Americans receive mixed messages about the safety of seafood, and a lack of knowledge is preventing them from consuming more fish, said Linda O’Dierno, outreach specialist for the National Aquaculture Association, at the World Aquaculture Society’s Aquaculture 2010 conference in San Diego on Thursday.
O’Dierno participated in a seminar titled, “Demystifying seafood for the public: Overcoming the confusion and misinformation.” The seminar also feature Gary Fornshell of the University of Idaho and Katie Semon of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s FishWatch program.
“Why is seafood always such a target? Part of it is the variety of federal agencies and state agencies that are involved, NGOs with agendas, competition for the resource with sport fishing — most products don’t have to deal with all that,” explained O’Dierno. “And seafood has a greater resonance with the public. People get sick, they go to the emergency room and they say, ‘Well, I ate shrimp last week, so it must have been that.’ People think seafood is a danger.”
It’s not a danger, said O’Dierno, and part of the reason why consumers are skeptical about seafood is sensationalism in the mainstream media. She cited a headline from the CBC titled, “Study confirms farmed salmon more toxic than wild.”
“‘Confirm’ is a very strong word. It makes you think this is true no matter what. With the word ‘toxic’ you think, ‘I ate salmon last week and I’m going to fall over dead,’” she said. “The headlines are always sensational because it’s what resonates with the public.”
Consumers also possess a “set of personal beliefs” about seafood, and often it’s challenging to show them that their misperceptions are, in fact, misperceptions.
“There’s a great divide between risk assessment, which is a function of accurate — and I emphasize the word ‘accurate’ — interpretation of scientific data, and risk perception, which is the function of the media in concert with personal biases,” explained O’Dierno. “So a lot of what you’re taking from the media is sensationalized. You have your own set of personal beliefs, and that combination gives you a perception of what’s a risk.”
Agenda-driven scientists and the mainstream media often play the numbers game when seafood-related studies are published, and, as a result, consumers perceive that they’re at a greater risk of illness than they really are. For example, 700 parts per trillion sounds like it’s greater than 0.7 parts per billion or 0.007 parts per million, even though they’re the same amount.
“How is the contaminant burden reported?” asked O’Dierno. “This is something you really have to watch in studies. What they often do is report contaminants in parts per trillion, because that gives you a much bigger number than parts per billion or parts per million. So you have to look at how the data is reported so you can interpret it [accurately].
“Is it whole fish? A lot of these studies take the whole fish and measure the entire contaminant burden. So you’re picking up the contaminants in the internal organs and skin, so the levels are going to be higher,” she added. “In this country, most people want boneless fillets. That’s what we consume, so that’s really what we have to be concerned about. Is the fish cooked? If you’re dealing with an organic pollutant, they’re often in the fatty tissues. I’ve done some studies with bluefish. If you take the skin off, the dark meat off and broil it so the fat drips away, you can reduce any potential contaminant levels by as much as 50 percent.”
Consumers are also easily confused by consumption advisories such as the 2004 Food and Drug Administration-Environmental Protection Agency methylmercury advisory, which warns pregnant and nursing women and young children to avoid eating swordfish, shark, king mackerel and tilefish and limit consumption of albacore tuna due to the health risks associated with the neurotoxin. But is the advisory doing more harm than good?
“If there is an advisory, not only does the target audience but others stop eating fish, and that’s really bad for our health as a nation. We need to have more seafood in our diets if we want to [prevent] certain diseases,” said O’Dierno.
“Everyone always says we’re eating more seafood because we’re concerned about health,” she added. “But we’re on a flat line at about 16 pounds per capita per year. We’re down there with turkey, and we don’t even have our own national holiday. So we could be getting people to eat more fish.
“We need to educate people,” she urged. “That’s basically what this boils down to.”
