
The Case Against Eating Fish - breitling
https://thewalrus.ca/the-case-against-eating-fish/
======
moozilla
I think this kind of article is downright irresponsible - when you weigh the
small amounts of extra toxins you consume, the effects are always going to be
lesser than the enormous benefits of consuming fish.

> Drs. Mozaffarian and Rimm put this in perspective in their analysis in the
> Journal of the American Medical Association. (1) First, reviewing data from
> the Environmental Protection Agency and elsewhere, they calculated that if
> 100,000 people ate farmed salmon twice a week for 70 years, the extra PCB
> intake could potentially cause 24 extra deaths from cancer—but would prevent
> at least 7,000 deaths from heart disease. (source:
> [https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/fish/](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/fish/))

I'm certain a similar argument can be applied to the dangers of mislabeled
fish or micro-plastics. To put it in perspective: if the sort of argument this
article presents convinced even 7% of people to not eat fish, it would
counteract the 7000 potential heart disease deaths in the above example.

~~~
afpx
Does the consumption of fish matter? It seems like the linked article
encourages consumption of more Omega-3.

Also, I'm generally confused by Omega-3 studies anyway (I'm not a scientist).
In the early 2000's lots of research came out linking Omega-3 to health. But,
then more recently, I thought that Meta analysis studies showed no
relationship.

(Could someone explain like I'm five?)

[0] [http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-
abstract/135726...](http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-
abstract/1357266)

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
The article you linked is about supplementing Omega 3. Many times in science
we isolate out the one thing we think that is causing the health benefit and
supplement more of it. Usually we don't find the result we are looking for.
Food is a very complex item and it could be many factors and they all need to
be present together to get the effect. Lycopene supplementation doesn't seem
to have the health benefits seen with eating tomatoes, etc., etc.

~~~
criddell
That's not really an indictment of the scientific method though. So isolated
lycopene isn't as good as eating a tomato. Surely there are scientists that
are iterating on that, trying to find the combination of compounds that does
give the desired outcome, right?

~~~
rdlecler1
There may be other factors, or the form it is delivered in which creates the
bioavailability. It's not always additive.

------
houst0n_
Okay; mislabelled fish happens but it always has. Boycotting things you work
with is a bit of a trend once the the initial shock kicks in but usually when
we look from the inside we overblow the impacts of these things.. How many of
us in the marketing/analytics/tracking/social media biz have Facebook profiles
or browse signed into google?£

A lot of restaurants also sell ox or bison instead of beef.

Fresh fish is loaded with omegawhatever and is completely delicious.

Instead of cutting out one thing instead just maintain a balance like a grown
up. Eat fruit, nuts, fish, cattle, paper clips, the fear of junior developers
etc etc. If you only eat loads of cheap mislabelled fish then the problems
warned in this story might come true but who really does that?

I buy whole breams once a month or so and with some greens on the side I
consider it a completely healthy (and delicious) meal.

I grew up eating crabs and lobsters weekly and it didn't kill me.

What's the case here?

~~~
scottLobster
Honestly I'm so tired of the latest "hey, there's potentially _nasty-sounding
stuff_ in _common food category_ that could possibly _do vague bad things_
under _vague unspecified circumstance_ , so stop eating it!"

From all the blogs about various pesticides, pollution, feed issues, animal
cruelty, we might as well just go back to sustenance farming and grow/raise
our own... oh wait we can't do that because fracking and industrial soil
pollution! You can't trust your back yard! /rolls eyes

So much of online "health advice" is a series of micro-optimizations at best.

~~~
TeMPOraL
My rule of thumb is: if the _common food category_ was really as bad as they
say, you'd see people eating it dropping like flies, and the _nasty-sounding
stuff_ would become a public health emergency.

