Comments on: Minimal-Mercury Marinated Tuna

By: Weekly Green Round-Up

Weekly Green Round-Up — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:43:00 +0000

[...] Minimal Mercury Marinated Tuna by Small Footprint Family — Like tuna but hate those pesky high mercury levels? Dawn highlights some sources for tuna with much lower levels of mercury and as a bonus, shares a recipe. [...]

By: Jen

Jen — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 02:20:11 +0000

I recently purchased canned tuna and salmon from Vital Choice. The tuna is THE BEST I’ve ever had! I was amazed when I opened the can to see a solid piece of fish. It’s so good you can eat it right out of the can. I often serve it, as is, over a salad for dinner. I will never buy the nasty, stringy, name brand commercial tuna from the grocery store again!

Great article!

By: Small Footprint Mama

Small Footprint Mama — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:23:44 +0000

Mike, indeed minimal-mercury fish is juvenile fish. I don’t think any of these companies deny this at all. However, this information comes from the Marine Stewardship Council:

There are two fishery segments targeting albacore tuna worldwide: 1) surface fisheries catching migratory juveniles and 2) deep water long-line fisheries capturing spawning stocks. It is counter intuitive to assume that the most sustainable method of catch is to shift effort to juveniles since they have never bred. However, if all fish should be allowed to breed before harvest then there would be no commercial salmon industry since all commercial salmon have also not bred. The salmon stocks are managed by assessment of percentage of capture versus escapement. If an adequate percentage escape capture to go on to reproduce, then the fishery is considered sustainable.

“In the albacore world, the surface fisheries are artisanal methods of harvest that are fairly ineffective in capture compared to long-line fisheries. The West Coast troll and pole fishery captures less than 15% of the bio-mass resulting in 85% of the fish returning to the spawning stocks. This 85% escapement is sufficient to sustain the population of the species. Once a fish becomes a mature spawning adult it continues to increase in fecundity exponentially with age. A 10 year old female albacore produces many times more eggs than a 6 year old albacore. The same is true with rockfish or most other fish and is the key rationale for marine reserves designed to protect mega fauna (large spawning adults) in the reserves and allow catch of their offspring outside the reserves. There is scientific consensus that a harvest shift away from long-line caught mature albacore to migratory juveniles with proper escapement is the best model for sustainability; this explains why groups like Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch consider US troll/pole caught albacore as a “best choice” – http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_search.aspx?s=albacore.

By: Minimal-Mercury Marinated Tuna | planets

Minimal-Mercury Marinated Tuna | planets — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:43:44 +0000

[...] Read the original post: Minimal-Mercury Marinated Tuna [...]

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:12:02 +0000

Minimal-mercury fish is code word for juvenile fish. The way these companies ‘claim’ to have lower mercury is by taking smaller fish from the oceans. That is horrible for sustainability.

Read up on maximum sustainable yeild, biomass and recruitment. If you want to be eco-friendly, you should know what you’re talking about first.

Your family footprint just got a whole heck of a lot bigger.