Sport Tuna

[HibsMax]

I love tuna (in brine). I eat it straight out the can with nothing added except on the rare occassion that I shake in some hot sauce to spice things up a little. One can of tuna provides approximately 32.5g of protein, no carbs and pretty much no fat. I have some tri-o-plex multigrain protein bars (30g protein) but I find it a lot easier to stuff down a can (or two) of tuna.

So where's the catch? There's always a catch when something seems to good to be true. I don't like shakes and bars and those sorts of things as they seem so far away from real food that I don't really enjoy drinking / eating them. I don't have much of a sweet tooth anyway - still waiting on some high protein soup to hit the shelves.

On a related note, I read about some people's diets and they talk of 5-6 meals a day. I'm wondering what constitutes a meal. If I have two cans of tuna that's 65g of protein and 300 calories - that doesn't seem much to me. Am I selling myself short though? If I have two cans of tuna in the afternoon, should I be calling that "a meal"?

Thanks, Max

 

[malkore]

The catch is that tuna has mercury in it, like many fish.

If you're eating chunk light tuna, you need to limit it to 5 cans per week.
if its white albacore tuna, you need to limit to 3 cans per week.

do some googling for more info on fish induced mercury poisoning for additional info.

 

[HibsMax]

I'm eating chunk light tuna. I actually did do a little tuna research tuna before posting here and found one . Perhaps I wasn't looking at the most objective place; I mean, how unbiased can the US Tuna Foundation really be? Their reports state that there aren't any concerns with mercury and canned tuna (August 2005 was the last update).

I shall look around to get other points of view because I think I eat quite a lot, or at least I have been recently. No more than 2 cans a day and I usually none on the weekend.

I do most of the cooking at home and my wife doesn't / won't eat fish so that kinda puts a wrench in the works (unless I want to cook two different meals every night - I don't by the way). Everything else is either chicken, 96% lean beef (ground). Sometimes steaks or tips and sometimes pork loin. I'm not sure how to determine the fat content of meat but I pick lean looking cuts but not so lean that it has no taste.

I just want to make sure that I don't grow gills.

Cheers, Max

EDIT: I checked out some other sites, WebMD in particular, and found a lot of information. It seems that the people most at risk from mercury are:
* Women who may become pregnant
* Pregnant women
* Nursing mothers
* Young children

I also found a site detailing a whole bunch of other reasons not to eat tuna e.g. farming, slaughtering of dolphins, etc. but that wasn't really the kind of info I was looking for. No definitive evidence saying "you can eat X cans of tuna per week" but I think I might cut back a bit until I can learn more.

 

[malkore]

I know the mineral selenium has a big part to due with mercury toxicity...like it may bond to selenium and get excreted or something.

I read a great write up once, i think over at the WannaBeBig forums, and that's where I got those # of cans per week figures.