~~~
manmal
Well, cancer incidents have been rising for decades now, so all that stuff
might just be killing us slowly.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
People also live longer on average, thus increasing chances of getting cancer.
Sure, young people get it and there are stories of tumors through time - but
age is a defining risk factor.

~~~
noam87
People really need to stop regurgitating this red herring argument (pun
intended): cancer rates are increasing _by age group_.

Colorectal cancers in young people have increased 40% in just 16 years.
Melanoma rates in young people have increased 250% in four decades.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
Skin cancer has risen. It started about the 20's when vacationing and getting
tan on vacation (to show off money) became popular - and rose more with the
popularity of tanning beds. The conspiracy theory states it jumped upon the
introduction of the FM band, but I'm guessing that is just coincidence.

Colorectal cancers would increase because detection has increased. It became
fairly popular to get a probe done at a certain age. I seriously can't give
these sorts of numbers credit, just like having a percieved increase in autism
after including more folks in it and having better screening and awareness.

~~~
noam87
Incorrect, the rates are rising among young people:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/well/live/colon-and-
recta...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/well/live/colon-and-rectal-
cancers-rising-in-young-people.html)

Why do some people insist on rationalizing these trends away?

~~~
Broken_Hippo
I do stand corrected on colon cancer.

However, I stand by my general stance. Many cancers simply wouldn't show up in
a population with a much shorter life expectancy. I'm not about to say it
isn't partially environment or lifestyle (other things do cause cancer), just
that we notice because of our life span and ability to detect these. I get
this from articles like the one listed at the end, which states: _The main
reason cancer risk overall is rising is because of our increasing lifespan.
And the researchers behind these new statistics reckon that about two-thirds
of the increase is due to longevity._ Colon cancer seems to be an outlier, and
there are a couple of these. Cervical cancer is caused by a very common virus
and often affects younger women, just to give another example.

[http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/02/04/why-
are-c...](http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/02/04/why-are-cancer-
rates-increasing/)

------
ivan_ah
Related, this video on youtube which made me not want to eat fish anymore:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH6wH1dqbwc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH6wH1dqbwc)
WTF?!

~~~
scottLobster
You realize that's specifically talking about farmed Norwegian Salmon and not
all fish everywhere, right?

~~~
houst0n_
Farmed salmon is really fucked up. We used to catch ones which broke out from
freshwater farms (mostly accidentally) and depending on the time of year the
flesh would be grey (they feed dyed meal before they go to market) and they
all had weird extra fins and deformities..

I'll eat it, I know where it comes from at least though.

~~~
Turing_Machine
All salmon flesh is naturally pale in color (look at their close relatives the
freshwater trout).

The pink or red color you see in some wild-caught fish is from carotenoid
pigments in the krill they consume (or that has been consumed by other
creatures that are then consumed by the salmon).

The farm-raised fish are given the exact same pigments before they are sent to
market.

There are reasons to avoid farmed fish, but the color isn't one of them.

~~~
houst0n_
Well, where ever they get it seeing salmon you catch that isn't pale pink but
grey is disturbing and not something which would occur naturally.

I fly fished wild salmon since I was in my early teens and they were always
pink. We stole enough fish from the fishfarms to see a difference (either grey
or insanely over coloured) ;)

I think maybe Pacific salmon are different to the kind we get in Scotland
though? Ours only spawn once and they don't eat when they're back in
freshwater (as a consequence the tail end of the fishing season is horrible;
black skinny things that fall apart when you touch em)

~~~
Turing_Machine
Only Atlantic salmon are farmed in the United States and Europe. There's some
farming of Pacific salmon in Chile and New Zealand, but overall it's a
rounding error compared to the amount of farmed Atlantic salmon.

Most salmon (Atlantic or Pacific) only spawn once and then die, but
occasionally an Atlantic salmon will survive to make another trip.

There's really no hard and fast distinction between what's called a "salmon"
and what's called a "trout", other than salmon typically spending time at sea.
For example, _Oncorhynchus mykiss_ is called a "rainbow trout" if it remains
in freshwater its entire life. It naturally has pale flesh (though farmed
rainbow is often given the same pigments as the farmed salmon). If it spends
time at sea, the exact same fish is called a "steelhead" (occasionally, a
"steelhead salmon") and has red or pink flesh.

