In June 2014, FDA and EPA issued a draft of a new advisory suggesting that pregnant women eat at least 8 ounces and as many as 12 ounces per week of fish that are low in mercury. They also recommended limiting consumption of albacore tuna by pregnant women to 6 ounces a week and said that women and children should follow advisories from local
For those who are generally healthy and want to stay that way, I think reducing omega-6 consumption and eating a moderate amount of oily fish (2-3 6 oz. portions per week) is the best choice. This will get you plenty of EPA & DHA along with high quality protein, selenium and vitamin D.
Moonfish -- once a week at most. Orange roughy -- avoid. Oyster -- once a week at most. Perch, freshwater -- once a week at most. Perch, ocean -- once a week at most. Perch, saltwater -- once a week at most. Pollock -- once a week at most. Red snapper -- once a week at most. Sablefish -- once a week at most.
You should, however, limit your intake to eating seafood that is high in mercury to only one or two meals per week. If you want to eat seafood more regularly, choose those containing little or no mercury. To get technical, you should keep your mercury levels to 1 part per million (ppm) per week.
The reason is that sardines are small and only eat plankton and not mercury-contaminated fish. They are short-lived, so mercury does not have time to build up in their flesh. The FDA recommends a weekly intake of two to three servings of sardines, or 8 to 12 ounces for adults and 4 to 6 ounces for children age 4 to 7.
Instead, the new recommendations simply state that pregnant women should eat 8–12 ounces of fish per week, rather than stating that pregnant women should limit their fish intake to 12 ounces a week.
A healthy diet should include at least 2 portions of fish a week. Most of us are not eating that much. For example, the American Heart Association (AHA) recommends that you limit your intake of fatty fish to no more than 2 ounces (50g) per day. (ACS) also recommends limiting your fish intake to less than 1 ounce (28g), and the National Cancer
Children are also encouraged to eat two servings per week of these fish. (Servings differ by age. For example, one serving for children ages 1 to 3 is 1 oz, while one serving is 2 oz for ages 4 to 7.)
There is no specific recommendation regarding how regularly we should offer fish to babies and toddlers. However, for most of the population the fish recommendations suggest that we should be eating two portions of fish a week, one of which should be oily. Around 140g counts as a portion of oily fish for adults and those over 12 years of age.
