You Can't Eat Fish Anymore

When I was in elementary school, I remember reading a story about some futuristic time period. People had to wear gas masks to go outside due to the excessive pollution. I believe one of the highlights for the kid in the story was going to a museum/park to actually see real live trees and play without a gas mask on.

Such stories serve as warnings, but most of us see them as being exaggerated, worst-case-scenario portraits that are unlikely to happen. Or maybe that are a prediction for an era several generations in the future.

If we look around, however, we can see all sorts of immense compromises we have made to live in a world that is already excessively polluted.

Folks, we can’t eat fish anymore. Did you hear the news? The FDA advises that pregnant women or young children shouldn’t eat more than 12 oz a week of what…? Plastic? Tin cans? Car bumpers? No: FISH. All fish. Everywhere. Lobster, shrimp--them too. If they're in the water, they're on the list. There is not a fish on this planet that doesn’t carry around mercury or other toxins as a result of swimming in our collective dumping ground. And don’t get me started on farm raised, they are probably worse. My medication is safer for pregnant women than . . . fish.

If its that bad for pregnant women and youngsters, you might want to ask yourself if its really all that safe for the rest of us.

Its actually good to reduce fish consumption anyway, since our oceans, rivers and lakes are so catastrophically over-fished that we are pushing some of our favorite species to extinction--not to mention destroying entire ecosystems, which is tragic for many reasons not the least of which is the contribution to global warming.

If it weren’t for the toxins and the over-fishing, I would most assuredly recommend fish as one of nature’s wonder foods. I can’t now. Some wild caught salmon every once in a while and I’m done. Things our ancestors took for granted we need to avoid.

We are an adaptable species, and sometimes our ability to adapt doesn’t serve us. We get used to things that we shouldn’t get used to.

Did you also notice that we can’t drink the water anymore?