A near-relative, _Oncorhynchus nerka_ , is called the "red salmon" or "sockeye
salmon"if it spends time at sea, but "kokanee", "kokanee trout" or "silver
trout" if it remains landlocked.

And so on.

------
glaberficken
When I read these types of articles and the myriad of "studies" that come out
daily, I always think there's really only one way to eat as healthy as
possible for the typical "urban westerner" \- To eat a bit of everything, no
big rules, or removing any specific food from your diet. Just integrate lots
of variety and never get accustomed to consume too much of anything.

Include the notion of not being loyal to brands or geographic origin.

Examples: Don't eat too much tuna, but when you buy tuna always buy a
different brand/type. When you buy meat, don't always eat beef or pork,
alternate, and choose from different brands suppliers. Same with vegetables,
etc.

By all means avoid sugar added / too much processed foods, I think these 2
points are above reasonable doubt today.

It's a real luxury and privilege to have access to the variety of foods we
enjoy today, we should exploit it more IMHO.

~~~
taneq
This makes me think of that 'antifragile' principle. Sounds like a good idea.

------
jroblak
It's hard to take something like this seriously when it spends 3 (large)
paragraphs scare mongering about the fact that fish "may" contain plastics,
only to end with:

>> Even though current research shows we do not absorb most plastics, it’s
possible that a small amount (about 1 percent) can still accumulate in our
bodies over time. That number might change: research on microplastics in our
food is still in its infancy, and while some studies have documented the
detrimental effects of plastics on fish and other aquatic animals, we still
don’t know much about their long-term effects on humans.

So, all current scientific evidence points to this not being a problem. But it
_might_ _maybe_ _someday_!

edit - I've also never heard of any food safety guidelines that specify
different storage temperatures for different species of fish. The whole thing
is pretty suspect.

~~~
deno
> So, all current scientific evidence points to this not being a problem.

Do you mean our _lack_ of current scientific evidence? The fact that we have
_no idea_ about long term effects of ingesting those plastics should be
alarming enough.

I didn’t sign up to be a guinea pig for this experiment. Thanks to this
article at least I know I’m part of one.

------
didibus
Labeling is a major issue for all products, but I have to say, I think he'd
stop eating everything else he's eating if he was also a scientist in touch
with their production.

The food we eat is mass produced, we should assume very low quality and
environmental sustainability.

Now, should I stop eating fish? Nothing was proven a health concern, what's
the effect of the small plastic I'll ingest through fish?

Most studies I've seen on health correlate healthy individuals with eating
fish. Now, those are probably a few years or decade old, is fish worse today?
I think it's still inconclusive.

~~~
houst0n_
Right! How many places did you work that made you vow to never use after
seeing behind the curtain?

We live in happy ignorance of the horrible shit in most of our food but we
have pretty reasonable controls that none of it is complete poison.

------
lomereiter
I treat fish with much suspicion after reading (ZeroMQ author) Pieter
Hintjens' opinion, which is based on similar reasoning:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11626182](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11626182)

~~~
pm90
To be fair, it seems like he's making a case against eating sushi, and not all
fish in general. But yes, good point.

------
jnordwick
This again. There are a few good takedowns of the Oceana report and how even
the seemingly modest 20% is vastly exaggerated for click bait reasons. Even
The Huffington Post attacked it, not exactly a site known to go easy on
businesses:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tamar-haspel/mislabeled-
fish_b...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tamar-haspel/mislabeled-
fish_b_2759879.html)

I can't find it, but there is an even better article that explains how the US
fishing industry got Congress to make imported fish be called something else
so they wouldn't be seem as competition. Can't find that though.

