Canned Foods

[GTS Jeff]

Originally posted by Tyler883
I was checking out the Health Canada website this morning: "The use of smaller, younger tuna in the canning process makes it possible for mercury levels in canned tuna to fall within the 0.5 ppm guideline. Smaller, younger fish have not accumulated higher levels of this contaminant."

The said that the methyl mercury is ingested as water passes by the gills of the fish. Also, the larger fish are fuyrther up in the food chain...ingesting additional amounts from their prey.

Another thing to consider is that there are varying degrees of "safe". Health Canada sets their restrictions at .5 ppm whch is about 20 times lower than cases where groups of people have died from mercury poisoning. It's quite rare for anyone to die from it, but there are cases like 100 japanese people that have died from continual ingestion of contaminated fish.

Anyway, w.r.t. white tuna vs light tuna (both canned):

there was an independant study done in the states that showed samples of white(albacore) canned tuna averaging about 300 ppb...well below the Health Canada's guidelines of 500 ppb. However, the light canned tuna showed samples averaging about 50 ppb....6 times lower than albacore canned tuna. This is information that I found several months ago, but could not find this morning. So you'll have to take my word on it( or like you suggested - ignore me because Health Canada sets it's limits at 500 ppb)

regards

Tyler

thats good info. what im saying is that we can all rest easy and eat our tuna as long as it comes canned. cuz as u said, theyre all under health canada limits.

the japanese mercury dealie is minamata bay...actually mercury poisoning is now referred to as minamata disease. it does some bad shit, like it fucks up any motor control, blinds u, and makes u stupid...

anyway...

[1badPT]

good to know - i've been scared away from eating tuna (its an easy way to increase protein intake) because of people saying it contains higher than average levels of mercury. I was never able to find anything that confirmed or denied that so this is good

Now I can get back to choking that shit back down again

[Tyler883]

Originally posted by GTS Jeff
thats good info. what im saying is that we can all rest easy and eat our tuna as long as it comes canned. cuz as u said, theyre all under health canada limits.

Thanks for summarizing the most important point.

In addition, I wanted to point out that the "light" tuna is possibly better than the albacore, which is ironic because the light tuna is often cheaper, and viewed as a "lessor" product.

I re-read my posts, and I apologise for the misunderstanding. I see, now, that my original comment( in the absense of your comment) might imply that there is something wrong or unsafe with white (albacore) tuna in the can. This was not my intention.

BTW, now that we got the methyl murcury thing covered.....I hear that the risk with canned/frozen salmon is pcb content. Should we dare try to sumarize this one too?

[Tyler883]

quick summary: Health canada says that there is no problem with pcbs in farmed salmon.

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/media...sheet_food.htm

[sputnik]

Originally posted by GTS Jeff
the only shitty thing is the metal taste...

you arent supposed to eat the can.