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fish as a "health" food


madcat
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yeah i know what you mean.

 

its like swimming making you fat. just look at all the animals that swim - penguins, seals, whales - you really do have to be careful - when you jump in that pool, you are taking your health in your hands!!

 

madcat, i dont mean to mock, but there are much better arguments against eating fish than it will make you fat. nutritionally of all the meats its the healthiest, so a different angle is required.

 

jonathan

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What makes it healthy? If it’s a “diet” food then why is it that animals that live off of it are covered in fat? Jonathan, have you been sticking your head in water? Just kidding… don’t mock me; I am trying to ask a serious question.

 

If the reason is because we don’t get the same affect from it as other animals then wouldn’t that hinder the whole argument that some people have against milk… that whole “it’s designed to put weight on baby cows”.

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animals that live off fish that we generally think of as fat need to be for several reasons:

 

1) Extremely cold water requires them to have alot of insulation (eg penguins, whales, seals)

2) Food sources can be infrequent, sporadic, migratory (penguins, seals, some whales).

3) Some animals have extreme mating rituals that require them to go without food for months (penguins)

 

Therefore, many of the aforementioned animals need to effectively binge eat in order to make it through the year. whereas the penguin may at times appear fat, at other times of the year it is on the brink of starvation.

 

jonathan

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The only good health arguments I've seen against humans eating fish (especially fish like wild salmon) are contaminant based arguments (i.e. mercury, PCBs, etc). If you're talking about fish that aren't contaminated, it seems, from what I've read that they are really healthy to eat

 

I think the argument about cow's milk being for calves is more of an ethical one than a health one.

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I think eating fish is healthy. Fish oil is a better source of omega3s than flax.

 

pcrm.org would beg to differ with you on that one Will.

 

I think a balanced diet of fish (and possibly some insects), grains, nuts, beans, vegetables, and fruits is the healthiest there is.

 

This doesn't mean I plan to start eating fish anytime soon. It just means that if I were to only look at the health benefits, and make no ethical or any other considerations, then I think including fish (w/ no mercury or other junk in them) would be beneficial.

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Yeah animals that live in/near water have evolved to store a lot of fat and except for the mercury, etc contamination fish is very healthy.

 

But is there any way to even know that it's not contaminated? I think when adding in the potential for contamination, the good of the omega 3's and EPA/DHA?? in fish are outweighed by flax seed oil.

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http://www.voiceyourself.com/article.php?section=12&more=1&id=1317

We immediately made a connection to Matthew's symptoms, which included clouded thinking, bent fingers, acid reflux, lethargy, apathy, lack of coordination with his hands and feet, as well as a tingling and pain in his extremities. Children often find a favorite food, and Matthew loved tuna fish. He always wanted a tuna fish sandwich for meals and we indulged him, wrongly believing that we were providing him with healthy and nutritious food.

 

 

The day we read that article we immediately removed tuna from his diet. Matthew's doctor told us to have him tested for mercury, and then we received the shocking results: Matthew had more than 12 times the level considered safe by the Food and Drug Administration, according to his pediatrician. This was two months after he stopped eating tuna completely. Based on the rate at which mercury is eliminated from the human body, Matthew's levels were likely 25 times the safe level when he stopped eating tuna 60 days earlier!

 

 

Almost immediately after banning tuna we noticed a change in Matthew's health. Improvements continued and, over a period of nine months, his intelligence tests (as administered by a private tutor center) nearly tripled. Now 12, he can function at the appropriate grade level and has all of his dexterity back.

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Fish oil is a better source of omega3s than flax.

 

But there are other vegan sources of omega3 (like "Omega zen" which is made from some kind of algae --which is actually where the FISH get their omegas!).

 

I take Omega Zen capsules and flax. I haven't seen any studies done on Omega-Zen, so it's hard to say how effective it actually is in humans. I have seen lots of evidence that humans get a lot more benefit from fish oil than from flax oil

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But is there any way to even know that it's not contaminated?

 

Catching it yourself is the best way I know of. The local government samples bodies of water around here regularly and makes the record public so you know what kind of junk is floating around in it. I'm not sure if they do that in other places or not

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But is there any way to even know that it's not contaminated?

 

Catching it yourself is the best way I know of. The local government samples bodies of water around here regularly and makes the record public so you know what kind of junk is floating around in it. I'm not sure if they do that in other places or not

 

Ya but can you trust the government to do a competent job or disseminate info in a timely fashion? Wasnt there a situation in California where fish waters were contaminated for a while before the gov noticed/told people, meanwhile people had consumed tones of fish from that bay? I recall the author describing himself as one such unfortunate person in Diet for a Poisoned Planet.

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Why do people consider fish to be a health food when most mammals that live on a fish diet are covered in blubber?

 

I was watching march of the penguins when it came to mind.

 

Coz most of those mammals live in freezing conditions on land/water - i.e the Antartic. Without that blubber they wouldn't survive in such harsh environments.

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There are seals in Oregon (California too I think) unless they migrate… I know the water is cold but nothing like the Antarctic. I can see the benefit of aquatic animals having a layer of fat because water absorbs body heat faster then air. It just seemed strange that fish is promoted as being the healthiest meat, but when you see animals that live primarily off fish, well they just don’t look like that have a desirable figure.

 

 

As for the calf/ milk thing, there are people out there using this as a way to promote going vegan.

 

http://www.milksucks.com/fat.asp

 

“Whole cow's milk is a high-fat fluid, designed by nature to turn a 60–70 lb (27–30 kg) calf into a 300–600 lb (135–275 kg) cow in one year.”

I got that for here http://www.veg.ca/issues/dairy.html

 

I don’t know, I don’t think milk is natural for us to drink, and it unethical but I don’t think it the cause of obesity. People have been drinking milk for hundreds if not thousands of years, and we didn’t have much of a problem until recently.

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I don’t know, I don’t think milk is natural for us to drink, and it unethical but I don’t think it the cause of obesity. People have been drinking milk for hundreds if not thousands of years, and we didn’t have much of a problem until recently.

 

It is only recently though that milk ( and meat ) has become so cheap and widely available. Before humans weren't able to eat the high quantities of animal fats we do today - it was a luxury, or something you ate maybe once a week - and hence why it never used to cause the obesity it does today. This is also partly because of processed foods, which is a relatively new development in human consumption of animal foods - i.e they make animal fats even more unhealthy than they already are for us.

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