------
mark_l_watson
That is my understanding also. That said, I have started eating fish again on
the advice of my doctor: I have been on the Eat to Live diet (no red meat,
little meat in general, no dairy, no sugar that is not in whole fruit, lots of
seeds and nuts). My doctor likes the diet but asked me to add two servings a
week of oily fish high in omega 3. Expensive, but there are a few brands of
Norwegian sardines packed in water that taste good to me.

I won't eat fish in a restaurant or from a grocery store chain.

~~~
Mendenhall
Not sure if you have access to a good place that smokes fish but you may want
to give it a try. I really enjoy it and find my body craves the oil. Smoked
lake trout is my favorite because its very oily and to me tastes delicious. It
can be a little salty though if you have to watch your salt intake.

You can get it with head on and skin so you can tell what kind it is. Also if
you ever do try it, try to get a whole one smoked with bone in. Something
about leaving the bone in makes it have a slightly different texture and
taste, to me at least.

One other thing is make sure its smoked well, meaning if it isnt smoked long
enough it can be too moist. I wouldnt want anyone to try it and sort of get a
soggy smoked fish lol. Nothing "wrong" with it but I think its better eating.

Edit..person who posted about smoked sardines just made me so hungry! never
had em and its going on list, thanks for suggestion!

~~~
mercer
> One other thing is make sure its smoked well, meaning if it isnt smoked long
> enough it can be too moist. I wouldnt want anyone to try it and sort of get
> a soggy smoked fish lol. Nothing "wrong" with it but I think its better
> eating.

Would you say that this applies to smoked eel as well? It's always quite moist
when I buy it and while I love it, now I'm curious if it could be even better.

~~~
Mendenhall
In my experience smoking it longer dries out almost every meat. I notice
smoked fish is not like steaks where "well done" "rare" etc are sort of
standard. It took me a fair amount of years before I found my fave smoked fish
place because of those difference.

I think this thread prompted me to buy a smoker and start learning to do it
myself.

~~~
mercer
That sounds like a great hobby to have :).

------
birksherty
Here in India we eat mainly river fish, not seafood. So, does it also have the
same issues?

------
psyc
Health-wise, I'm unable to summon the tiniest bit of concern about anything in
this article. Naturally the environmental situation with the ocean blows.

~~~
goatlover
Looks like we and the rest of life on earth is just going to have to evolve to
tolerate plastic in our systems.

------
paulcole
Rather than handwringing over what meat it is OK to eat, just don't eat meat.

~~~
paulddraper
Meat has all essential amino acids, has Vitamin B12, can be minimally
processed, is the only food source of creatine. Plus, we've been omnivores for
millions of years.

The empirical health benefits of vegetarianism vanish once you control for
health-consciousness.

Trying to paint some bleak health picture on all meats is plain FUD.

~~~
miles
After watching "What the Health"[1], it seems like there is no small amount of
FUD coming from the meat industry. And the long-term health benefits of plant-
based diets are well-established[2,3,4,5].

[1]
[https://vimeo.com/ondemand/whatthehealth/203617202](https://vimeo.com/ondemand/whatthehealth/203617202)

[2] Vegetarians less likely to develop cancer than meat eaters, says study
[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/jul/01/vegetarians-...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/jul/01/vegetarians-
blood-cancer-diet-risk)

[3] Vegans live longer than those who eat meat or eggs, research finds - Every
three per cent increase in calories from plant protein was found to reduce
risk of death by 10 per cent [http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-
and-families/...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-
families/health-news/vegan-meat-life-expectancy-eggs-dairy-
research-a7168036.html)

[4] 16 Studies on Vegan Diets – Do They Really Work?
[https://authoritynutrition.com/vegan-diet-
studies/](https://authoritynutrition.com/vegan-diet-studies/)

[5] How Not To Die: The Role of Diet in Preventing, Arresting, and Reversing
Our Top 15 Killers
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXXXygDRyBU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXXXygDRyBU)

~~~
krastanov
I do not necessarily disagree with your claims, but few people will take you
seriously if your sources are a sensationalist newspaper and youtube. Even the
nutritionist's blog in not particularly reliable, given how poor replication
is in this discipline.

