Mercury Tuna: Are the FDA’s Recommendations Too High?

Flickr/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/galant/3833161207/" target="_blank">thebittenword.com</a>

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


From the department of #butilovetunamelts comes this depressing news: The Consumers Union recently analyzed 42 samples of packaged tuna, and found that about half a can of white (albacore) tuna (which tends to have more mercury than light tuna) contains more mercury than the EPA’s recommended daily limit for women of childbearing age. A few other nuggets from the study:

  • Every sample contained measurable levels of mercury, ranging from 0.018 to 0.774 parts per million. The FDA can take legal action to pull products containing 1 ppm or more from the market.  (It never has, according to an FDA spokesman.)
  • Samples of light tuna had 0.018 to 0.176 ppm and averaged 0.071 ppm. At that average, a woman of childbearing age eating 2.5 ounces would get less than the EPA’s limit, but for about half the tested samples, eating 5 ounces (about one can) would exceed the limit.

Given the fact that mercury content varies dramatically from can to can, Consumers Union recommended in 2006 that the FDA issue a warning that some cans of white tuna may contain levels that exceed those on which the daily consumption recommendations are based. The agency hasn’t issued any such warning yet.

In light of its recent tests, Consumers Union recommends that tuna-eaters adopt a more cautious approach than the FDA recommends:

Children less than 45 pounds: 0-4 ounces of light tuna or 0-1.5 ounces of white (albacore) tuna per week, depending on the child’s  weight.
Children 45 pounds or more: About 4 to 12.5 ounces of light tuna or 1.5 to 4 ounces of white tuna per week, depending on the child’s weight.
Pregnant women: To be careful, avoid canned tuna. Choose a low-mercury fish instead.
Women of childbearing age: About 12.5 ounces of light tuna or 4 ounces of white tuna per week.
Men and older women: About 14.5 ounces of light tuna or about 5 ounces of white tuna per week should be OK, but people who eat fish more often would be prudent to stick to low-mercury types.

(For comparison, the FDA’s recommended limit for low-mercury seafood, including light tuna, is 12 ounces a week. For white tuna, it’s six ounces a week.)

Also worth noting: Bluefin tuna is not only one of the most mercury-laden kinds of tuna, it’s also one of the world’s most overfished sea creatures. A recent bad decision on 2011’s bluefin tuna quotas means this struggling fish is now even worse off.

Wondering which fish are healthy for you and the planet? I like Food and Water Watch’s Smart Seafood Guide.

Got a burning eco-quandary? Submit it to econundrums@motherjones.com. Get all your green questions answered by visiting Econundrums on Facebook here.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate