Fish+and+Mercury

"Yum! I like fish! Let's go to Red Lobster, Long John Silvers, or some other fish restaurant!" said Billy Bob-Joe-Bill-Ben-Gus. "No, Billy Bob-Joe-Bill-Ben-Gus, my son," said Miss Bob-Joe-Bill-Ben-Gus, "you'll get food poisoning because fish have high amounts of mercury! "Actually Miss Bob-Joe-Bill-Ben-Gus, only certain fish have high amounts of mercury, and just eating those a few times won't kill your son, Billy Bob-Joe-Bill-Ben-Gus." "Who are you?" asked Miss Bob-Joe-Bill-Ben-Gus. "I am Dr. Cakabadaba and I'm here to tell you and your son Billy Bob-Joe-Bill-Ben-Gus all about mercury in fish! Just sit down, relax and listen to my boring lecture, Miss Bob-Joe-Bill-Ben-Gus!"

Some Facts about Fish Mercury
 * Some fish with high amounts of mercury are Shark, Swordfish, King Mackerel, and Tilefish because they contain high levels of mercury - other fish, not so much. In 2003, the California government required supermarkets to tell customers about mercury levels in these fish.
 * Five of the most commonly eaten fish that are low in mercury are shrimp, canned light tuna, salmon, pollock, and catfish.
 * Fried and Fast food fish sticks and products are usually low in mercury.
 * One in six children are exposed to unsafe mercury levels while in their mothers womb. This can cause short-term memory loss and learning disabilities!

How do Fish Get mercury? Mercury is both naturally occuring and comes from factories. Smoke from factories goes into the atmosphere (full of mercury), and eventually gets rained into the ocean. Small organisms eat this, small fish eat these small organisms, taking in the mercury, bigger fish eat these smaller fish getting even more mercury, etc. Basically, don't eat huge fish.

Conclusion Symptoms include lack of coordination and speech/vision/hearing impairment. The effects depend on the dose though. Also, being over a year old, unless you eat sharks 3 meals a day, your unlikely to die of mercury poisoning. It's true fish have higher amounts of mercury than other animals, but they won't kill you... It's a myth. If you think about it your chance of eating food poisoning or rotten food is more of a concern! **Don't worry about dieing! Miss Bob-Joe-Bill-Ben-Gus is not a good source of information!**

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