Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Switching to the Spicy Salmon

When, a few weeks ago, all of this mercury-in-the-tuna news gained a swell of momentum, I had mixed feelings. It seems like, these days, everything has a warning label on it. Don’t eat too many carbs; don’t eat so much red meat. Canned tuna has long been questionable, but until last week, the general public didn’t lump spicy tuna rolls into that category.


Mercury is a heavy metal in the composition of rocks and soil. It enters the environment mostly from coal-burning power plant and waste incinerator emissions. Fluorescent lights and some thermometers also contain mercury that gets into the environment when disposed. The dangerous metal trickles into our bodies of water where it is converted into a more toxic form by certain bacteria.


Its presence is so strong in tuna because tuna is a long living, predatory fish, so there’s time for the mercury to accumulate. It’s high in swordfish, too.


I was pretty bummed out by this whole thing: we’ve shot the environment to hell so now tekkadon is unsafe. I eat a lot of sushi; I really like it. And, while my taste can be discriminating, I have been known to enjoy an afternoon spicy tuna roll from the grocery without concern of freshness or flash-frozenness. And now there’s this news that it doesn’t even matter where you get your fix.


The Times said that eating six or less pieces of tuna a week would keep us from glowing in the dark. The day that article came out, I had planned a sushi dinner with a buddy of mine. Of course, we still went (to our favorite 50% off every roll dive), but didn’t get any rosy red pieces of nigiri.


We had to explore the menu a bit more, and I realized that it really wasn’t as bad as I’d made it out to be. There are many other types of fish, and they really are tasty—even made spicy. Instead of the spicy crunchy tuna roll, I opted for salmon and ended up liking it more. I went for an Alaska roll as well: salmon, avocado, and cucumber: so refreshing!


I am trying to think of this fishy hiccup as a forced way of expanding my Japanese restaurant order: a means of keeping my cool about it.

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