Fish Benefits Hard To Find

I recently read a blog post extolling the benefits of eating fish, despite concerns of mercury toxicity. The blogger claimed the risk to be minimal to most people, except for maybe pregnant women and extremely young children. He indicated benefits from eating fish far outweighed risks of toxicity which could result, and recommended everyone eat fish 2-3 times per week for the ultimate benefit 

Toxicity aside, the blog post left me wondering only one thing: How in the world can we still assume there to be enough fish in the sea for every man woman and child to consume it multiple times per week?

Beyond what can happen to our bodies, we cannot, we must not make our health choices in opposition to what supports and nourishes us.  For too long, we have put our needs for “nutrition” and “food” ahead of huge warnings about the ability of the world oceans to support our increasing consumption.  Mercury or not, if we fish the oceans until they die, we too will perish  Most recent estimates of fish populations have put population decline at 90%!  This, the result of habitat destruction, overfishing and toxicity.

In Chinese Medicine, we speak of the relationship between our bodies and the world we inhabit.  Ancient writings speak of a macrocosm/microcosm relationship between humans and their environment.  Illustrating the absence of separation in what happens within and around us.  This and other traditional medicines have shown that patterns we find in nature we also can find in ourselves.  Consequently, what we do to nature, we ultimately do to ourselves.

From 1990 to 2007 data comparing Ash tree death was compared to deaths from respiratory illness in CantonMI. What resulted was a clear association between Ash die off and incidence and death due to significant respiratory illness.  We cannot dismiss the inherent links between us and the environment we live in.  Some events will be random, but others we have significant power to change, and the death of our oceans is one we can impact.

Fish population decline is one of thousands of track-able natural events occurring worldwide right now.  As the study in Canton shows, these events are associated with human change, and our health is directly impacted by changes in nature.  Therefore, we must adjust our actions whenever possible to support the ability of other life forms to thrive.  In the case of fish, non-consumption is the only way to recover world populations and avert a collapse of disastrous proportions.  The classical writings of Chinese Medicine speak to the inherent balance between us and nature and the observable interplay therein.  Furthermore, it is often remarked how human disease and earth disharmony are linked to intangible and profound ways, leaving the advice to try at all times to live in harmony with the world around and within, lest imbalance prompt disaster.