Tuesday, October 17, 2006

File this under: Seafood, government knowledge of

It turns out that seafood is fine to eat. This is a change from the stance that seafood shouldn't be consumed since it might contain unsafe levels of mercury, which was itself a change to the fact that fish is low in fat and so we should eat a lot of it, which, in turn, was a change in the fact that we shouldn't consume fish because...

Anyhow, you get the gist. A couple of choice lines:

"Even so, the government needs to help consumers figure out which seafood is safer, an Institute report said."

"Environmental and conservation groups said it should have listed 'good fish' and 'bad fish,' which the researchers said would be too difficult."

"They seem to be unaware that children are smaller than adults..."

And the coup de grace...

"In all seafood, levels of dioxin, PCBs and other contaminants do not pose health risks when eaten in government-recommended amounts."

Do you believe there exist people that actually adjust their food consumption according to government recommendations? Would these be the same people that check the Homeland Security terrorism level before they leave the house in the morning? The major impact of government food guidelines in my life is that until the FDA says raw spinach won't unleash hordes of predatory E. coli into society, our local Subway won't carry any. I'd imagine public schools have to follow some sort of health pointers as well-- just so long as there's no peanut butter.

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