Fish and chips with lemon and sauces

Fish is a food consumed by many species, including humans. The word "fish" refers to both the animal and to the food prepared from it. Fish has been an important source of protein for humans throughout recorded history.

Terminology [link]

English does not distinguish between live fish and the food prepared from it as it does for, e.g. 'pig' vs. 'pork':^[1] 'fish' can refer to either. Some other languages do: Spanish peces vs. pescado, and German fisch vs. speisefisch. English also has the term 'seafood', which covers fish and other marine animals used as food.

The modern English word for fish comes from the Old English fisc (plural: fiscas) which was pronounced as it is today.

Nutritional value [link]

Halibut fillet (a whitefish) on top of a salmon fillet (an oily fish)

"Fish provides a good source of high quality protein and contains many vitamins and minerals. It may be classed as either white, oily or shellfish. White fish, such as haddock and seer, contain very little fat (usually less than 1%) whereas oily fish, such as sardines, contain between 10-25%. The latter, as a result of its high fat content, contain a range of fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K) and essential fatty acids, all of which are vital for the healthy functioning of the body. The table opposite illustrates some of the main nutritional differences between oily and white fish."^[2]

Health benefits [link]

Research over the past few decades has shown that the nutrients and minerals in fish, and particularly the omega 3 fatty acids found in pelagic fishes, are heart-friendly and can make improvements in brain development and reproduction. This has highlighted the role for fish in the functionality of the human body.^[3]

Health hazards [link]

Specially prepared dish of the poisonous blowfish fugu, Japan

Fish is the most common food to obstruct the airway and cause choking. Choking on fish was responsible for about reported 4,500 accidents in the UK in 1998.^[4] In addition, fish can also cause poisoning, especially when the fish is caught in polluted areas. There are issues with fish contaminated with heavy metals such as mercury and lead, or by toxic chemicals such as those containing chlorine or bromine, dioxins or PCBs.^[5] Fish that is to be eaten should be caught in unpolluted water. Some organisations such as SeafoodWatch, RIKILT, Environmental Defense Fund, IMARES provide information on species that do not accumulate much toxins/metals.^[6][7][8][9]

Mercury [link]

Fish products have been shown to contain varying amounts of heavy metals, particularly mercury and fat-soluble pollutants from water pollution. According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the risk from mercury by eating fish and shellfish is not a health concern for most people.^[10] However, certain seafood contains sufficient mercury to harm an unborn baby or young child's developing nervous system. The FDA makes three recommendations for child-bearing women and young children:

1. Do not eat shark, swordfish, king mackerel, or tilefish because they contain high levels of mercury.
2. Eat up to 12 ounces (2 average meals) a week of a variety of fish and shellfish that are lower in mercury. Four of the most commonly eaten fish that are low in mercury are canned light tuna, salmon, pollock, and catfish. Another commonly eaten fish, albacore ("white tuna") has more mercury than canned light tuna. So, when choosing your two meals of fish and shellfish, you may eat up to 6 ounces (one average meal) of albacore tuna per week.
3. Check local advisories about the safety of fish caught by family and friends in your local lakes, rivers, and coastal areas. If no advice is available, eat up to 6 ounces (one average meal) per week of fish you catch from local waters, but don't consume any other fish during that week.

These recommendations are also advised when feeding fish and shellfish to young children, but in smaller portions.^[10]

Biotoxins [link]

A lot of fish eat algae and other organisms that contain biotoxins (defensive substances against predators). Biotoxins accumulated in fish/shellfish include brevetoxins, okadaic acid, saxitoxins, ciguatoxin and domoic acid. Except for ciguatoxine, high levels of these toxins are only found in shellfish. Both domoic acid and ciguatoxine can be deadly to humans; the others will only cause diarrhea, dizzyness and a (temporary) feeling of claustrophobia.^[11][12]

Some species of fish, notably the puffer fugu used for sushi, and some kinds of shellfish, can result in serious poisoning if not prepared properly. These fish always contain these poisons as a defense against predators; it is not present due to environmental circumstances. Particularly, fugu has a lethal dose of tetrodotoxin in its internal organs and must be prepared by a licensed fugu chef who has passed the national examination in Japan.

Parasites [link]

Differential symptoms of parasite infections by raw fish. All have gastrointestinal, but otherwise distinct, symptoms.^{[13][14][15][16]}

Parasites in fish are a natural occurrence and common. Though not a health concern in thoroughly cooked fish, parasites are a concern when consumers eat raw or lightly preserved fish such as sashimi, sushi, ceviche, and gravlax. The popularity of such raw fish dishes makes it important for consumers to be aware of this risk. Raw fish should be frozen to an internal temperature of −20°C (−4°F) for at least 7 days to kill parasites. It is important to be aware that home freezers may not be cold enough to kill parasites.^[17][18]

