Suck it Mercury

Mercury really pisses me off.

I say this because ever since I was old enough to understand the concept of healthy food, I've never really been able to find any that I actually like. Steamed vegetables of any kind? Nope. Lean meats? Eh... And I think I'd prefer most prison food to trying quinoa again. Most of my favorite foods involve cheese, butter, dough, breading, deep frying, or some heavenly combination of all of these things.

Because of this, tuna seemed like a pretty good start for me. I can't eat it plain, but I'd graduated to eating it with that made-from-plant-sterols omega-3-enriched mayo that only has like four grams of fat per serving. Slap that on some wheat bread with lettuce and tomato and I thought I was doing pretty well for myself.

Not so, says the MAN. Or in this case, the FDA and Consumer Reports. Because of some stupid heavy metal, apparently tuna is one of those things that I should generally try to avoid, just like everything else I like. And to add major insult to injury here, the recommended kind is the "Chunk Light" tuna, otherwise known as the gross ass tuna. For years I didn't understand why I always hated tuna I made at home out of a can, since I was pretty positive they used canned stuff at every restaurant. I always thought I didn't have the mayo ratio right, because it always tasted really fishy (and yes, I realize how ironic that sounds), but I later found out it's because the white albacore kind is the good tasting one, and I just never knew this because it was the almost-a-whole-dollar-more kind that my mom was too cheap to buy.

Also, if you're eating tuna, that means you have to limit the other fish that you eat. So when I'm debating whether to make a box of macaroni and cheese and a hot dog or a grilled fish fillet, they're saying I had better avoid the fish. AND apparently lobster can be very high in mercury. I finally seem to have grown out of my shellfish allergy and now they're telling me I can't eat lobster, those dicks.

The most annoying part of all of this is the reason I'm not supposed to eat it is not really because it might hurt me, but because I'm a "Woman of Childbearing Age," the logic being that mercury stays in the body, and, at 24, I could be producing a little fucker at any time. My thought on this is that if I do get pregnant any time soon, I'm going to have a lot bigger problems than worrying about how much fish I've eaten. In addition, I really only care about myself.

The bottom line of course is that I'm not going to pay any more attention to this dietary restriction than I do to the restriction that one should probably eat mozzarella sticks exactly never. But it just pisses me off that mercury had to go and ruin the one healthy food that I actually enjoy. Thanks a lot, pollution.