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You Caught It - Now, Can You Eat It?
Advice about Safe Consumption of Fish
The Minnesota Department of Health has produced an excellent brochure that describes why it is necessary to be careful eating fish, and offers some guidelines as to amounts and frequency of eating fish, particularly for women who are or may become pregnant, and for children.
The brochure points out that fish are an excellent food: they're a great source of protein, vitamins, and minerals, are low in saturated fat, and may help prevent heart disease. The problem is mercury. Even the most pristine Minnesota lakes receive mercury from air pollution (the result of coal combustion, mining, etc.). Prolonged exposure to mercury can damage your kidneys and your nervous system, cause tingling, prickling, or numbness in hands and feet or changes in vision, and may increase the risk of cancer.
The Health Department suggests the following rules:
- Eat smaller, younger fish.
- Eat more panfish (sunfish, crappies) and fewer predator fish (walleyes, northern pike, lake trout).
- Trim skin and fat, especially belly fat, and eat fewer fatty fish (carp, catfish, and lake trout.)
Then, more specifically, the Department offers guidelines for two groups of people:
A. Guidelines for Women Who are Pregnant or May Become Pregnant, and Children Under Age 15: |
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| Kind of Fish You Eat | How Often Can You Eat It? |
|---|---|
| Fish Caught in Minnesota: Sunfish, Crappie, yellow perch, bullheads |
1 meal per week |
| Walleyes, shorter than 20 inches, northern pike shorter than 30 inches, small- or large-mouth bass, channel catfish, flathead catfish, white sucker, drum burbot, sauger, carp, lake trout, white bass, rock bass, whitefish | 1 meal per month |
| Walleyes longer than 20 inches, northern pike longer than 30 inches, muskellunge | DO NOT EAT. |
| Commercial Fish: Shark, swordfish, tile fish, king mackerel |
DO NOT EAT. |
| Other commercial species, including canned tuna | See MDH Brochure, "An Expectant Mother's Guide to Eating Minnesota Fish" |
| Note: These guidelines apply even if eating fish just during a vacation or for just one season. | |
B. Guidelines for Men, and for Women Not Planning to Become Pregnant. |
|
| Kind of Fish You Eat | How Often Can You Eat It? |
| Fish Caught in Minnesota: Sunfish, Crappie, yellow perch, bullheads |
Unlimited Amount |
| Walleyes, northern pike, small- or large-mouth bass, channel catfish, flathead catfish, white sucker, drum, burbot, sauger, carp, lake trout, white bass, rock bass, whitefish, other | 1 meal per week |
| Commercial Fish: Limit the following species: shark, swordfish, tile fish, king mackerel |
1 meal per month |
| Note: In general, adults who eat fish just during vacation or one season can eat fish twice as often as recommended in these guidelines. | |
