Low
Mercury Tuna not Just a Headline
The Birth of Wild Planet Seafood Company
By
Ellen Walsh
There's
a family heritage of fishermen in Bill Carvalho's
past, dating back to the middle ages in the seafood
rich waters off the Azore Islands near Portugal. If
you have ever traveled to Portugal you have undoubtedly
ordered seafood, and noticed the difference in the naturally
clean, fresh wonderful taste of their local catch. There,
the local seafood industry is alive and well, filling
a vast appetite for the immediate geographical area.
With the Spaniards and Portuguese consuming over 100
lbs. of seafood per year per person, there is little
need to create an export market. If you have an awareness
of that life, and you are living on the west coast of
California, you might notice what is missing from the
seafood industry in America. Bill Carvalho did.
|
Bill
McCarthy inspecting some
Northern Pacific Albacore |
Living
on the west coast in the northern most area of California
lies a small village called Arcata. In 1990 Carvalho
started a small Seafood Company. Joined by fellow seafood
expert Bill McCarthy in 2000, the team
perfected the market niche they wanted Wild Planet to
fit into.
"We
conceived of bringing to the American public a product
that is superior to anything else produced in the national
brand category." Says founder Bill Carvalho. "
This comes from our intimate knowledge of home canning.
The Portuguese people in Arcata have a tradition of
canning local albacore tuna on what has become Annual
Tuna Canning Day. Every year, we would go down to the
boats in the fall, and buy 400 lbs. of tuna and can
it. Almost every family does it. It's as Portuguese
as the Pig Slaughtering day in Portugal, only it's a
California Portuguese food preservation event. From
early morning till late at night, the tuna is cut, packed
and then pressure cooked right in the mason jar. That's
how we did it all day long. The rich, natural juices
and oils from tuna filled up in that jar, and that's
how we ate it - right out of the jar."
Knowing
how good tuna should taste, Bill developed a method
of canning his own tuna that preserved the fabulous
taste and the natural nutrition present in the fish.
Cutting the loin strips off the tuna, slicing them into
medallions, they were then packed by hand into the can.
Sealed shut, pressure cooked for 70 minutes, the canned
tuna comes out ready for labeling and shipping. The
taste difference is apparent at the first bite.
You
can eat this tuna right out of the can with a fork,"
says Bill. " We do, all the time. These juices
you find at the bottom of the can are the fish's own
natural juices, and it makes all the difference in the
world when you go to eat it."
In
fact a wonderful taste is not the only benefit. The
specialty processing of Wild Planet
produces full Omega 3 potency.
This is attributable to the cooking process of the manufacturing
plant.
For
a full report on the Omega
3 Potency of Wild Planet Foods, click
here.
Traditional
national brands of tuna are fully baked prior to canning,
then placed in the cans for further processing. The
process leaves the tuna so dry that it is necessary
to add back in a liquid, the industry preference being
either oil or water. The process itself strips the tuna
of a majority of its health benefits.
"We
know how good seafood can be, and industrial plants
can be unkind to tuna. Tuna was the most consumed fish
in America. Shrimp is now the #1 consumed seafood in
the United States, and tuna is now #2."
The
Low Mercury Claim
"When all the information about
mercury came out in the spring of '03, my family was
consuming at least 400 cans of tuna a year," remarks
Carvalho. "I was concerned we were being exposed
to too much mercury. I thought, salmon and tuna eat
the same thing in the same ocean, why is one higher
than other for mercury? The life cycles of these fish
are very different. Salmon are born in fresh water and
travel to salt water for 3 or 4 years and go back to
fresh water to spawn and die.
Yet
tuna live 16 or 17 years. They breed, continue living,
and that is how much mercury is in the tuna. A 3 year
old fish is only 12 lbs. We sent samples of different
weights of fish to our labs. Bottom line, lower weights
equal less mercury content."
The
United States fleet has a size policy in the north Pacific,
which is the most conscientious of any fleet in the
world. The fish have to be 9 lbs. or larger. They procreate
at around 30 lbs, however the North Pacific Albacore
has a capture rate of only 15%, leaving plenty of fish
to grow and reproduce."
Wild
Planet
fine tunes their understanding of minimal mercury by
producing two types of canned albacore: Minimal
Mercury, and Low Mercury.
Minimal
Mercury Albacore
is just the 3 year old fish or 9 - 12 lb fish only.
It is the lowest mercury count available, and there
has been lots of testing. All that is added in the manufacturing
process is a little sea salt. It is their number one
seller. **
Low
Mercury
is the fish that are between 12 - 20 lbs. and it is
a slightly larger fish. Just like the minimal mercury,
it is cooked after you put it in the can.
Purchasing
3% of the West Coast's tuna supply, Wild
Planet is considered one of the top tuna buyers
in the country. Because of their sizeable export to
Japan, Carvalho is able to hand select the tuna for
their custom canning factory in Washington state. "We
have hundreds of tests conducted by AM Test Labs in
Redmond Washington that demonstrate all of our samples
range very low in mercury," says Carvalho.
To
be considered minimal mercury, laboratory test results
must average less than 0.15 (PARTS PER MILLION) and
no samples exceeding 0.3 of methyl mercury. A simpler
translation of what this means to the consumer, is that
the EPA reference dose is .7 micrograms per kg of body
weight per week. This means, that if a 150 lb. adult
eats tuna from a national brand with a mercury content
of 61 mcg mercury, then that person would reach the
EPA reference dose for the entire week with just 4.7
ounces, or just one sandwich.
For
the entire Study Measuring the
Low Mercury Claims of Wild Planet, click
here.
Story
continue on page 2, click
here.