Fish, Are They Safe? "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." " The mighty oak was once a little nut that stood its ground."   Let's take a few minutes to look at some of the foods that are supposedly safe and see if they still are. We are going to be looking at a lot of information, so hang on to your hat as we look at each one individually.   Fish are generally considered one of the safest meats; however, there have been some rather alarming studies done. John Robbins, in his book Diet for a New America, pg. 331, says, Fish have a remarkable ability to absorb and concentrate toxic chemicals from their watery environments. For one thing, their food chains are extremely long, with phytoplankton being eaten by zooplankton, who are in turn eaten by tiny fish, who are then eaten by larger fish, and so on. More significantly, fish literally breath the water they swim in, so they are also continually accumulating more and more contaminants in this manner. The net effect is almost as if they were underwater magnets for toxic chemicals. The EPA estimates [that] fish can accumulate up to nine million times the level of PCBs in the waters in which they live [see Appendix 5 on PCBs]! You'd have to drink 2,641 gallons of water to get the amount of mercury in a 3.5-ounce piece of shark or swordfish, wrote Elsie Sunderland, an EPA environmental scientist in the USA Today cover story "Eating Fish: There's a Catch," printed Wednesday, October 26, 2005.   In a magazine article, more alarming facts were shared. The article stated that some of the reason for declining fish populations is the acid rain that has destroyed many fish spawning grounds. It went on to say, Chemical contamination of the Great Lakes has made much of the catch from North America's ‘third coast' inedible....Fish cancers caused by pollution are almost epidemic on the West Coast and in the Great Lakes. "Factory Farming Goes Fishy," by Merritt Clifton. 1   In another later article by the same author, speaking of farmed fish, Merritt points out that these too are a far cry from healthy. The fish are overwhelmingly overcrowded, which depletes the oxygen supply, causing deaths. Yet the USDA estimates that 64 percent die from diseases such as viral infections and parasites, which spread rampantly in the densely populated waters. The farmers, eager to reduce their losses, are now feeding their fish heavily medicated feeds, which in the long-run will actually make the fish more susceptible to disease. 2   The February 1992 edition of Consumer Reports asked in bright red lettering, "Is Our Fish Fit to Eat?" The article made waves by reporting, Nearly half the fish we tested [were] contaminated by bacteria from human or animal feces... Modern Manna, July/August 1996, Volume 2, Number 2, pg.14.   It concluded by saying that fish is a dangerous food. Of [Consumer Report's] samples of [fish sold for human consumption], 43% of the salmon contained PCBs, and 90% of the swordfish contained mercury. Since fish is one of the most perishable of all foods, 40% had bacteria counts higher than 500,000 per gram, indicative of spoilage, and 30% contained [counts of] 10 million or more [bacteria], meaning, rotten. Vegetarian Cats and Dogs, pg. 26.   At one major supermarket chain, hidden video cameras captured scenes of rotten or outdated fish being sold for human consumption. In one scene, a hidden video camera captured an employee wiping down some fish with Clorox to hide the spoiled smell and to remove the slime that had formed on their bodies. Op. Cit., pg. 14.   Certainly this was not what Christ was multiplying and feeding to the five thousand. He loves us too much to give us anything that will harm us physically and ultimately spiritually as well. He wants the absolute best for us. What a loving Lord. All rights reserved Copyright © 2006 By J. Lee