entire life to be at risk.

More nonsense. The greatest risk is to the developing fetus. We are not talking about cancer risk (which is often calculated in terms of lifetime risk and exposure.) The window during which a spike of exposure could be harmful to the developing brain might be as small as a few days, weeks at most.

All too often, people trying to balance the risks of mercury against the benefits of fish give up. Somehow we have let the tuna industry get away with claiming that if you worry about mercury you’ll lose out on the heart benefits of fish. More nonsense. A new analysis, “Hold the Mercury: How Consumers Can Avoid Mercury When Buying Fish,” by the ocean conservation group Oceana suggests lots of low-mercury fish. Tuna ain't one of them. Oceana finds that the 23 fresh tuna samples bought at grocery stores, mostly yellowfin and ahi tuna, had an average mercury content of 0.68 parts per million, in line with what the Times found. Tuna sushi tested even higher, with an average mercury content of 0.86 parts per million. One in three samples of tuna sushi was above the FDA’s action level of 1 ppm, with half the samples testing at 0.92 ppm. Says Oceana, “The mercury levels in our tuna samples were comparable to that of fish that FDA advises women of childbearing age and children to avoid.”

Oceana has asked major grocery chains to post the FDA’s mercury advisory at seafood counters, noting which species are high in mercury and which are okay. Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Trader Joe’s, Albertson’s and Safeway have; Oceana is still negotiating with Costco, Publix and A&P.

[The Center for Consumer Freedom's response.]

Also see this Mainichi piece: Sushi lovers shrug despite high tuna mercury levels

[GuyJean]

The Times' Fishy Story
NEVERMIND THAT SCAREMONGERING STORY ABOUT MERCURY-TAINTED SUSHI
http://www.slate.com/id/2182823/nav/ais/

.. Before you jab yourself in the eyes with your chopsticks and swear off bluefin forever, consider the scientific findings on fish consumption. An excellent overview of the topic, "Twenty-seven Years Studying the Human Neurotoxicity of Methylmercury Exposure," published in the July 2000 issue of Environmental Research, can be purchased for less than a platter of prime sushi.

The University of Rochester researchers, supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration, conducted clinical studies on populations in Samoa, Peru, and the Seychelles, all of which eat lots of fish. Their studies found "no evidence that consuming large amounts of fish is associated with adverse effects on adults or children."..

We know from the Minamata disaster the dangers posed by mercury in seafood, especially to fetal development. But dose determines toxicity, something a newspaper staffed with as many accomplished science reporters as the Times surely knows. Or does it? See this hand-wringing editorial from Jan. 24, riffing off of the Burros article; this "react" story from sushi consumers on the same day; and this dorky column imagining a presidential sushi debate―yuk, yuk―by Clyde Haberman today.

For a sensible and learned Times take on mercury, please point your browser to this 2003 story by James Gorman. And pass the bluefin.

GJ