Busting Fish Myths with Jeff More

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Welcome to the Virgin Diet lifestyle show with your host, celebrity nutrition and fitness expert and New York Times best selling author, JJ Virgin.

Today we're talking myths, fish myths, that is. And I am with the fish guru from Wild Things Seafood. You didn't know you were the fish guru? I'd like. I was gonna call you Fish King.

I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Okay, so Jeff Moore. Jeff Moore, fish guru, is with me today and we are chatting outside about like all the crazy things we've heard about fish. And I was like, oh, that's not true. That's not true. That's not true. So this is going to be enlightening for all of us and I'm going to just, I'm just going to play myself here because again, you were like bringing them up and I was like naming myth after myth that I thought was right. Oh, yikes. All right, so myth bust away, buddy. Myth number one, what is it?

Well, I think first to frame this thing that the media does a great job in reporting a lot of things, but they like to, you know, if it bleeds, it leads, or if it's scary, they put it up front. And, you know, we learn a lot from what we read, but at the same time, they will promote and produce and write the things that are scary because we like those better.

Watch them.

We like those better. Right? We want scary and so scare you.

So keep watching.

So, you know, the recent things like Fukushima and people I would be in, you know, getting my hair cut and they're saying, oh, we can't buy any seafood from the Pacific Ocean because of Fukushima. And I'm like, okay, well, the Pacific Ocean is really big and you know, nuclear science and I don't want to get into all that, but there's really not a problem. Well, we just shouldn't buy seafood from Japan, okay? We don't. As a matter of fact, Japan is one of our biggest customers in the United States and our domestic seafood supply that we export to Japan. So that's the first one, is that the Pacific Ocean is fine. That is.

How do we know that. How do we know that? Because you say that. But why should we trust Jeff Moore, fish guru, with that information?

I did say I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night, Right? Okay.

But that's not enough.

I want more. I think that. To go and get real science and go to, you know, trusted sources online, whether it's somebody that's not in the seafood industry and somebody that's not a media play. It's somebody that, you know, like the American Medical association or, you know, even some kind of nuclear science report that. That talks about the safety of the fish and how it's dissipated. Even on our Facebook page. I took one of those reports and put it out, and I'd be more than happy to put that on your page as well. On Facebook, that talks about how however many quadrillion or quintillion or whatever those big numbers are of water and how that really has dissipated as it moves out just within miles of Japan, and over time, it's almost dissipated completely. But Fukujima is a big deal. Like, we don't buy seafood from Japan. They buy from us. And so that is the first myth. The second one, let's talk about the Gulf oil spill. Oh, you can't buy any seafood from the Gulf. It's like, okay, in seafood, just like in humans, we have the ability to filter out toxins. Okay? We have a liver, and seafood has some other thing that I'm not gonna think of because I've only stayed one night at a Holiday Inn Express, and the. So it filters through. But again, that was an oil spill. They've been treating it, and it has dissipated, and the toxins are not evident in that fish. They will show.

Well, here's what I would tell you, is, yes, we are built to detoxify, but I still don't wanna overwhelm my detoxification system. So I'm not gonna go, like, out and seek things with toxins in them and say, hey, my body can handle it. So how would you know? You know, it also makes logical sense in a lot of these things. Like, you know, toxins, big area dissipates. But how would you know you're not getting some kind of a concentrated issue. Like, how do you know that that's safe at this point? You know, what. What can you say to that?

I think that that's. I think that's a great point. And very few times will I use the FDA or anything or the EPA as somebody that we should use to protect us. But in this, we have to know Lots of media, lots of fear, lots of people involved. Okay. Entire industries were damaged by that because you had the hurricane and then this. Within years of each other.

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They have gone down. There's been extensive testing on the food supply in the Gulf. And when we're talking about the Gulf and we're talking about Deepwater Horizon, we're talking about one very small place that this occurred, and it was a disaster. Okay? But it's a small place, and so there is a big Gulf and there's lots of seafood. And again, like we talked about, it's diluted, it's dissipated, and they're moving on. But there's a lot of testing. There's been a lot of testing to make sure that. And by the way, they wanted to test it. You can imagine that industry Was like, test it, you know, and post all the tests. And so that was. So the Gulf, the Gulf spill, now oysters and things like that, those were things that didn't have the ability to rid themselves of those toxins, and they've shut down entire areas of the Gulf.

Okay. So that's important to know. So it was. If it. Where it was a problem, they've shut down those. They haven't sold that.

Right.

And outside of that, so it's not as if we have to say anything from the Gulf. Don't touch.

Right, right.

Okay.

I think that that's, you know, anything that we can't paint with a broad brush like that is scary. I mean, you can say anything about, you know, and paint that broad brush and you're just going to be very unhappy and very uninformed.

The big challenges with painting the broad brush is it's the safest thing to do if you don't have the information. Just like we've talked in another show about wild versus farmed. If you don't have the information, the safest thing is to do that. But what happens then is you really limit yourself, and then you can't have all the different foods because you're going to have to go for the more expensive stuff. So all of a sudden, as you told me, seafood's going, consumption's going down.

Right.

And that's tragic, and it's because of the misinformation. So what I'm really trying to click up here is like, we now know that whatever were the bad sources they contained, and that overall Gulf seafoods is.

Safe, is a safe choice. It's a responsible choice.

And what are the seafoods that we're getting from the Gulf? Like, name some of the things.

Oh, well, I mean, wild, domestic, wild shrimp, brown shrimp that we get from there, rock shrimp, which is fabulous shrimp. We get snapper, we get grouper, we get corvina. There's. There's thousands of species of fish in the Gulf. And. And so the Gulf is a good choice of. Of seafood, and domestic is a good choice for us because we're all in the game to. To responsibly fish and make it sustainable and natural. And the worst thing we can do is not pay attention to that, because there's one thing about being a confused consumer, and then there's one thing about being flat out scared as a consumer, and that's just not.

Well, I think both are happening. And the ultimate result is people are eating less seafood. And that's really.

And that is and like you said, too, I mean, you could take every nutritionist in the world, and everybody will agree at that point is omega 3s. They all agree on that. They might disagree on. Right. On certain things, but Omega 3s is something they agree with. And so at the end of all these reports, it talks about the benefits of eating seafood. Good quality, natural, responsible, and sustainable seafood far outweigh the risks of that. The last one is the mercury debate. Yes.

And you got me on that one because I was saying to you off camera, I was like, oh, yes. Because, I mean, I literally haven't touched swordfish since I was a kid. I stopped eating swordfish, which was my favorite thing. And when people eat swordfish, I gotta be honest with you, like, all of us will be sitting at the table, someone eats swordfish, it's almost like they're grabbing a piece of bread.

Like, we're all going, oh, good Lord, not the bread. Not the bread.

Now, I know that fish has selenium, and selenium helps chelate out the heavy metals. But I was always like, not the swordfish. Scary. Let's have the halibut or the salmon or the sardines or the scarlet scallops. So apparently I was misguided there, which I'm thrilled to. You know, I always want to be open to the information and especially if I've been out telling people the wrong thing. Sorry. You know, but that's why. That's why we've got the guru here.

You're not wrong. Okay. Oh, thank you.

What did you say?

You're not wrong. The swordfish does have a propensity to have a higher level of mercury in it, as does tuna. As does tilefish. Or king clip. These fish.

I don't even know what king clip is.

Me neither. I just made that up.

You did, didn't you? Show up.

But the one thing to recognize is even in swordfish, there was a site, a website, and we'll figure out what it is. I've got to find it. I think it's called howmuchfish.com or.org or whatever. But you would go in, you put your weight down your age, and you'd say, like swordfish. And it would come back with a calculation. It would say 2.4 pounds a week for the next 20 years. And you're gonna have a problem with heavy metals in your system.

You know what? See, I'm gonna call BSO on.

Okay, cool.

Yes. Because here's why our body is a history book. It all depends on how good of A detoxifier. You are. And where else you're getting mercury.

Great point.

You know, I mean if that was the only thing you were doing. But what if you played with the little thermometer when you were little like we all did.

We did, right. You broke it and moved it around.

Same with the lead pencils on it. Yikes. You know, but what if you didn't eliminate. Well, and you've been storing this stuff up and you're having tuna and you're having, you know, so what if you're pulling this out? You know, so that's the challenge with that is I don't think that's right. Like we're not giving you that website because I'm, I think there's more to it. I think we still should limit it. But you know, I again, I was like, that's. That one's scary. But maybe it's really looking at all the different things. I still think that you'd be better off opting for the fish that don't accumulate as much mercury.

