Activists Want Tuna Taken Off School Lunch Menus After Mercury Levels Discovered to Be Bonkers
LatestOut of all the foods that could be full of neurotoxins and dolphin ghosts—why does it always have to be tuna? Delicious, delicious tuna. Tuna is a wonder-food that comes either in a can or in a fish. The canned kind is cheap, and is where tuna melts come from, which makes it a national treasure. The fish kind is expensive, and is where sushi comes from, which makes me hungry right now. But, of course, this being the cruel practical joke known as “human existence,” we probably shouldn’t be eating either of them if we care at all about sustainable fisheries, dolphin murder, general ecologic collapse, and not ingesting large amounts of brain poison. Ugh. Under particular fire right now: canned tuna in school lunchrooms.
Consumer activist groups are looking to take tuna off of school lunch menus, citing wildly variable (and potentially unsafe) mercury levels in tests of canned tuna. The Vermont-based Mercury Policy Project tested 59 samples and found that while some were similar to the findings of previous FDA tests, certain samples far exceeded federal guidelines:
The levels of methylmercury were in general close to previous tests done by the Food and Drug Administration. However, levels of mercury varied widely, even from the same can or pouch. The average methylmercury content ranged from 0.02 to 0.64 parts per million in light tuna and between 0.19 and 1.27 parts per million in albacore tuna.
“On any given day in a given school, children eating the same meal could get mercury doses that vary by tenfold,” just because of the variability of the chunk of meat in the packet,” says Edward Groth, author of the report, released Wednesday. It was sponsored by several groups, including the Center for Science in the Public Interest and Physicians for Social Responsibility.
But, I mean, it tastes good, right? I don’t taste any mercury. What’s the worst that can happen—I turn into the Mad Hatter and get to have a hilarious tea party with a talking mouse (and unlimited tuna sandwiches!!!) until the end of time? That dude seems pretty happy—and he’s famous.