Several weeks ago the FDA agreed with the EPA and now recommends that all pregnant women avoid fish as up to 10 percent of them have high enough mercury levels to cause neurodevelopmental defects in their children.

Mercury is a poison and needs to be avoided. The same report made it very clear that most of the mercury we have in our bodies is indeed from fish.

Again, I am not saying that this justifies putting silver fillings in your mouth. Mercury silver fillings are toxic and ideally should never be placed in anyone’s mouth. However, more people suffer from the mercury from fish than the mercury from their fillings.

Last year I was contacted by a fisherman from Alaska who said that the salmon he offered was free of mercury and other toxins, was not farm-raised but caught in the wild using conscientious "sustainable harvesting" techniques, and contained no contained no artificial chemicals like the coloring agents discussed above. He was particularly compelled to contact me with this information, he said, after hearing me recommend avoiding all fish because dangerous levels of mercury were showing up in all types from all sources--farmed, ocean and freshwater.

Naturally I was very skeptical about the "mercury-free" claim, but he even flew all the way here to Chicago to convince me to give his salmon a try. I had one of my team-members order some of the salmon independently, and then we sent it out to an professional lab to get tested for mercury and a host of other toxins.

While I awaited the results, my staff and I tried the various cuts of wild red Alaskan salmon this fisherman's company offered--filets, smoked, lox and more--in various recipes. We all agreed: the salmon was utterly delicious. And so when I got the report back from the lab, I almost fell out of my chair with excitement--the salmon was also indeed free of harmful mercury and the other toxins, as this Alaskan fisherman had claimed.

And so this Vital Choice brand salmon is the only fish that I eat now. It comes from cold, pristine and very select waters up in Alaska, and has a firmer texture and better flavor--and is of course much safer-- than the salmon you'll find in grocery stores. Of course it's very high in omega-3 that will help prevent disease, optimize weight and live longer, and its a good source of protein. Find out more about Vital Choice salmon, and consider trying some today.

Another cost-effective solution to get the omega-3 with the essential DHA and EPA fatty acids found in fish that your body needs--but which most people are seriously deficient in, increasing their risks for disease and more--would be to routinely use fish oil. This is the time of the year when most everyone should be taking fish oil rather than cod liver oil due to the high vitamin D levels in cod liver oil that are unnecessary in warmer months. Fortunately, this is the first summer that we offer liquid fish oil from Carlson’s.

Last year we had to rely on using fish oil capsules. I had initially recommended fish oil capsules from Costco, particularly motivated by their low price, but when I started to see my patients and I both not benefitting, and in fact regressing on these capsules--check out my article, "I Now Advise Against Costco Fish Oil Capsules, Urge Caution with Other Brands"--I stopped recommending the Costco capsules.

I had used the Carlson's brand of fish oil prior to the trial with the Costco fish oil capsules and seen outstanding results, with patients and myself (click on the story in the paragraph above for details), and then saw those same great results when I switched back to Carlson's from the Costco.

But the issue was, the Carlson's brand of liquid fish oil--that can be poured onto a spoon--was difficult to find. One primary advantage of the liquid over capsule form is cost-effectiveness: you can take just one to three teaspoons instead of swallowing five to 15 giant pills. Another advantage is the liquid is easier to swallow than 15 pills. Because the Carlson's brand of fish oil had proved itself over a long period of time, I was determined to find a way to make it more widely available. Through the efforts of my fantastic team, we were finally able to work out a distribution agreement with a reliable source late last year, and now offer the Carlson's fish oil direct to you.

The Carlson brand is the best that I know of. Many health food stores carry their cod liver oil, but very few carry their liquid fish oil. So if you can’t find it at your local health food store, you can easily order it in our store.

As I said last year when I commented on farmed fish:

Well, for all of you who want to have the health benefits of fish, you can be assured that nearly all of the restaurants that serve you fish are serving you farm-raised fish.

This is the first good reference I have found to what the fish are actually eating. When you eat a farm-raised fish, you are nearly eating the same type of meal as eating beef. The fat content of the fish can be no different from what they are fed.

As the above article states, these fish are fed corn meal, soy and canola oil. When the fish are fed these foods, the concentration of their fats turns far away from the ideal, beneficial 3:1 omega-6 to omega-3 ratio to a ratio far closer to the 20:1 found in commercially-raised beef.

One way to improve your omega 6:3 ratio is to change the type of meat you are eating. Since I can't recommend fish due to their high levels of mercury and other toxins these days, the best meats are those raised primarily or entirely on grass diets. Nearly all cattle found in grocery stores and restaurants are grain-fed before slaughter, so if you eat this type of beef, it will typically worsen you omega 6:omega 3 ratio.

Though it may sound unusual to some, two of the best meats on the planet--in terms of nutrition value and their incredible taste--are bison and ostrich. And on Mercola.com, I offer bison meat and our exclusive omega-3-rich ostrich meat, both of which are free-ranged, fed primarily grass/alfalfa diets, and contain no antibiotics or steroids. Whether from my site or elsewhere, I urge you to try bison and ostrich.

You can also consume a more "gamey" meat like venison, or try grass-fed beef, which I also highly recommend on Mercola.com. The grass-fed beef I recommend is even higher in omega-3 than fish, with a 6:3 ratio of 0.16 to 1 (this information is from a study done at Iowa State University in August 2001). It is still hard to find in grocery stores, however, and unlike bison and ostrich--which both taste like prime beef--some find the taste of grass-fed beef too lean.

Related Articles:

Why You Should Be Concerned About Eating Salmon

Mercury In Your Fish

Learn How Mercury Is Affecting You and the Ones You Love

Where's the Real Beef?