Eating Fish Skin : Healthy Or Hazardous?

This is probably a controversial issue. I used to love eating deep fried super crispy salmon skin. That’s until I read that salmon, and all big fish from deep seas are probably tainted with mercury. I discourage my kids from eating fish skin but sometimes I get lambasted for doing so! Oh well, it’s better to be safe than sorry. The big C is just too scary for me to deal with.

Food For Thought:
Both the skin and fat of fish collect toxins that accumulate in the waters of rivers, streams and oceans. These contaminants can also be found in the flesh of fish but not always at levels as concentrated as they are in the skin and fat. For that reason, eating the skin of the fish is not considered healthy. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advises consumers to remove the skin, fat and internal organs before cooking fish that they’ve caught in the wild. (If you buy a whole fish at a market, it generally comes scaled and gutted.) However, the EPA warns that mercury is found throughout the tissue of fish, so removing the skin and fat won’t help you avoid that problem.

Mercury and PFOS cannot be removed through cooking or cleaning — they get into the flesh of the fish. However, you can reduce the amount of other contaminants like PCBs by removing fat when you clean and cook fish.

Food Safety Tips On Eating Fish From The Minnesota Department of Health:

Remove the skin, cut away the fat along the back, trim off the belly fat, cut away the fatty area along the side of the fish.

Remember the following tips when eating fish:

1. Eat smaller fish.

2. Eat more panfish (sunfish, crappies) and fewer predator fish (walleyes, northern pike, lake trout).

3. Trim skin and fat, especially belly fat. Also, eat fewer fatty fish such as carp, catfish, and lake trout. PCBs build up in fish fat.

What about you? Do you eat fish skin?

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2 Responses

  1. Chris says:

    The skin is the best part!! I don’t get fish very often, maybe couple of times a month. I do occasionally buy those fish skin chips ( I think from Taiwan) and eat with lemon juice or vinegar chili sauce. A guilty pleasure!

  2. shireen says:

    Chris, moderation is the key. Eating fish a couple of times in a month shd be A OK 🙂

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