Is There a Way to Remove Mercury From Fish?
- Bryan Le
- Apr 21
- 2 min read
Subreddit: r/FoodScience
User: u/runenight201
Original Post:
I love seafood, but I don't like mercury. How would one remove mercury and other pollutants from fish before eating them? Could we genetically engineer bacteria to permeate the fish and then remove the unwanted particles?
My Response:
I’m not sure there’s anyone who likes mercury…
Anyway.
Much of the mercury in seafood is in the form of methylmercury, which is the actual toxic compound that you don’t want absorbed into your body (and really into your brain, where it’s a potent neurotoxin).
The problem lies in the fact that methylmercury, being an organic form of mercury, easily dissolves and passes through fat cell walls. Very technically, you could extract much of the methylmercury by removing the fat in a fish.
Except now you’ve removed much of the flavor, texture, and body of the fish.
As pointed out below, methylmercury also binds to cysteine in protein, so now you have to contend with methylmercury attaching to muscle tissues even if you’ve stripped the fat.
If somehow you managed to design a bacteria to consume the mercury, now you run into the issue of how to remove them. Because now they’ve just concentrated the bacteria into their bodies and are now spread into the fish tissue.
Dr. Bryan Quoc Le is the Founder and Principal Food Consultant of Mendocino Food Consulting. He earned his Ph.D. in Food Science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and his B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Irvine. He currently lives in Mendocino, California with his wife and two dogs.
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