Too much tuna?

Options
I've been eating canned tuna a LOT since starting the calorie counting! Not just canned tuna, but sardines, salmon, canned chicken breast etc... The high protein but low calorie content really appeals to me and many cans will often be eaten a week.

Would this be terribly bad for me? I'm a uni student so canned food is usually all I can afford eating with my schedule. Are there any health concerns to be worried about with canned tuna?

Replies

  • stephb130181
    stephb130181 Posts: 56 Member
    Options
    I'd be interested to find out the answer to this too as I have pretty much had Tuna every week day for lunch with salad. Not sure why, just can't get enough.
  • cwoyto123
    cwoyto123 Posts: 308
    Options
    Unless you're eating 10+ cans of tuna literally everyday, do not worry about it.
  • feherd
    feherd Posts: 34 Member
    Options
    I also eat tuna at least 5 days out of the week. Sometimes 6. It's just so good. An old co-worker used to tell me I was going to get mercury poisoning. We'll see.... haha
  • Dragonwolf
    Dragonwolf Posts: 5,600 Member
    Options
    When it comes to fish, the biggest concern is usually mercury, and the rule of thumb is the higher on the food chain they are, the less and less frequent you should eat it, due to the compounding effect of mercury ingestion by everything below the fish in question on the food chain.

    That said, the mercury content of canned tuna is usually pretty minimal due to the type and age usually used for canned. Different species of tuna have different levels of mercury, so it might be a good idea to see what kind you get (white vs albacore vs yellowfin) and try to stick with the kind with the least amount of mercury.

    Any of the small fish that you eat whole, such as sardines and mackerel, don't contain much, if any mercury at all, because they eat things like plankton. The same goes with salmon.

    Here's a list of the relative mercury levels in fish - http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/mercury/guide.asp

    The other concern with canned foods in general is the BPA content in the lining used by many canned good manufacturers (most cans are lined with a thin coat of plastic to keep the integrity of the metal can and keep it from leeching into the food, but the BPA can also leech into it). There's some evidence that it can cause a number of pretty nasty effects on the body (endocrine disruption, neurological damage, thyroid dysfunction, cancers, and a few others), but the other concern there, too, is that BPA substitutes haven't been studied at all yet (they're simply too new for the most part) and their effects (particularly long term) are very much unknown. So, in that regard, you'll need to use your own judgement on it.

    If you're concerned about it, you could consider canning on your own. There are a couple of glass canning jar manufacturers out there, which bypasses the whole thing altogether (using glass means no need for liners, and glass doesn't leech). If you live in a dorm, you could make trips to your parents' house (or a friend's or whatever) every so often and can up a big batch of stuff to take back. That has the added bonus of being able to control what goes into the food and getting higher quality food, among other things.

    Here's some more info on the studied health effects - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A#Health_effects

    As for the foods themselves, aside from the above, there's nothing really inherently bad about them, even from eating them a lot. Just make sure you're getting plenty of fats and enough calories in general to fuel your day. The body doesn't do well living on protein alone.
  • ageeeboro
    ageeeboro Posts: 9
    Options
    I see.. Thanks for the advice!!
  • Shropshire1959
    Shropshire1959 Posts: 982 Member
    Options
    It's only terrible for the Tuna population :-p
  • Phrick
    Phrick Posts: 2,765 Member
    Options
    When it comes to fish, the biggest concern is usually mercury, and the rule of thumb is the higher on the food chain they are, the less and less frequent you should eat it, due to the compounding effect of mercury ingestion by everything below the fish in question on the food chain.

    That said, the mercury content of canned tuna is usually pretty minimal due to the type and age usually used for canned. Different species of tuna have different levels of mercury, so it might be a good idea to see what kind you get (white vs albacore vs yellowfin) and try to stick with the kind with the least amount of mercury.

    Any of the small fish that you eat whole, such as sardines and mackerel, don't contain much, if any mercury at all, because they eat things like plankton. The same goes with salmon.

    Here's a list of the relative mercury levels in fish - http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/mercury/guide.asp

    The other concern with canned foods in general is the BPA content in the lining used by many canned good manufacturers (most cans are lined with a thin coat of plastic to keep the integrity of the metal can and keep it from leeching into the food, but the BPA can also leech into it). There's some evidence that it can cause a number of pretty nasty effects on the body (endocrine disruption, neurological damage, thyroid dysfunction, cancers, and a few others), but the other concern there, too, is that BPA substitutes haven't been studied at all yet (they're simply too new for the most part) and their effects (particularly long term) are very much unknown. So, in that regard, you'll need to use your own judgement on it.

    If you're concerned about it, you could consider canning on your own. There are a couple of glass canning jar manufacturers out there, which bypasses the whole thing altogether (using glass means no need for liners, and glass doesn't leech). If you live in a dorm, you could make trips to your parents' house (or a friend's or whatever) every so often and can up a big batch of stuff to take back. That has the added bonus of being able to control what goes into the food and getting higher quality food, among other things.

    Here's some more info on the studied health effects - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A#Health_effects

    As for the foods themselves, aside from the above, there's nothing really inherently bad about them, even from eating them a lot. Just make sure you're getting plenty of fats and enough calories in general to fuel your day. The body doesn't do well living on protein alone.

    thank you so much for this. I recently discovered that tuna is awesome (after avoiding it for like 12 years because of a bad experience when I was pregnant :laugh:) but I have fear-mongers in my life who had me concerned that I was eating too much. This pretty much lays that to rest :)