Should I Worry about Mercury?

When people think about fish and its effects on their health, at the top of their list of concerns is mercury. How much should you worry about it? How much is too much? We want you to feel at ease when you dine on our seafood at our Lynnwood sushi restaurant, so to that end we offer the following:

Mercury is hard to avoid. It occurs naturally, with more of it released into the atmosphere every year from the Earth itself than from human pollutants. It finds its way into sea plants, which are eaten by small fish, which are eaten by larger fish, and so on. The question should therefore not be how can you avoid mercury entirely, but rather how can you limit your intake and counter the harmful effects associated with it.

The good news is that most fish feature a mercury level of between 0.01 ppm to 0.5 ppm, well below the FDA minimum safety level of 1 ppm. This minimum safety level by itself is a conservative allowance, being well below the level present in fish that have historically been found to cause mercury poisoning. Meanwhile, many seafoods have been found to boast properties that counteract the negative impacts of mercury and purge such toxins from the body. The net result is widely considered to be beneficial for your body.