Buying & Cooking Fish Safely: Tips and Tricks
If you don’t choose the right fish and prepare it in the right way, you’re consuming far more toxins than nutrients!
Eating fish has numerous health benefits because it is high in omega-3 fatty acids, minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, iron, zinc, magnesium, and vitamins such as D and B2. But you have to be very cautious when selecting the fish from market.
Why?? Because of the increased marine pollution.
The land is responsible for 80% of marine pollution.
Some of the major facts associated with marine pollution include the discharge of untreated sewage, land runoff, industrial chemicals, ship pollution, oil spills, and plastics. As a result, you must be wise when consuming any seafood, including fish.
In this article, I’ll show you 06 essential tips for buying and preparing fish.
First, let’s look at how to choose the right fish.
01.Avoid mercury-contaminated fish
Almost every fish, to some extent, is contaminated with mercury.
This mercury accumulates in the muscle tissues of fish.
Cooking has no effect on the mercury content of foods.
So, what are our options?
The only thing you can do is limit your exposure to mercury through fish.
To begin, you must consider buying less mercury-contaminated fish. When compared to small and young fish, large and longer-lived fish are thought to be highly contaminated with mercury.
As a result, you have a choice between them.
There are also highly mercury-contaminated fish types listed.
It’s preferable if you can avoid them.
Some of the most common mercury-contaminated fish are shark, swordfish, fresh tuna, marlin, king mackerel, and tilefish.
02.Avoid histamine-rich fish
Have you ever experienced facial flushing, sweating, nausea, vomiting, headaches, or rashes after eating fish? If so, you may be suffering from scombroid poisoning.
It is caused by high histamine levels found in certain types of fish.
The most common fish-related illness in the world is scombroid poisoning.
As a result, you must take it seriously.
You must be aware of this because most poisonings occur as a result of ignorance.
When histidine is broken down by a specific bacterium, histamine is produced.
When cooking, heat can inactivate this enzyme and bacteria.
However, heating or freezing will not inactivate or destroy the already produced histamine in food.
The only way to avoid high levels of histamine entering your body is to limit your exposure to histamine-rich fish. Tuna, mackerel, marlin, bonito, and skipjack are some of the fish you could avoid.
Now let’s see how to prepare the fish you bought in the right way.
03. Take out the guts!
When it comes to marine pollution, microplastics are a major concern.
The majority of these microplastics become attached to and accumulate in the gastrointestinal tract, or simply in the gut of fish.
As a result, before cooking any fish, you need to remove the gut.
04. Before you cook, remove all these parts
There are significant areas in fish where the majority of the harmful substances accumulate.
They must be removed prior to cooking.
As a result, you can get rid of a lot of toxins.
In this case, you must remove the skin, fatty parts, tail, fins, and all internal organs, including the intestines. Make sure to use correct type of sharp blade knives for the work, to make it much easier.
Simply put, it is preferable to consume only the flesh.
05. Do not use these in your soups or stews!
People sometimes remove the skin, inner organs, fatty parts, and other parts of fish and save them to use later in soups, stews, or other similar recipes.
Never, ever do that again.
Those parts should be removed and not eaten because they are the primary sites where toxins accumulate in fish. Also, do not use the juices drained from cooked fish or the broth used to cook fish in any other soup or stew.
They may contain various toxic substances that have been drained from fish.
It’s preferable if you can cook the fish in a way that allows the juices to drain or in a broth.
So, you can remove them later.
06. Cook in high temperatures
High temperatures can destroy harmful compounds, bacteria, and pathogens.
One of the best examples is something I mentioned earlier in this article.
The enzyme and bacteria responsible for histamine production in fish are inactivated by high temperatures.
So, stick to fish recipes that call for relatively high temperatures and cooking times.
Disclaimer: “This article may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Thank you!”
You don’t have to be afraid of eating fish if you know what to buy and how to cook it.
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