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Online calculator helps you determine how much seafood to eat
It can be hard to determine how much seafood you can eat safely while meeting your nutritional needs. This online seafood calculator lends a helping hand.
Tue, Feb 28 2012 at 6:55 PM
fish on ice

Photo: quinet/Flickr

We have heard from many health experts that we need to be eating more seafood. Left alone to wade through mercury and sustainability concerns — plus the advantages of Omega 3 fatty-acids — we can become frustrated. A new website, HowMuchFish.com, is here to help.
 
It's unique because you enter your weight, as well as what size serving you would like to eat. Thus, your results are very specific. You then click on what fish you'd like to eat, and information pops up sharing the nutritional information based on the serving size you choose, as well as how many servings you would need to eat in a week to consume too much mercury.
 
The site is limited to only 25 fish varieties, though they are the most popular ones in America. I would love to see the website expand its offerings. They also list some fish as "good choices" that I have concerns about, namely farmed salmon and tilapia. The website is also very limited in what information it gives you on a very complex subject. I would recommend educating yourself further by reading information put out by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch.
 
If you want to know more about my tilapia concerns, you can read Farmed Tilapia: Good for the Environment, Bad for You. It's not meant as a bash toward all tilapia farms, but rather serve as a warning that just because a fish is "sustainable," doesn't mean it's always good for you.
 
My personal criterion for seafood includes seafood that is low in mercury or other contaminants, is sustainable, and is high in nutrients. I share more about those criteria here. What seafood we personally eat changes according to availability and new information. For example, I was thrilled to start eating oysters for their high nutrient levels. But when I found out that the ones available in my area were gathered from an area polluted with Roundup (a Monsanto herbicide), I gave up the practice.
 
In other words, HowMuchFish.com is a helpful tool, but it provides limited in information. Use it to your advantage, but don't depend on it solely.
 

The opinions expressed by MNN Bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of MNN.com. While we have reviewed their content to make sure it complies with our Terms and Conditions, MNN is not responsible for the accuracy of any of their information.

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Comments: 2
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dmcguire
dmcguire Mar 01 2012 at 2:56 PM
At first blush this calculator looks very helpful. However, the information regarding mercury is misleading. If one enters the weight of a child of 40 pounds and a portion of swordfish or tuna it says Hypothetical concern: Health problems associated with mercury in commercial fish are theoretical, and highly unlikely unless your weekly intake of Swordfish is more than: 16 ounces/week. In fact, the FDA and EPA recommend that children under 7, women of childbearing age and pregnant women avoid eating
.... More
these fish altogether. Quote "Do not eat Shark, Swordfish, King Mackerel, or Tilefish because they contain high levels of mercury." The adverse health effects range from fetal development to neurological disorders and a host of other sequellae that are medically proven to be associated with mercury toxicity. Using the calculator at gotmercury.org gives nearly 500% over the recommended weekly exposure for a child of the same weight eating the same portion of swordfish. The HowMuch Fish calculator uses the FDA dose of 1 ppm as opposed to the EPA's 0.5 ppm mercury action level and is giving irresponsible even dangerous guidance. Although fish can be healthy, eating too much of the wrong fish can be placing us at serious risk to an avoidable illness. We recommend eating fish low in mercury, sustainably caught and avoid fish like tuna, shark and swordfish that are gill netted or longlined with serious casualties to other species.
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tarrant's picture
Tarrant Feb 29 2012 at 10:31 AM

Thanks! I don't eat much seafood, but it was interesting to go see what the "safe" amount would be. Far more than I would ever eat in a week! I would love to see more options for seafood and a clearer explanation of other safety concerns.

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