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As many people will already know, eating fish, especially oily fish, can be beneficial to health. Many of the oils can help reduce the likelihood of heart disease, decrease cholesterol, heal dry skin, and a whole host of other ailments. But can eating fish also be harmful?
One obvious way in which eating fish can be detrimental to your health is if it is prepared incorrectly. Undercooked, it will lead to severe food poisoning, which can be fatal, or if prepared using very fatty sauces or when deep fried, what started as a healthy meal quickly becomes very unhealthy.
Another, less avoidable health hazard is water pollution. Unfortunately many of the bodies of water where the fish we eat come from have been polluted over the years, and this of course leads to much of the fish and seafood we eat being contaminated with various intoxicants.
One of the main pollutants to be found in fish is mercury. High levels of mercury in your system can lead to impaiment of vision, weakness, short term memory loss and in severe cases mental illness.
Health problems caused by mercury depend on how much has entered your body, how it entered your body, how long you have been exposed to it, and how your body responds to the mercury.
There are of course other sources of the health giving oils found in fish, either from supplements or from such foods as free range eggs, walnuts, flax seeds and some grass fed beef.
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Alan McColm is QFOL's Restaurant Critic and Travel reviewer. Alan is working all over the country ... more
