There has been a lot of chatter in the foodsphere since Consumer Reports last published its findings about heavy metals in canned tuna. The news is bad and getting worse. But researchers may have discovered a solution to the problem…
A classic Subway Tuna Salad Sub. Soon to be ‘safe’ again?
Unsafe at any ‘dose’…
Consumer Reports last published a comprehensive focus feature on the lead problem two years ago this month. That would usually be considered ‘old news’, today. Except that nothing has changed about how heavy metals get into the oceans and, from there into the fish and seafood we eat.
According the preamble to that article, “Cheap, convenient, and full of protein and essential omega-3 fatty acids, canned tuna is a classic staple in kitchen cabinets, delis, and school lunchboxes across the country.”
“About a third of Americans eat it two or more times a month, according to a November 2022 nation-ally representative Consumer Reports survey (PDF) of 2,185 U.S. adults,” the story continues. “And about 10 percent eat it at least once a week.”
“But tuna, like many other types of fish, often contains mercury, which can be toxic to adults and is of particular concern to children, infants, and, especially, pregnant people.”
‘Getting the lead out’
Now, research team from Sweden has come up with a new approach to limiting the amount of mer-cury consumers receive from canned tuna. It’s actually the reverse of the way the heavy metals get into the tunas’ systems in the first place. They’ve found an agent that draws the mercury out of tuna right in the can.
It’s a simple matter, they say, of adding a little (1.2 percent) cysteine to a water-based packing so-lution. Cysteine is an amino acid that bio-actively literally sucks the mercury out of the fish.
The scientists, “tested whole pieces of fresh and canned tuna, minced canned tuna, and steamed tuna, and found the highest value of mercury reduction at 35 percent when testing canned minced tuna, which it purchased from a [regular] grocery store,” the study report recorded.
As of publication of the report, no serious side effects from the cysteine had been reported.
“This method has the potential to enable the application of effective active packaging strategies, thereby increasing the safety of fish products for consumption.”
My take
A reduction of 35 percent is nothing sneeze at! And on top of that, the cost to implement the cysteine ‘solution’ would be minimal. Just drop a small sachet of the compound in each can at filling time.
“The beauty of this type of packaging is that it is active while the product is on the shelf. No addi-tional production steps would be needed if a method like this were used industrially,” Przemysław Strachowski, the first author of the study, observed.
The only drawback to this exciting development is that it may take months or even years to get it approved by all the regulatory and safety agencies that must sign off on it before treated products can be sold to the public.
Nevertheless…
The wheels are already turning. And we can look forward to the day that we no longer have to worry about the mercury content of canned tuna.
Then… It will just be the sushi enthusiasts and the foodies who love fresh tuna steaks and fillets who will have to make the hard decisions whether to partake or not. On the other hand, by there may be another, parallel development that can remove some or all of the mercury from fresh tuna the way cysteine works on canned fish.
~ Maggie J.