A Fruity Fish Fix
Worried that serving fish may be raising your kids' risk of mercury poisoning? Start pairing fish dishes with a side of pineapple.
Serving certain fruits with fish could help reduce your family's exposure to mercury, a toxic metal that some fish accumulate from the environment. A recent study of women living in a fish-eating community revealed that those who also ate the most tropical fruits had the lowest mercury levels.
Eating fish has heart-healthy benefits for you and your kids. To enjoy fish, while minimizing your family's mercury exposure, limit your consumption of larger long-lived predatory fish and mammals that tend to accumulate more mercury from the environment. Swordfish, shark, tilefish, king mackerel, red snapper, and orange roughy tend to have the highest mercury levels.
Fish lowest in mercury include salmon, flounder, haddock, and cod; salmon has the most omega-3s and the least mercury of that group. Canned light tuna is generally lower in mercury than fresh tuna.
And piling on antioxidant-rich tropical fruits, such as mango, pineapple, banana, and papaya, also may help reduce the amount of mercury that your child's body absorbs.