Traditionally, fish that live all or part of their lives in fresh water were considered unsuitable for sashimi due to the possibility of parasites (see Sashimi article). Parasitic infections from freshwater fish are a serious problem in some parts of the world, particularly Southeast Asia^{[citation needed]}. Fish that spend part of their life cycle in brackish or freshwater, like salmon are a particular problem. A study in Seattle, Washington showed that 100% of wild salmon had roundworm larvae capable of infecting people. In the same study farm raised salmon did not have any roundworm larvae.^[19]

Parasite infection by raw fish is rare in the developed world (fewer than 40^[20] cases per year in the U.S.), and involves mainly three kinds of parasites: Clonorchis sinensis (a trematode/fluke), Anisakis (a nematode/roundworm) and Diphyllobothrium (a cestode/tapeworm).^[20] Infection risk of anisakis is particularly higher in fishes which may live in a river such as salmon (sake) in Salmonidae or mackerel (saba). Such parasite infections can generally be avoided by boiling, burning, preserving in salt or vinegar, or freezing overnight. In Japan it is common to eat raw salmon and ikura, but these foods are frozen overnight prior to eating to prevent infections from parasites, particularly anisakis.

Fish and meat [link]

Hawaiian cuisine: Seared ahi and wasabi beurre blanc sauce

Meat is animal flesh that is used as food.^[21] Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat, but it may also describe other edible organs and tissues.^[21] The term "meat" is used by the meat packing industry in a more restrictive sense—the flesh of mammalian species (pigs, cattle, etc.) raised and prepared for human consumption, to the exclusion of fish and poultry.

Vegetarians don't eat fish, and consider that fish is meat, since it is the flesh of an animal.

However, pescetarians eat fish and other seafood, but not mammals and birds. The Merriam-Webster dictionary dates the origin of the term "pescetarian" to 1993 and defines it to mean: "one whose diet includes fish but no meat."^[22] Pescatarians may consume fish based solely upon the idea that the fish are not factory farmed as land animals are (i.e., their problem is with the capitalist-industrial production of meat, not with the consumption of animal foods themselves).^[23] However, this is an incorrect assumption, as fish are often raised in aritifical environments, with the same types of cramped, unnatural, and often unsanitary conditions that land animals are raised in.^[24] Some eat fish with the justification that fish have less sophisticated nervous systems than land-dwelling animals. Others may choose to consume only wild fish based upon the lack of confinement, while choosing to not consume fish that have been farmed.

In religion [link]

Roast fish

Religious rites and rituals regarding food also tend to classify the birds of the air and the fish of the sea separately from land-bound mammals. Sea-bound mammals are often treated as fish under religious laws - as in Jewish dietary law, which forbids the eating of whale, dolphin, porpoise, and orca because they are not "fish with fins and scales"; nor, as mammals, do they chew their cud and have cloven hooves, as required by Leviticus 11:9-12. Jewish (kosher) practice treat fish differently from other animal foods. The distinction between fish and "meat" is codified by the Jewish dietary law of kashrut, regarding the mixing of milk and meat, which does not forbid the mixing of milk and fish. Modern Jewish legal practice (halakha) on kashrut classifies the flesh of both mammals and birds as "meat"; fish are considered to be parve, neither meat nor a dairy food. (The preceding portion refers only to the halakha of Ashkenazi Jews Sephardic Jews do not mix fish with dairy)

Seasonal religious prohibitions against eating meat do not usually include fish. For example, non-fish meat was forbidden during Lent and on all Fridays of the year in pre-Vatican II Roman Catholicism, but fish was permitted (as were eggs). (See Fasting in Catholicism.) In Eastern Orthodoxy, fish is permitted on some fast days when other meat is forbidden, but stricter fast days also prohibit fish with spines, while permitting invertebrate seafood such as shrimp and oysters, considering them "fish without blood."^{[citation needed]}

Some Buddhists and Hindus (Brahmins of West Bengal, Orissa and Saraswat Brahmins of the Konkan) abjure meat that is not fish. Muslim (halaal) practice also treats fish differently from other animal foods, as it can be eaten.

Taboos on eating fish [link]

Among the Somali people, most clans have a taboo against the consumption of fish, and do not intermarry with the few occupational clans that do eat it.^[25][26]

There are taboos on eating fish among many upland pastoralists and agriculturalists (and even some coastal peoples) inhabiting parts of southeastern Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, and northern Tanzania. This is sometimes referred to as the "Cushitic fish-taboo", as Cushitic speakers are believed to have been responsible for the introduction of fish avoidance to East Africa, though not all Cushitic groups avoid fish. The zone of the fish taboo roughly coincides with the area where Cushitic languages are spoken, and as a general rule, speakers of Nilo-Saharan and Semitic languages do not have this taboo, and indeed many are watermen.^[26][27] The few Bantu and Nilotic groups in East Africa that do practice fish avoidance also reside in areas where Cushites appear to have lived in earlier times. Within East Africa, the fish taboo is found no further than Tanzania. This is attributed to the local presence of the tsetse fly and in areas beyond, which likely acted as a barrier to further southern migrations by wandering pastoralists, the principal fish-avoiders. Zambia and Mozambique's Bantus were therefore spared subjugation by pastoral groups, and they consequently nearly all consume fish.^[26]