Also, OP made a specific claim about controlling for health-conscious behavior
that is not countered here.

~~~
matt4077
The Guardian article links to the paper, which has this in the introduction:

    
    
        Relative risks (RRs) were estimated by Cox regression,    
        stratified by sex and recruitment protocol and adjusted 
        for age, smoking, alcohol, body mass index, physical 
        activity level and, for women only, parity and oral 
        contraceptive use.
    
    

I wouldn't disagree that there's still a lot of uncertainty, but at least for
cancer, I'd bet on a small but significant effect. Anyway: what is pretty much
proven is that living like a vegetarian is quite beneficial. You can probably
even continue eating meat.

(One possibly life-prolonging behaviour observed more in vegetarians: not
considering the Guardian to be a 'sensationalist' newspaper)

------
exodust
Microbeads get a small mention yet they went viral, with a clambering of
global policies and government bans; and endless industry activity in
response.

Now you can't buy Nivea face wash for example, with these beads. Their R&D
team came up with a replacement, done and dusted by the end of 2015.

Change happens rapidly when reputation and sales are on the line.

------
erikpukinskis
If anyone wants to skip over the veganism, and the locavore and the organic
and the ecovore and all of that, it's going to come down to this:

You should only eat animal products that came from your pets, i.e. you observe
their lives, empathize with what's happening to them, and take responsibility*
for their subjective experience.

Beyond that, on the cosmic scale, it doesn't matter what your practices are.
We can disagree about what constitutes a subjectively good experience for a
chicken or a fish. Future generations will disagree on those things too. They
won't judge you for where your empathy steers you, but they will judge you for
opting out of the responsibility.

If you want to pay someone to take care of "your" pets, that's fine too, but
they're just your employee. You can leave your dog with the dogsitter, but
you're still responsible for their care. The same is true of chicken you eat.
You're still the CEO in that interaction, and still responsible for the life
of the animal, so due diligence is necessary.

Ecological care, health, animal welfare, labor welfare, all of these things
naturally shake out empathy and responsibility.

Vegans will be looked down on the same as meat eaters, because they are not
taking responsibility for animal welfare either. They use "vegan" as a proxy
for "humane" but it's not good enough. It's better than a meat eater who is
absconding responsibility, but not as good as a meat eater who is taking
responsibility. The vegan myth is that it's possible to produce food with no
animal impacts.

"Don't eat fish" or "Eat local" or "Don't eat animal products" all suffer the
same fate: they're rough heuristics in a process where we need actual
responsibility. Before computers it was too hard to actually understand what
was happening to your "pets" or where your "vegetables" were coming from but
now that we have computers we can do it.

~~~
tao_oat
I don't understand the argument that opting out of using animal products is
avoiding responsibility. Isn't that equivalent to saying that by boycotting
sweatshop products we aren't taking responsibility? Are you arguing that we
should work within the system?

> Vegans will be looked down on the same as meat eaters, because they are not
> taking responsibility for animal welfare either.

Vegans aren't interested in animal welfare in the way we usually think of it,
i.e. in terms of bigger cages, access to fresh air, etc. Vegans are interested
in animal rights as in not using animals at all. It might not be possible to
product food without hurting some animals, but there's a moral difference
between accidentally and intentionally hurting someone.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Vegetable farming kills animals outright and displaces others. It's often a
smaller number than the animals killed and displaced for animal products, but
not always. Veganism is about keeping your body "pure", it's not actually
about doing a real accounting of your relationship with the animals in the
ecology that feeds you. At best it's a rough heuristic for "low animal
cruelty", but it's rough enough that e.g. many hunters have lower animal
impacts than the standard vegan diet, despite outright murdering animals.

