Fish (food)

Fish served with vegetables and herbs.

Fish is a food consumed by many species, including humans. The word "fish" refers to both the animal and to the food prepared from it. Fish has been an important source of protein for humans throughout recorded history.

The term "fish"

Some languages distinguish between fish as an animal and the food prepared from it. For example, the Spanish language distinguishes pez (the animal) from pescado (the food). However other languages, such as English or French, do not make this distinction, and the same word used to refer to a live fish in the ocean is also used to refer to food prepared from it. In English this applies also to pork and beef but not to chicken.

The modern English word for fish comes from the Old English word 'fisc' (plural: fiscas), which was pronounced as it is today.

Nutrition

Fried fish and chips in San Diego.

Fish, especially saltwater fish, is high in omega 3 fatty acids, which are heart-friendly, and a regular diet of fish is highly recommended by nutritionists.^[1] This is conjectured to be one of the major causes of reduced risk for cardiovascular diseases in the Inuit. It has been suggested that the longer lifespan of Japanese and Nordic populations may be partially due to their higher consumption of fish and seafood. The Mediterranean diet is likewise based on a rich intake of fish. Nutritionists recommend that fish be eaten at least 2-3 times a week.

Health hazards

Fish are the most common food to obstruct the airway and cause choking. Fish was responsible for about 4,500 accidents in the UK in 1998.^[2]

Mercury

Fish products have been shown to contain varying amounts of heavy metals, particularly mercury and fat-soluble pollutants from water pollution. According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the risk from mercury by eating fish and shellfish is not a health concern for most people.^[3] However, certain seafood contains sufficient mercury to harm an unborn baby or young child's developing nervous system. The FDA makes three recommendations for child-bearing women and young children:

1. Do not eat shark, swordfish, king mackerel, or tilefish because they contain high levels of mercury.
2. Eat up to 12 ounces (2 average meals) a week of a variety of fish and shellfish that are lower in mercury. Four of the most commonly eaten fish that are low in mercury are canned light tuna, salmon, pollock, and catfish. Another commonly eaten fish, albacore ("white tuna") has more mercury than canned light tuna. So, when choosing your two meals of fish and shellfish, you may eat up to 6 ounces (one average meal) of albacore tuna per week.
3. Check local advisories about the safety of fish caught by family and friends in your local lakes, rivers, and coastal areas. If no advice is available, eat up to 6 ounces (one average meal) per week of fish you catch from local waters, but don't consume any other fish during that week.

These recommendations are also advised when feeding fish and shellfish to young children, but in smaller portions.^[3]

Poisoning

Some species of fish, notably the puffer fugu used for sushi, and some kinds of shellfish, can cause severe poisoning if not prepared properly. Particularly, fugu has a lethal dose of tetrodotoxin in its internal organs and must be prepared by a licensed fugu chef who has passed the national examination in Japan.

Parasites

Differential symptoms of parasite infections by raw fish. All have gastrointestinal, but otherwise distinct, symptoms. ^{[4][5] [6][7]}

Parasites in fish are a natural occurrence and common. Though not a health concern in thoroughly cooked fish, parasites are a concern when consumers eat raw or lightly preserved fish such as sashimi, sushi, ceviche, and gravlax. The popularity of such raw fish dishes makes it important for consumers to be aware of this risk. Raw fish should be frozen to an internal temperature of −20°C (−4°F) for at least 7 days to kill parasites. It is important to be aware that home freezers may not be cold enough to kill parasites.^[8][9]

Traditionally, fish that live all or part of their lives in fresh water were considered unsuitable for sashimi due to the possibility of parasites (see Sashimi article). Parasitic infections from freshwater fish are a serious problem in some parts of the world, particularly Southeast Asia. Fish that spend part of their life cycle in brackish or freshwater, like salmon are a particular problem. A study in Seattle, Washington showed that 100% of wild salmon had roundworm larvae capable of infecting people. In the same study farm raised salmon did not have any roundworm larvae.^[10]