I will absolutely agree with you. But I think that with all due respect, with all due respect. And she threatens me every day. People threatens me 911. That eating a piece of swordfish is not as bad as eating bread. Enjoying a wonderful two inch thick piece.

If you're gonna piece that way of.

Swordfish that's steamed in a bento basket, that's grilled at the same time. Oh my gosh, that is fabulous. And enjoy that. Okay. Swordfish every day, Tuna every day. You know what? No, but those are meant to be enjoyed and that is an event. And so I wouldn't steer you away from that. But understand that there's mercury in anything that's been in the ocean.

If you were going to make your best choices then of seafood. So that would be your have less often.

Yeah.

And then your have more often would be what?

I would look at the, the fish that have faster growth cycles, like salmon, wild salmon. We've talked about Australis barramundi, which is a farm raised fish, but it's a responsibly raised fish. I think that. You know what, I think you will like this one. If you go to seafood watch at the Monterey Bay Aquarium site, you're gonna see their list, their seafood watch list. That is a green, yellow and red list. Okay. And those talk about responsible seafood, but it also talks about more healthful choices. And so that's a great place to go is Seafood Watch. And actually at Whole Foods I believe they will show the Green, yellow, red and so green and yellow good. Red not so great.

So your top five faves, what are they putting you on the spot?

My top five favorite seafood, I love mahi mahi. I love a good Norwegian farm raised salmon, naturally raised. It is so flavorful.

And by the way, if you didn't hear our enlightening show about farm raised versus wild, you have to hear this because so find that show, watch that show. But anyway, go back.

So that was two Australis barramundi. I absolutely love that. I love those people. I love what they're all about and I love their fish. I love halibut. And then lastly along the line of either a good day boat king Coho or sockeye salmon, wild Alaskan caught in the usa. And then lastly a really nice crab claw, a snow crab, a snow crab cocktail claw with a warm drawn butter.

Drawn grass fed butter with sea salt.

Oh, churned with a French sea salt.

Get better than that. But back, back up a little bit. Then we're back up.

Where are we? What?

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Breathe. Okay, so but the halibut, there's different halibuts.

Yeah, halibut. You know what, and that's another thing is we're talking about mercury or we're talking about methylmercury and I don't want to get confused in that Halibut is a good clean fish.

So where's but Atlantic Alaskan farm raised what?

And I don't want to use any jargon here, so I'm just going to say Hippoglossus stenilepsis. It's the Latin. The Latin that is a Pacific halibut that is caught up in the Gulf of Alaska and it's a fabulous fish. It's a Pacific wild Pacific halibut. You know they're different. You know to sit there and say like the South Pacific or the, the California halibut, it's not really that same halibut. It's more of a fluke fish. And then back east that's more of a turbot. It's not a, it's a Greenland halibut.

Honestly, I think this great service that you could start because I was at a restaurant the other night. And he knows. I texted him like, they have. It was some. I don't even remember. It was some kind of bass. I'm like, how do I know if this is okay? So I thought, I know, I'll text the fish guru and ask him. And then he said, well, there's 400 types of them.

Yeah.

I'm like, you know, so again, what we're really trying to do is myth bust here and make it really easy for you to know. And so I love that idea both at Whole Foods and at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's site, that seafood watch. Getting the green, yellow, red, and choosing from the green the most with a little yellow and every once in a while a red. Let's see.

Right?

Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly. But I think that also I'll throw out there. You want jeffildthing seafood.com and send me a thing. Do it. I want to see what happens. But you know what she was asking what you were asking about the other night? A local white sea bass caught in the Pacific at this time of year, which is June.

I was in San Francisco.

Okay, perfect. It is a fabulous, fabulous fish. And so those are great fish.

So, yeah, go ahead and email him when you're sitting at a restaurant and say, jeff, can I have this?

Yeah, email me.

You said it now. If you'd like a free transcript of Today's show, text 58885 and enter myth one. That's myth the number one. Put in a space, your first name, another space, and your email address. Again, that number is 58885. And you enter myth one space, your first name space, and your email address. In the Virgin diet, I have you swap seven foods for three weeks to uncover your hidden food intolerance so that you can finally lose the weight and feel better fast. Why wait? Start that three weeks today.

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