Is canned tuna safe as a food for a toddler?!
Is canned tuna safe as a food for a toddler?
My little girl loves tuna mashed with cream cheese and sweetcorn and cucumber. She's a little fussy with bread and is very difficult with sandwiches but loves tuna like this with a bit of bread on the side. Been worried lately that she eats too much tuna (about 2 to 3 small mini tins a week) especially concerned about mercury levels. Any advice information? Help!
Additional Details23 hours ago
She has a great diet - loves fruit and veggies - adores my home-made soups, lves risotto and pasta etc. She has the smallest 'Princes' Tuna in the UK and has about half a small tin possibly 3 times a week. Is this too much - smoe of these answers have really scared me. I try to do the very best for my girl and am very particular about what she eats - I cook all her meals from scratch usually and she has never eaten jarred or packet baby food.
Answers: 23 hours ago
She has a great diet - loves fruit and veggies - adores my home-made soups, lves risotto and pasta etc. She has the smallest 'Princes' Tuna in the UK and has about half a small tin possibly 3 times a week. Is this too much - smoe of these answers have really scared me. I try to do the very best for my girl and am very particular about what she eats - I cook all her meals from scratch usually and she has never eaten jarred or packet baby food. Two years ago, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency warned pregnant women, nursing mothers and young children to limit consumption of fish species that have elevated mercury levels, including tuna.
Consumer Reports magazine this year went further, advising in its July edition that pregnant women "avoid canned tuna entirely."
Consumer Reports reached its conclusions after reviewing federal data that showed canned light tuna can sometimes contain as much or more mercury as canned albacore.
FDA testing updated in January found that the average level of mercury in light canned tuna was 0.12 parts per million, well below the 1-part-per-million federal limit for commercial fish. Albacore tuna averaged 0.34 parts per million, about a third of the FDA maximum.
However, the FDA tests also found that some samples of light tuna were close to the federal limit, and that some albacore exceeded the limit.
Industry representatives called the Consumer Reports warning irresponsible, noting that the FDA had said that pregnant women and young children could safely eat 12 ounces of canned light tuna per week, or about four sandwiches.
"Consumer Reports is not the right organization to be giving health advice to the U.S. consumer on food and nutrition. The right organization is the FDA," said Anne Forristall Luke, president of the U.S. Tuna Foundation, a trade group representing tuna canners.
The industry won a round in May when San Francisco Superior Court Judge Robert Dondero ruled that under state law tuna cans don't have to carry mercury warnings.
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer had sued the canners under Proposition 65, which requires companies to warn consumers of products containing hazardous ingredients. But Dondero ruled that the state law was preempted by the FDA advisory, that mercury levels weren't high enough to require warnings and that tuna was exempt because the mercury occurred naturally.
Although there's no doubt that the mercury debate has hurt tuna sales, other factors also contributed to the decline.
"Many years ago this was a category with a lot of advertising and consumer marketing," said David Melbourne, senior vice president for consumer marketing at Bumble Bee.
StarKist's Charlie the Tuna and Bumble Bee's Horatio were the industry's marketing icons. But until last year, tuna advertising -- beyond coupons -- had largely disappeared.
The ads were discontinued because tuna producers slashed advertising and marketing budgets amid falling profit margins and sales, Melbourne said. Now Bumble Bee is mulling a return to the broadcast advertising market, he said.
Chicken of the Sea is already there.
Its jingle, "Ask any mermaid you happen to see, what's the best tuna? Chicken of the Sea," returned to the airwaves last year after a 14-year absence. like all medical advice, moderation is key.
speaking about bread, have you tried unsalted crackers?
they're pretty good when served moist toppings such as tuna salad! So long as its not the can, then i wud hav thought so!! YH IT IS BUT IT CAN BE A LIL DRY SO THEY MIGHT NOT CHEW IT RIGHT AND CHOKE SO MIX IT WELL WITH SOME MAYO OR SOMETHING My daughter could live on tuna and at nine years old she is perfect! I know you can find anyone to agree or disagree. It is a nice lean protein. Let her enjoy. My daughter is happy to even have it out of the can. She loves it mixed with mayo, finely chopped onions, chopped boiled eggs and red grapes mixed in. Sometimes we do all the above and leave out the grapes but add chopped apples and pecans. Let your daughter enjoy it. yes mix with mayo and mash well. Just have a little Tuna is excellent and high in protein. Does she get vegetables besides corn? You would be much better off preparing her some wild caught tuna-the farmed stuff is LOADED with PCB's and mercury. The amount she is eating now sounds dangerous, unless you are buying a really high quality, organic tuna from a health food store-expensive, but worth it. I am vegetarian, but if I ate fish, I would only prepare it homemade I believe there are guidelines regarding the amount of tuna an adult should eat - probably a maximum of twice of week or less, because as you say, mercury levels are a real worry in these big fish.
I would check out the recommended quanitity if I were giving it to a child; mercury poisoning is not nice. Tuna is good but should be limited in toddlers. Does she like other fish such as sardines, salmon or pilchards? I think a lot of the information about mercury is in American white tuna The most important thing is that there is no salt in her food, when you prepare her food never add salt, with regard to the mercury level in the tuna, maybe you should ask a dietitian. That sounds a bit too much to me but ask her pediatrician. You could try substituting it with chicken sometimes.