Fish Consumption Advisory, Mercury Warning in Illinois
The Illinois Department of Health issued a fish consumption advisory with update information less than 2 weeks ago. It’s a mercury warning, folks. Just when you thought you could eat fish for your health, hey, maybe you shouldn’t. Take heart, though. There have been mercury warnings in place for many of our bodies of water for a long time. It’s just than some new ones have been added today.
The mercury warning means that it’s advisable to have locally caught “predator” fish no more than once a week. These are the fish that eat other fish, and so are managing to get even more contaminated. It’s a bit like you deciding to be a cannibal and eating all your neighbors who just got food poisoning. The next cannibal to eat you is in for a world of hurt. The fish you need to watch for are bass (white, spotted, hybrid striped, striped, smallmouth and largemouth), walleye, flathead catfish, sauger, muskellunge, saugeye and northern pike. Limit your intake of those to the recommend amounts (or below) and you may be able to enjoy that fish dinner.
In some cases, you should have fish no more than once a month, but that’s thanks to a really fun thing called PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls. People who fish for white bass out of Lake Depue should only enjoy their bounty once a month because of PCBs.
Every year, Illinois tests water samples from about 40 spots in the state, looking for those PCBs, pesticides, random dangerous chemicals and mercury. Now, you can eat fish all week and be fine. It’s not an acute illness that you’ll typically have, but the long-term effects of mercury exposure and exposure to the substances found in fish from contaminated areas are what get ya. It’s especially dangerous for kids who are still developing.
How to Clean Fish and How to Prepare Fish to Reduce Your Risk
Be sure to get all the skin off, and cut away any fatty spots you find. That helps get rid of the chlordane and PCBs. Also, avoiding frying your fish. I know, I know. I’m sorry. That’s the recommendation. When you fry fish, it’s sitting in oil and its own juices. And the best way to avoid letting your fish dinner stew in pesticides and chemicals that might be cooking out of it is to cook it in away where the good stuff, I mean the fat, can run away from the fish. Bake or broil on top of a pan that lets fat drip down into another pan. Or grill it so it drips away.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to prepare fish to reduce the amount of mercury in the things. You lower your ingestion of mercury by simply eating fewer mercury-marinated fish.
If you want a breakdown of the condition of the fishing holes near you, as well as advice about how often the fish you catch are safe to eat, you can find it in this document from the Illinois Department of Health.
Photo: rick
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Tagged With chlordane, fish consumption advisories, how to clean fish, how to prepare fish, Illinois fishing, mercury warning, PCBs
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