There is also another center of fish avoidance in Southern Africa, among mainly Bantu speakers. It is not clear whether this disinclination developed independently or whether it was introduced. It is certain, however, that no avoidance of fish occurs among southern Africa's earliest inhabitants, the Khoisan. Nevertheless, since the Bantu of southern Africa also share various cultural traits with the pastoralists further north in East Africa, it is believed that, at an unknown date, the taboo against the consumption of fish was similarly introduced from East Africa by cattle-herding peoples who somehow managed to get their livestock past the aforementioned tsetse fly endemic regions.^[26]

Certain species of fish are also forbidden in Judaism such as the freshwater eel (Anguillidae) and all species of catfish. Although they live in water, they appear to have no fins or scales (except under a microscope) (see Leviticus 11:10-13^[28]). Sunni Muslim laws are more flexible in this and catfish and shark are generally seen as halal as they are special types of fish. Eel is generally considered permissible in the four Sunni madh'hab, but the Ja'fari jurisprudence followed by most Shia Muslims forbids it.^[29][30][31]

Many tribes of the Southwestern United States, including the Navaho, Apache, and Zuñi, have a taboo against fish and other water-related animals, including waterfowl.^[32]

Preparation [link]

A stargazy pie

Seafoods can be prepared in a variety of ways. It can be uncooked (raw) (cf. sashimi). It can be cured by marinating (cf. escabeche), pickling (cf. pickled herring), or smoking (cf. smoked salmon). Or it can be cooked by baking, frying (cf. fish and chips), grilling, poaching (cf. court-bouillon), or steaming. Many of the preservation techniques used in different cultures have since become unnecessary but are still performed for their resulting taste and texture when consumed.

Dishes [link]

See also [link]

Food portal

Notes [link]

References [link]

• Aquamedia, "Consumption of Fishery Products" retrieved from https://www.feap.info/economics/Tradebalance_en.asp on 2007-09-17.
• Tidwell, James H. and Allan, Geoff L., "Fish as food: aquaculture’s contribution Ecological and economic impacts and contributions of fish farming and capture fisheries", 2001-11-15, retrieved from https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1084135 on 2007-09-17.
• University of Michigan Health System, "Fish & Seafood" retrieved from https://www.med.umich.edu/umim/clinical/pyramid/fish.htm on 2007-09-17.
• VegDining.com, "Frequently Asked Questions-Definitions" retrieved from https://www.ivu.org/faq/definitions.html on 2007-09-17.
• The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2000, 2000, retrieved from https://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/3_foodconsumption/en/index5.html on 2007-11-17. World Health Organization.

External links [link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Fish (food) (category)

Wikibooks Cookbook has a recipe/module on Fish

• The Wiktionary entry for meat
• Science Daily Benefits Of Eating Fish Greatly Outweigh The Risks, New Study Says
• Science Daily Experts Say Consumers Can Eat Around Toxins In Fish
• Scientific American Soy and fish protect from cancer: study.
• Seafood Recipes from Gourmet Recipe.

v t e Seafood Fish Fish (food) Anchovy Carp Billfish Catfish Cod Eel Flatfish Flounder Herring Mackerel Salmon Sardine Shark Sturgeon Tilapia Trout Tuna Whitebait Shellfish Abalone Cockles Crab Crayfish Krill Lobster Mussels Oysters Scallops Shrimp and prawn Sea urchins Crustaceans Molluscs Other seafood Edible seaweed Jellyfish Octopus Sea cucumbers Squid (food) Sea vegetables Algae List of seafoods more... Processed seafood Caviar Dried fish Canned fish Fermented fish Fish fillet Fish head Fish oil Fish sauce Fish paste Fish steak Fish stock Lutefisk Salted fish Shrimp paste Smoked fish Stockfish Surimi Roe more... Seafood dishes Bisque Chowder Fish and chips Fish pie Fish soup Fried fish Raw fish Seafood boil Shark fin soup Sushi more... Advisory services Seafood mislabeling Sustainable seafood Sustainable seafood advisory lists and certification Other topics Ciguatera Diseases and parasites in fish Eating live seafood Fish preservation Fish processing History of seafood History of sushi Mercury in fish Pain in fish Pain in crustaceans Salmon cannery Scombroid food poisoning Seafood allergy Shark finning Shellfish poisoning Umami

v t e Fisheries and fishing topic areas Fisheries Fisheries science Wild fisheries Fish farming Aquaculture Fish diversity Fish diseases Fisheries management Fishing quota Sustainability Fishing Fisherman Artisan fishing Fishing villages Fishing vessels Fishing history Industrial Commercial fishing Processing Products Seafood Marketing Markets Recreational Angling Game fishing Fly fishing Catch and release Techniques Gathering Spearfishing Line fishing Netting Trawling Trapping Other Tackle Hook Line Sinker Rod Bait Lures Artificial flies Bite alarms Locations Fishing by country Fishing villages Fishing banks Fish ponds Marine habitats Index of fishing articles List of fishing topics by subject Fisheries glossary