Parasite infection by raw fish is rare in the developed world (fewer than 40^[11] cases per year in the U.S.), and involves mainly three kinds of parasites: Clonorchis sinensis (a trematode/fluke), Anisakis (a nematode/roundworm) and Diphyllobothrium (a cestode/tapeworm).^[11] Infection risk of anisakis is particularly higher in fishes which may live in a river such as salmon (shake) in Salmonidae, mackerel (saba). Such parasite infections can generally be avoided by boiling, burning, preserving in salt or vinegar, or freezing overnight. Even Japanese people never eat raw salmon and ikura, and even if they seem raw, these foods are not raw but are frozen overnight to prevent infections from parasites, particularly anisakis.

PCBs

There are also issues with PCBs.^[12]

Fish and meat

Meat is animal flesh that is used as food.^[13] Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat, but it may also describe other edible organs and tissues.^[13] The term "meat" is used by the meat packing industry in a more restrictive sense—the flesh of mammalian species (pigs, cattle, etc.) raised and prepared for human consumption, to the exclusion of fish and poultry.

Vegetarians don't eat fish, and consider that fish is meat, since it is the flesh of an animal.

However, pescetarians eat fish and other seafood, but not mammals and birds. The Merriam-Webster dictionary dates the origin of the term "pescetarian" to 1993 and defines it to mean: "one whose diet includes fish but no meat."^[14] Pescetarians may consume fish based solely upon the fact that the fish are not factory farmed as land animals are (i.e., their problem is with the capitalist-industrial production of meat, not with the consumption of animal foods themselves).^[15] Some eat fish with the justification that fish have less sophisticated nervous systems than land-dwelling animals. Others may choose to consume only wild fish based upon the lack of confinement, while choosing to not consume fish that have been farmed.

In religion

Religious rites and rituals regarding food also tend to classify the birds of the air and the fish of the sea separately from land-bound mammals. Sea-bound mammals are often treated as fish under religious laws - as in Jewish dietary law, which forbids the eating of whale, dolphin, porpoise, and orca because they are not "fish with fins and scales"; nor, as mammals, do they chew their cud and have cloven hooves, as required by Leviticus 11:9-12. Jewish (kosher) practice treat fish differently from other animal foods. The distinction between fish and "meat" is codified by the Jewish dietary law of kashrut, regarding the mixing of milk and meat, which does not forbid the mixing of milk and fish. Modern Jewish legal practice (halakha) on kashrut classifies the flesh of both mammals and birds as "meat"; fish are considered to be parve, neither meat nor a dairy food.

Seasonal religious prohibitions against eating meat do not usually include fish. For example, non-fish meat was forbidden during Lent and on all Fridays of the year in pre-Vatican II Roman Catholicism, but fish was permitted (as were eggs). (See Fasting in Catholicism.) In Eastern Orthodoxy, fish is permitted on some fast days when other meat is forbidden, but stricter fast days also prohibit fish with spines, while permitting invertebrate seafood such as shrimp and oysters, considering them "fish without blood."

Some Buddhists and Hindus (Brahmins of West Bengal, Orissa and Saraswat Brahmins of the Konkan) abjure meat that is not fish. For hundreds of years before the opening of Japan, most Japanese did not eat meat other than fish. In addition to the fact that Japan is an island nation, this can been seen as a cause of fish being very common in traditional Japanese food. Muslim (halaal) practice also treats fish differently from other animal foods.

Preparation

Seafoods can be prepared in a variety of ways. It can be uncooked (raw) (cf. sashimi). It can be cured by marinating (cf. escabeche), pickling (cf. pickled herring), or smoking (cf. smoked salmon). Or it can be cooked by baking, frying (cf. fish and chips), grilling, poaching (cf. court-bouillon), or steaming. Many of the preservation techniques used in different cultures have since become unnecessary but are still performed for their resulting taste and texture when consumed.

Dishes

See also

Notes

References

External links

• Science Daily Benefits Of Eating Fish Greatly Outweigh The Risks, New Study Says
• Science Daily Experts Say Consumers Can Eat Around Toxins In Fish
• Scientific American Soy and fish protect from cancer: study.

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