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The Unknown Toxicities of Meat and Fish |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 29 January 2010 )
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When you think about toxins, your mind likely goes immediately to the ones that commonly ruin metabolisms. These are things like foods that have been processed, fats that are hydrogenated and corn syrup that is high in fructose content. However, these toxins are easily avoided. Other toxins are not. The discussion here is about toxins that don’t find their way onto food labels because they are actually pollutants are all important in your diet whether you are trying to lose weight or not.
PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) are an example of a pollutant. Another example of a pollutant is dioxin. These products are created during the manufacturing process and for a long time have been in natural waters around the world. That water is drunk by every natural thing on the planet and for that reason meat and fish a long time ago have become contaminated with those by-product pollutants.
Some of you that follow the news closely might be thinking about the ban on PCBs that has been in place for decades now. It is true that this ban exists, but it is equally true that things like landfills and general leaks that are unintentional add to the already large reservoir of pollutants that still inhabit the lakes and rivers of the world. Freshwater fish such as salmon in particular seem to contain lots of these substances. A recent study done in Lake Ontario showed how the substance went from water to fish to human, but the results could just as easily have been any other contaminated water source on the planet.
So what’s the problem? The problem is that even if you are relatively healthy in what you eat, you can still develop health problems if you consume these pollutants. Problems with cancer, reproductive difficulties, immune system compromising and brain trouble can all result from these chemicals entering your system over the long term.
Unfortunately, this is not a problem that can be easily cured. Dioxins for example are created through incineration and then inhaled by livestock. When the livestock are killed and eaten, the dioxins get passed onto the person that has eaten them. Dioxins can be responsible for cancer, endocrine difficulties and immune system compromising, so they are just as bad if not worse than the PCBs.
There are steps that you can do to make the situation a little bit better. You can start by only buying salmon that have been caught in the wild. You can listen to any advisories given out on consuming certain types of meat and fish. You can check out sides like the Natural Resources Defence Council’s Sustainable Seafood Guide to help you decide what to buy. You can only purchase organic products that are low in fat. You can remove the fat from any products that you purchase and avoid eating any skin.
These are all definitely things that you can do and while they won’t eliminate the threat, they will greatly reduce both the immediate risk and the risk over time. In other words, they are certainly a start in the battle against PCBs and dioxins.
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Friday, 29 January 2010 |
