Tuna Troubles

New York Times
January 24, 2008

For those of you who like sushi might alarmed by this article. The tuna we all have been eating has high amounts of mercury and that is a direct correlation to the cleanliness of our oceans. The New York Times tested about 20 sushi restaurants in Manhattan and found unexpected amounts of mercury in the tuna. All this mercury acts as a neurotoxin in humans, so this is a very worrisome finding. Not all tuna has a harmful amount of mercury. They've found that bluefin tuna has the most mercury content because it lives longer and has time to accumulate more. But as just a sushi eater, not sushi connoisseur, how can you really tell what kind of fish it is and where it came from? The truth is, you wont find any bluefin tuna that are mercury free because of the state of the environment they're coming from. This mercury is being produced by power plants and factories, and the run-off eventually makes it to the fish, then to the humans who eat them. The only way to get rid of the mercury problem in the tuna is to fix its production at the source.
This article really opened my eyes. I can't believe that there is that much of a harmful substance in the food I eat almost once a week. One comment that really caught my attention was, "If you regularly eat as few as six pieces of tuna sushi a week, you may be consuming more mercury than the levels considered acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency. " That made me think. If you order raw tuna sashimi, it comes with six or eight pieces, and that could literally be making you sick. Why don't they do something about this problem? I love my sushi-I don't want it to kill me. It makes me think of those drug commercials on TV; the ones that tell you, "If you took this product and died, you may be liable for a settlement." I always think that they are going to find something that they say isn't harmful now, but will be, and it might be bad news for those who are eating it.
I liked reading this article very much. I thought the author did a great job in bringing up an issue that needs to be taken care of. The argument was strong, but not overbearing. You could tell that he/she really cared about the issue and wanted to see it fixed. Although it did say we needed a solution, it didn't really present an idea of how to clean the oceans up or treat the fish before they get sold to buyers and resaurants. Overall, I thought it was a good article.