Get the Health Benefits of Fish Without the Toxic Mercury

. . .  with cooking and green tea.

Wild fish are chock full of healthy omega 3 fats; unfortunately they're also usually chock full of toxic mercury. But here's some great news from researchers at the University of Montreal. They discovered that cooking fish and consuming it along with coffee or tea reduces the mercury that gets into your system to almost negligible amounts!

Using laboratory techniques that simulate digestion, these scientists tested three kinds of fish (tuna, shark and mackerel) raw, boiled or fried. Compared with raw, boiling reduced mercury bioaccessibility by 40%; frying by 60%. In separate experiments they combined the fish with black coffee or black or green tea. All three beverages lowered mercury bioaccessibility by 50-60%. The combined effect of cooking and coffee or tea ingestion reduced bioaccessibility to extremely low levels.

Here's another reason to add green tea to your healthy lifestyle -- a far healthier choice than either coffee or black tea. Antioxidant and anti-inflammatory phytonutrients in green tea, and in its even healthier cousin, white tea (which should have the same effect on mercury in fish) protect you against aging and every kind of chronic degenerative disease.

Just make sure you get high-quality tea. Unfortunately tea plants absorb fluoride more readily than any other type of vegetation. The best tea is guaranteed to be lowest in fluoride and highest in phytonutrients; these are the guarantees that come with our green and white teas. Our flavorful teas are also great for taking a moment to relax in your busy day.

Ouedraogo O. Effects of various cooking methods and food components on bioaccessibility of mercury from fish. Environmental Research.November 2011;111(8):1064-1068.