Canned Tuna Contains Mercury, Children Should Avoid
School lunches already taste and look poisonous but in a new report released by the Mercury Policy Project, the surprise tuna surprise may actually be poisonous.
According to the report, canned tuna is the single largest source of methylmercury in the US diet, contributing 32 percent to the total, and is a major source of mercury exposure for children. US children eat twice as much tuna as they do of any other seafood product , and is the only tuna product used in school lunch dishes made with tuna.
An inexpensive and highly nutritional alternative to other hot school lunches or even cold cut sandwiches, Parents frequently buy the canned good even though previous studies have warned against its potential mercury contamination.
Children who love the canned fish eat more than 100 grams a month and, combined with their body weight ,researchers say this can result in mercury doses for some children that exceed federal safety guidelines and, in some cases, can be lethal.
The Project obtained 59 samples of canned tuna from this market sector in 11 states around the country, and sent them to a contract lab for mercury testing .
The tests found that 50 of the cans tested contained imported tuna and had higher amounts of mercury compared to the 9 cans that contained U.S. raised tuna, with Ecuador imported brands containing the highest average yet. The study also showed the average mercury content in light tuna samples ranged from 0.020 to 0.640 μg/g; in albacore, from 0.190 to 1.270 μg/g .
Results further illustrated that two of the most renowned U.S brands of tuna , StarKist and Chicken of the Sea, accounted for 60 percent of our light tuna samples with an overall average mercury levels in the two brands were 0.131 and 0.126 μg/g, respectively .
The report recommends that all children should not eat albacore student and eat light tuna no more than once a month; those children who are tuna-lovers should still only eat it no more than twice amount.
Additionally, tuna should not be served on the school lunch menu more than twice a month and parents should be conscious of when those days are so as to avoid exposing children to tuna twice a day. Lastly, parents should attempt to introduce their children to other forms of sea food. But the safest option is for parents and schools to avoid tuna completely.
Lastly the report lists that the FDA and The US Department of Agriculture should expeditiously complete their ongoing effort to revise their joint advisory on seafood consumption and mercury exposure.
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