If you're pregnant, can the tuna

Many of us rely on the news to help us make decisions about what to buy and feed our families. But sometimes what seems to be good info from an authoritative-sounding source can be dead wrong. A recent advisory by the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition encourages pregnant women not to cut back on fish, indicating that a little bit of mercury isn’t a problem because the benefits of eating omega-3 fatty acids for healthy brain development outweigh the risks of brain damage from mercury. But that advice counters what many doctors, government agencies, and consumer groups advise.

Hidden agenda?
So what’s up with the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition? Turns out that the National Fisheries Institute, a fish-industry trade group, paid honoraria to an outside group of experts, who came up with the advice. Organizations that purport to serve the public but are backed by industry groups have been muddying the information pool for decades. The Center for Media and Democracy has been following these organizations.At Sourcewatch.org, its Web site, you’ll find lots of examples, like the Center for Consumer Freedom. Backed by the food industry, the group rails against any actions to combat obesity or smoking in public places.

What to do
While accepting industry money may not be proof positive of a hidden agenda, it’s a conflict of interest for a “consumer” group and should make you think twice about any advice.When it comes to eating fish, we recommend that pregnant women skip seafood with high levels of mercury like tuna and swordfish to lower risks to the developing fetus. And if you’re planning to become pregnant, cut back. For starters, don’t eat more than three cans of chunk light tuna a week. And avoid albacore, which tends to be even higher in mercury. Many women of childbearing age already have borderline high levels of mercury in their bodies so there’s no sense in adding to it, especially since you can get the nutrients you need without consuming mercury-laden fish. And the next time you hear any fishy advice, do some fishing around to find out whom it’s really benefiting; it may not be you.

—Urvashi Rangan, PhD., director of GreenerChoices.org.

Dr. Rangan's blog appears courtesy of ShopSmart magazine.