How many fieldmice do you have to maim for it to be considered equivalent to a
quick death for a deer, after a happy, wild life, in a region where that
animal was effectively torturing other animals through overgrazing? How many
rivers can you dam, destroying entire ecologies, before it's equivalent to
someone taking care of a pig like it's their own child for a year and then
bopping them on the head and slitting their throat before the pig knows what's
happening?

Certain vegan products constitute outright animal torture. Palm oil from
burning orangutan habitat is the classic example. How is torturing orangutans
to get palm oil better than killing a deer who is torturing other deer?

Veganism is appealing to people who want to pretend that violence doesn't
happen. But violence is an inevitable part of ecologies functioning. Consuming
calories is violence, despite what it might feel like in the supermarket. The
best we can do is deliberate respectful violence in place of unnecessary
violence (torture).

------
amelius
How dangerous is it to ingest microplastics? Isn't this stuff just coming out
the rear end completely unprocessed?

~~~
singularity2001
it also acts as a sponge for toxins.

can microplastics pass membranes or get stuck?

------
partycoder
Too late now.

We have created an incredible dependency on fish:

\- "Fishmeal", fish based product fed to animals.

\- "Fish emulsion", fish oil used as fertilizer for our crops. Yes, your
vegeterian meal might not be vegan.

\- Fish fed to other animals including other fish

\- Fish, fish that we eat

------
mirimir
If you're going to eat meat, fish has the least ecological impact. That is, if
it's produced in systems that don't trash natural ecosystems. Or use wild-
caught fish as food. The point is that fish, being ectotherms, don't waste
energy keeping warm.

~~~
Johnny_Brahms
Populations of commercially-important species are only about 50% of he size
they were 100 years ago. And, i shit you not: that is a rather conservative
estimate.

Don't take my work for it. The most cited number is 10%.

And farmed fish are wreaking havoc in the local marine environment wherever
they are. Most countries have laws protecting water from "overnutrition"
(which kills most marine life) yet the farmed fishing industry seems largely
exempt from those laws. Outside my home town of 100.000 inhabitants they just
opened a new salmon farm that lets out as much nitrogen into the water as
would the whole town's sewer system if we just dumped it all at sea.

Fish might be sustainable from a co2(e) point of view, but most fisheries and
fish farms are not.

~~~
mirimir
Yeah, I get that. That's why I added the proviso about ecosystem damage. I'm
talking about designed ecosystems that process human waste into soil, plants,
fish, and finally potable water.

------
dorfsmay
This both interesting and depressing.

When I grew up cod was a "love it or hate it" thing, because of it's strong
taste. Nowadays, cod means some white flaky texture with no taste.

------
hd4
>The Case Against Eating Fish

>thewalrus.ca

It's the little things.

------
drewjaja
And here I am trying to eat less meat and more seafood thinking it's more
healthier.

------
jondubois
I think that this problem probably isn't just restricted to fish. I think if
you dug deep into any kind of food, you would find similar issues.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
By what mechanism would it get into other foods?

------
sunstone
Ok admittedly I'm a Costco fan boy but I only buy fish from there because I
believe their supply lines are more trustworthy.

------
noir-york
I just had an awesome monkfish with scallops for dinner last night. And
earlier this week a John Dory. And they were great!

But then again, I don't order fish from any restaurant, but go to a fishing
village and the restaurants there show you the fresh fish for you to choose
from. Good fresh fish is not cheap.

I cannot understand why the writer, a scientist, engages in scaremongering
instead of presenting a holistic picture. A dinner of fresh fish paired with
an excellent white wine makes for a healthy and very enjoyable evening.

~~~
knocte
You clearly didn't read the article.

~~~
milesrout
Insinuating someone didn't read the article is against the guidelines of HN.

------
isaac_is_goat
Oh look - another item on my list of justifications for my vegan diet. Nice.

------
DodgyEggplant
We are destroying the planet

