Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back In The Water…Seafood Contamination Bites Back!

Photo: Mike Bergmann, Unsplash

I Guess They Were Right. Shrimpin’ Ain’t Easy!:

One of the great things about Trader Joe’s is that they make it easier to be careful about what you eat.

-Namely organic food that doesn’t involve a second mortgage on your pets like the stuff at Whole Foods.

While there’s still some debate about the benefits of organic, the idea’s still a good one.

And awhile back, a similar school of thought translated to some real cautions about fish. Even the sushi-grade stuff.

Well, Dartmouth’s researchers ventured into the wild untamed coastlines of New Hampshire to find out there’s more to be cautious about in the sea besides JAWS…

The Short Answer:

• The organic food craze is a great example of being careful about contamination in food.
• Something similar holds true for fish and seafood.
• Sometimes problems come from the environment.
• Other times, those problems are man-made.
• A Dartmouth team found that “Forever Chemicals” (called PFAs) in fish & seafood are a new problem.
• They looked for 26 chemicals in 7 seafood types.
• Most had 1 Part-Per-Billion concentration.
• Shrimp was bad at 74% higher.
• Lobster was the worst at 3.3x higher.
• Those numbers are very high because the EPA standard for water is 250x less than the average concentration in the other 5.
• These could add-up, because when people eat shrimp or lobster they could be getting 210-660 nanograms of the chemicals.
• This is more problemmatic because PFAs are associated with many health problems, and may accumulate in the body.
• Shellfish may become an increasingly expensive and rare commodity in the future if you can get any that’s “safe”.

Read on to find out the details…

Contamination Problems Are Starting To Stack-Up:

So to set the stage:

First, we had problems with fast food from phthalates in the packaging material.

Then we learned there were also PFAs in that stuff, too.

Recently, we also found there were chemicals and microplastics in water from the plastic bottles.

Well, now we have one more thing to watch out for. More chemicals in seafood.

It’s Not Just The Two Most Common Pollutants Anymore:

Because just like the cautions about PCBs in farmed fish and mercury in the wild stuff,

!SCIENCE! just found out that “Forever Chemicals” are getting into seafood as well.

A team of Dartmouth researchers made a clever jump from testing the water New Hampshirites drink to the food they eat.

And they found bad news for a few of the species that might be on your plate.

The worst offenders? Shrimp and Lobster.

Here Are The Types Of Seafood And The Important Results:

The scientists started by testing 7 types of seafood:

1) Cod
2) Haddock
3) Lobster
4) Salmon
5) Scallops
6) Shrimp
7) Tuna

They looked at these for 26! different types of PFA chemicals.

The highlights of which were these:

1) Shrimp had a PFA level 74% higher than the average
2) Lobster had a level 3.3x higher than the average

Here’s An Initial Stab At Some Number-Context:

What do these numbers mean?

Here’s some context: The EPA just established a PFA limit for water that is 4PPT and suggests zero is more acceptable.

And now, some quick math:

1) The average seafood registered 250x higher, at 1PPB.
2) The shrimp then had 1.74PPB concentration (435x higher).
3) And Lobster would have 3.3PPB (825x higher).
4) One lobster tail is about 200-250 grams
5) Shrimp are about 20-25 grams each, depending on size
6) That means 660 nanograms of PFAs in the lobster tail
7) Eating 6 shrimp would get you about 210-260 nanograms
8) 8 glasses of water at the EPA limit is 7.26 nanograms of PFAs/day

That could sound very small, but remember that EPA number is in Trillionths, which is 1,000x less than many of those numbers.

Caution Is The Best Rule-Of-Thumb We Have Right Now:

So now what do we do?

The first part is hard to contextualize, because there is no such thing as an acceptable level for PFAs in food just yet.

The second part is just what you’d think. When in doubt, be cautious and only eat the higher-concentration stuff very rarely and if you really want to.

And that’s tough, because these things are so stable, that’s why they get the name, “Forever Chemicals”.

Here Are Some Of The Health Problems Associated With PFAs:

Here’s why we care so much.

We’re not sure how to get PFAs out of somebody. And they could be cumulative.

So far, the problems associated with them are:
1) High Blood-Pressure
2) High Cholesterol
3) Reduced Vaccine-Response
4) Kidney Cancer
5) Testicular Cancer
6) Prostate Cancer
7) Liver Problems
8) Reduced Immune Function
9) Multiple Pregnancy Issues, including low birth-weight newborns

The Reaction Could Cause Far-Reaching Impacts:

You can also add-on the economic impacts.

Because if you take states like New Hampshire and all of New England and drastically reduce their consumption of seafood, it could mean a big hit.

New Hampshire residents for example, eat 1.5x the national average amount of seafood.

The only bright spots were that even though 94% of them ate seafood within the past month,

Only 54% of them had lobster.

But on the flip side, 70% had shrimp, so that’s more of a bummer.

Maybe Seafood Will Get Much More Expensive If It’s “Safe”:

Who knows what any of this means in the long run.

Maybe the price of seafood will actually have to go UP, instead of down.

Because there’s a chance that any of the stuff close to shore will be too risky to eat.

But thanks to the EPA’s standard for water, at least we have a starting-point for some numbers.

And thanks to Dartmouth’s team, we now have some more safety guidelines for what we eat.

You might even use the fish oil post’s guideline of eating salmon only from the Pacific, limited to 1x/month as another rule-of-thumb.

Stay Safe Out There!

References & Links:

• Source: Dartmouth
• More Coverage: EPA – PFAs in Drinking Water
• Source Study:
Exposure And Health – Patterns of Seafood Consumption Among New Hampshire Residents Suggest Potential Exposure to Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances