Kale, Sausage & Lentil Skillet Supper

Last month, one of PWN’s readers e-mailed me and mentioned EatingWell magazine. I hadn’t heard of it, but I happened to get an EatingWell 2010 daily calendar from Santa. It’s great because each week has a new recipe that is healthy and simple.

Since we try to eat a lot of kale at our house (it has quickly become one of my favorite veggies!), the recipe for Kale, Sausage & Lentil Skillet Supper caught my attention right away. Lentils are really easy to prepare and full of health benefits: they are full of fiber and help lower cholesterol; they help keep blood sugar under control; they contain many nutrients including iron, folate, manganese, tryptophan, protein and two different B-vitamins. So between the many health benefits of kale (read about it here) and lentils, this dinner will fill you up and provide you with loads of nutrients.

It was fairly easy to prepare but took longer than I expected, so do it when you have some time. It’s not active cooking the entire time, but requires some check in and stir every once in a while.

Recipe

3 tsp extra-virgin olive oil, divided

1 12-oz package cooked chicken or turkey sausage (I used Applegate Farms chicken sausage from Whole Foods)

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

2 tablespoons chopped garlic

Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

2 ½ cups water

1 ½ cups red wine

1 cup lentils (I used French green and red, because we had a little of both at our house)

6-8 cups chopped kale leaves

1 tsp chopped fresh sage

¼ tsp sea salt

Freshly ground pepper

Heat 1 tsp olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add sausage and cook until browned on all sides (4-5 mins). Transfer to cutting board.

Add remaining 2 tsp olive oil and onion to pan and cook until browned (4-5 mins). Add garlic and crushed red pepper and cook, stirring, until fragrant (15 seconds). Add water and wine, increase heat to high and bring to a boil, scraping sides and bottom of pan. Add lentils, reduce heat to simmer, and cook partially covered for 40 minutes.

Add kale, sage and salt and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until lentils and kale are tender, about 10 minutes. Slice sausage and stir into pan along with pepper. Cover and cook until heated, another few minutes.

It says this only makes 4 servings, however Ed and I ate it for dinner two nights in a row, plus lunches. Also, I added some purple cabbage because we didn’t have quite enough kale. We ate it with some quinoa and it was delicious – very filling.

Enjoy!

Smallstep.gov Ads

For the past three days, I’ve talked about our need to focus more on health and less on weight. The conference I attended last weekend opened my eyes to just how much we focus on weight, including in our advertisements. Five years ago, the government released ads aimed at overweight and obese people. These ads were produced by the same company who did the “Priceless” commercials for MasterCard. They were part of a big campaign to get people to lose weight (the website can be found here). Have you seen any of these?

Catching? Yes. Funny? Sometimes, yes. But the message is too off: Lose weight, and everything will be fixed. Not to mention they are singling out overweight people, and ignoring the fact that “thin” people can be just as unhealthy. Our genes are powerful! There is this belief that becoming thin will solve all of our problems, whether they be health, self-esteem, or other types of problems. However, this is just too simplistic.

From a March 2004 Boston Globe article:

The print ads show close-ups of unshapely hips, flabby stomachs, double chins, and very round derrieres. Superimposed are a series of dotted lines, showing that gradually increasing exercise could trim the fatties down to sleeker figures.

Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a health-advocacy group, said she was happy the Bush administration was drawing attention to obesity but called the ads "a half-measure" to address it. "What they should be doing is trying to get junk food out of the schools, requiring calorie-labeling on chain-restaurant menus, prohibiting junk-food marketing aimed at children, and funding every state program to promote physical activity."she said.

From a nutrition perspective, I encourage people to eat foods that provide their bodies with the nutrients they need. Try to eat food for health’s sake. This perspective may take time and some people may always have “weight” on the mind, but at the very least, when we do eat healthy, we should appreciate the balance we are bringing to our bodies.

Tomorrow I have a new recipe for you guys – simple but fun to make at home!

Feeding Your Kids: Focusing on the “How” (Part 2)

Yesterday I introduced you to some of the feeding methods and theories that Katja Rowell, MD, uses in her work with parents and others involved in feeding children. Today I will briefly explain how parents can support positive feeding experiences with their own kids.

Parents have the following responsibilities when it comes to feeding:

• Choose and prepare the food

• Provide regular meals and snacks

• Make eating times pleasant

• Teach children about certain foods and appropriate mealtime behavior

• Do not let children graze for food or beverages (except water) between meal and snack times

• Let children grow into their own bodies – do not put them on diets or try to overfeed them

And I’ll add one more item I think parents are responsible for – to choose foods that are healthy and support a child’s health, and to avoid giving children too many processed foods.

Atmosphere is very important. Eat with your kids, and carry on pleasant, easy-going conversations. Avoid watching television or reading the newspaper. Including kids in meal preparation can get them interested and increases likelihood that they'll want to try the foods. Eating out with kids gives them variety. Review the menu with them and let them think about what they want to order. Do not restrict them to the kid's menu. If they are eating "adult" foods at home, they should be able to eat "adult" foods at restaurants too.

Katja also emphasizes the importance of neutral presentation. With her own daughter, she will put everything on the table at once, including dessert if they are having it on a particular night. That way, her daughter is less likely to view sweets as “rewards” for eating healthier things, and more likely to just enjoy it as one of many foods she is being given that night. And, it works! I think in general it is a good idea to avoid using sweets as rewards for things like good behavior or potty training.

Katja emphasizes that parents should OFFER, not FORCE. And if a kid acts totally grossed out by a particular food, let them avoid it and include it in a meal a week or two later. Doctors tell parents it may take 5-10 tries before a kid decides to eat something, but according to Katja that number can be more like 100 tries. So continue to place a variety of foods on the table and maybe eventually your child will try something new.

Items to include at each meal include protein (meat, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, or nuts); two starches (rice, corn, potatoes, noodles, bread, etc.); fruit or veggie (or both); milk or substitute; fats (butter, peanut butter, nuts, etc.).

Katja’s website is a great resource for more information on family feeding:

www.familyfeedingdynamics.com

Some other great resources include some of Ellyn Satter’s books. Ellyn is another expert on this subject.

Secrets to Feeding a Healthy Family

Child of Mine

Your Child’s Weight: Helping Without Harming

I own all three of these books and have read bits and pieces of each of them. They provide very useful information for parents.

Feeding Your Kids: Focusing on the “How”

Yesterday I gave a brief review of the conference I attended in St. Paul this past weekend called A New Paradigm for Weight: An Effective Model for Promoting Healthy Body Image, Eating, Fitness and Weight in Children, Teens and Adults. There were some great presenters, and I think Katja Rowell’s information is particularly important and relevant for PWN readers.

Katja was a family physician prior to founding Family Feeding Dynamics. While working as a physician, she was shocked at the number of feeding problems and children with disordered eating, and wanted to find an effective way to address this. FFD’s goal is to teach the importance of a healthy feeding relationship to health care providers, family therapists, parents and other childcare providers.

The foundation of Katja’s work lies in the Division of Responsibility:

When it comes to feeding, the child can decide IF, and HOW MUCH. The parent decides WHEN, WHAT, and WHERE. (Obviously infants decide “when,” but as they get older this responsibility transfers to the parents).

I like this because it’s simple and easy for parents to remember. Think about the “scenes” this type of division of responsibility can help families avoid: frustrated parents negotiating and bribing their kids at meals; tired kids left at an empty dinner table because they haven’t eaten all their veggies; parents using food as an afternoon “crutch,” only to result in a kid that is not hungry come dinnertime and therefore does not sit down for the family meal; kids consistently dictating what they want for meals and insisting on one of only a few foods, none of which are very nutritious; parents feeling defeated, tired and fed up with picky eaters; an overall association of stress and anxiety with mealtimes for kids.

On the flip side, think about what things COULD be like if the division of responsibility was adhered to: consistent family meals; relaxed meals during which families can talk about their days; kids are not eating too much (because their parents are restricting their food) or too little (because their parents are trying to force food) but rather just the right amount to keep them full; a consistent schedule so the child knows when he/she will eat again; eventual end of kids begging for unhealthy snacks, because they know they will not receive it; parents only have to prepare one meal, because the kids eat the same things as the adults; kids who associate food and eating with thinks like family, happiness, relaxation, and togetherness.

Doesn’t this sound great? Everything Katja said made so much sense, yet I have never heard it presented this way. Katja, as a former doctor and now an eating consultant, stated that conflict over food is “the norm.” It is very typical for children to be picky eaters and for battles to ensue at the dinner table. However, she believes this can be changed with a little work.

Katja also believes that BMI is a false clinical marker as it does not take into account body composition, and therefore is not a reliable predictor of health. Parents may go to the doctor and be told their child is “overweight” or “underweight” based on the BMI charts, and this sets off a cycle of eating battles at home and increased stress at mealtimes. The real things to look for, according to Katja, are weight accelerations or decelerations on the BMI charts. But if your child has a healthy, steady increase as they age and grow, parents need not worry if they are not exactly in line with what doctors label as “healthy” or "ideal."

Tomorrow I will talk about some ways to enforce the Division of Responsibility in your home.

You can visit Katja's website here. Check out her blog too - she provides real examples of the Division of Responsibility used in her own home and that of others.

Conference Wrap-Up: Time to Value Health Over Weight

The conference I attended in St. Paul this past weekend was so interesting. It was called A New Paradigm for Weight: An Effective Model for Promoting Healthy Body Image, Eating, Fitness and Weight in Children, Teens and Adults. The four speakers provided some really useful information on how nutrition can be used to promote health, rather than weight. Too much emphasis is put on achieving a certain ideal look, often times at the expense of one’s health. Kids go to the doctor and hear that their BMI is in the “high” range, and immediately think they are fat. Moms are told to feed these kids less food, so they restrict portion sizes and meal times become a battle. From an early age, kids associate food and eating with stress, pressure and anxiety, and this can lead to things like emotional eating, low self-esteem, disordered eating, and other issues with food and weight.

I found a couple of speakers particularly interesting. One woman, Kathy Kater, is a licensed independent clinical social worker and focuses on people with eating disorders. She talked about our need for a new approach to health, since the current approach is too weight-focused and thus leads to the numerous eating-related problems we are seeing in today’s kids and adults.

Kathy identified four “toxic” myths that are at the root of almost all body image, eating, fitness and weight problems today:

1. Image is valued over substance: “How I look” is more important than “who I am.” Having the “right look” is essential to being acceptable.

2. Denial of biological diversity: Anyone can be slim if they work at it. Fatter people eat too much and/or are inactive. Fat is bad/wrong/unhealthy.

3. Denial of the effects of externally prescribed hunger regulation: Dieting is an effective weight loss strategy.

4. Discounting the value of health; complacency about lifestyle choices that do not result in the desired look: If I can’t be thin, what difference does it make what I eat? Healthy choices for health’s sake are too much work!

Some highlights of Kathy’s speech:

• Statistic that 80% of 3rd grade girls are very afraid of becoming fat (this shocked me – it’s awful)

• In the 1960s, 30% of females worried about their weight; today about 85% worry about their weight

• “The thinner we try to be, the fatter we have become” (proof that our current focus on weight, BMI, etc. is not healthy and is not working!)

• Body dissatisfaction does not motivate healthy behavior; rather, it leads to disordered eating

• The genetic contribution to BMI is about 55% - 70%. Too many people are trying to “change” their bodies, and ignoring or in denial of their genes (I find this statistic very important for people to recognize; we need to STOP trying to be people we weren't meant to be!)

• We are too quick to make assumptions on one’s lifestyle based on their physical appearance. Weight is a result of many complex factors, many of which are out of one’s control. Overweight people are not necessarily unhealthy.

• There has been a significant rise in eating disorders in menopausal women in the past 10 years

• 95% of weight loss through dieting is regained

• Over 80% of people who lose weight with a low-calorie diet will regain it all (example: Oprah)

• Recently people are feeling a double-pressure to lose weight: for looks and also for health

• Overweight people who are physically active and fit are at less risk of disease than thin people who are not physically active and fit

Kathy’s bottom line: We need to value health, not size. We can do this by eating well, making fitness a priority, accepting the size and shape that is our natural predisposition, feeling good about who we are, and recognizing the harm we are doing to ourselves physically and emotionally when we continuously try new diets and lose and gain weight. I am not providing these statistics to scare or dishearten anyone; rather, I want to emphasize what I’ve always tried to focus on here at PWN: nutrition is important because it provides so many wonderful health benefits, and certain foods actually can make us feel good, while others can make us feel sick and lead to long-term health problems. If we focus on nutrition for health’s sake, we will ultimately be happier, healthier people.

When I consider how these items relate to my role as a nutritionist, I think about working with young children and their parents. I would love to help parents learn more about nutrition for their kids and how it can influence their behavior, learning and health. However, this conference reminded me that the method is just as important as the actual nutrition. Another speaker, Katja Rowell, MD, addressed how to approach feeding and eating with infants, toddlers and children. I found it extremely helpful and realized how important this process actually is. Tomorrow I will summarize what Katja spoke about.

Kathy’s website can be found here.

Water with Lemon

I’ve had some recent questions about adding fresh lemon to drinking water. Some think it’s very powerful for health, while others have heard rumors that it’s not good for endurance athletes.

So what’s the truth?

Lemons can be very cleansing to our internal environment. They are rich in vitamin C, potassium and magnesium. These are three very powerful nutrients that can help maintain optimal health inside of us. Some of the benefits of adding lemon to our water are listed below:

• Lemons are antiseptic and can prevent growth of bad bacteria in our digestive system

• Lemon juice helps alkalize the body (remember, cancer and other disease can only thrive in an acidic environment, so the more alkalizing foods we can incorporate into our diet, the better)

• The potassium nourishes brain and nerve cells

• When a pregnant woman drinks lemon water, she is helping the bone health of her child

• Gargling lemon water can soothe a sore throat

• Lemon aids in digestion by stimulating digestive juices, and helps reduce bloating and gas

• Lemon water contains powerful antioxidants, which help flush toxins from the body and cleanse our liver and kidneys

• It can ease constipation

I recommend avoiding the prepackaged lemon juice (you know, the fake plastic lemons). This is not fresh and could have preservatives or other chemicals added to it. Organic lemons are best, and make sure to scrub the outside of the lemon prior to dropping it into your glass. Some swear by the practice of drinking a glass of warm water mixed with the juice of ½ lemon each morning. It cleanses your body and jumpstarts your digestive system for the day. Other ways to enjoy lemon include squeezing lemon into your tea, adding lemon juice to your salad dressings and squeezing lemon juice over foods such as chicken, brown rice and black beans.

We squeeze fresh lemons into our Aquasana drinking water so whenever we fill up from the fridge, we are getting a little boost with the added lemon. And when Ed and I felt a cold coming on a couple weeks ago, we were pushing the warm lemon water morning and night, which seemed to help. I love the taste of lemons, so I find it easy to incorporate them into my diet.

As for the rumor that drinking water with lemon can be bad for endurance athletes…

I could not find much information supporting this statement. I did find out that lemon contains magnesium, and magnesium is known to decrease cortisol levels after aerobic exercise. Cortisol, also known as the “stress hormone”, helps restore balance after any type of stress. So I suppose if the magnesium from the lemon blocks cortisol release, an endurance athlete who drinks water with lemon could take longer to restore their body after a race or long workout. However, this is just my own derivation and I really did not find much information claiming this to be true. With all the powerful things lemon water can do for us, I think an endurance athlete would actually benefit from adding a little lemon juice to their water every once in a while.

Have a great weekend! I am off to a nutrition conference in St. Paul, MN (my hometown!), so I am hoping to return next week with some great new information to share with all of you.

Weight Watchers, Day 1

Today I am attending my first Weight Watchers meeting.

Let me explain.

One component of my Food Therapy class is to understand some of the popular diets that exist. There is a good chance some of my future clients will walk into my office (or, dining room table) and tell me they’ve been on Weight Watchers, or Atkins, or the Paleo diet for the past two years. And, as their Nutrition Therapist, they will expect that I know what that means.

So, we split the class up amongst the ten most popular diets we could come up with, and we will all research our diets, try them out, and present on them over the course of the semester. The ultimate goal is not only to familiarize one another with these diets, but also to pull out the good things from each one and possibly use them in our own practices.

I chose Weight Watchers. I think that a lot of people try Weight Watchers, and I want to know more about it. So far I have heard from a few people who have done it, and the overall experience seems fairly positive. People seem to like the weekly meetings because it holds them accountable, and the points system allows for some freedom. However, I am curious to find out more about the Weight Watchers branded products. Are they healthy, or are they just processed foods full of sugars and artificial ingredients? Also, does Weight Watchers put too much emphasis on calories and fat and not enough on eating fresh, high-quality whole foods (think sugar-free lite yogurt vs. plain full-fat yogurt sweetened with raw honey)?

I guess I’ll find out. Thanks to everyone who has sent me input so far! It is so helpful and I will definitely include (anonymously) some of your feedback into my presentation. If anyone else wants to share some pros or cons, e-mail me at annpierce09@gmail.com!

ALSO…

Does anyone else read Running From the Law?! It’s this great blog my sister’s friend Sara started. Sara blogs about pretty much anything BUT being a lawyer, and she happens to know a lot about things like decorating, cooking, traveling and fashion! She had a beautiful wedding in Jackson Hole that was featured all over the blogworld. I love her thoughts and ideas and was super excited when Sara announced her first giveaway, a cookbook! Read about it and enter to win here!

Just A Spoonful of Sugar...

...can harm your eyesight!

Yesterday in class, my teacher was describing some differences she notices in herself when she eats too much sugar. One thing that caught my attention: the day after a sugar “binge”, she notices her eyesight is cloudier. She said there is a definite link between high sugar diets and quality of eyesight.

This was particularly interesting to me because of what happened at my last eye appointment. I know that I have always eaten too much sugar, but in the past six months I have cut back significantly. When I went to my annual eye appointment in December, the vision in my right eye had actually improved! I didn’t think much of it until now. I wonder if it is because I have decreased sugar in my diet?

Another interesting observation: I had better-than-perfect eyesight all the way until my sophomore year of college, when suddenly I needed glasses to see even the white board in class. Let’s piece this puzzle together: ages 0-18 I was living at home, playing sports, and eating my mom’s home-cooked meals that always included fresh, high-quality foods. Then at age 18, I move to Milwaukee, WI, the Beer Capital of the World, and live in a dorm nicknamed “The Beer Can”. I was partying a lot (excessive alcohol intake causes high blood sugar), but also working and studying hard, so I drank too much coffee (usually with a sugary syrup) and ate poorly. And to top it off, I was not getting as much exercise as I got in high school. I think I was walking evidence that high-sugar diets and poor eyesight are linked!

Besides our brains, our eyes need more oxygen and nutrients than any other part of our bodies. When we eat excess sugar, the sugar molecules attach to hemoglobin in our blood. This, in turn, makes it more difficult for our blood to deliver oxygen throughout the body. Oxygen is needed to power most metabolic processes and is vital to the proper functioning of many things in our bodies.

A high sugar diet causes blood sugar to spike and dip very quickly. When our blood sugar fluctuates, our tiny blood vessels are shocked and they weaken and become very narrow. This reduces blood flow throughout the body, including oxygen transport to the eyes.

There are other studies I found that link nearsightedness, or myopia, in children to their high-sugar and high-carbohydrate diets. When blood sugar is high, insulin levels elevate. And when the insulin levels go up, the body does not produce as much of a certain protein that is used to shape eyeballs and lenses for clear vision.

In older people, cataracts are a common problem. Cataracts form when sugar molecules attach to the proteins in the lens of the eye. This causes the lens to twist and fold, which leads to cloudy vision. Many older people with cataracts have eaten too much sugar throughout their lives.

Sugary foods include the obvious cakes, pastries, candy and ice cream, but also other simple carbohydrates such as white bread, processed cereals and white pasta.

And now for the good news…

All of these processes can be controlled or reversed through nutrition! Don’t you just love nutrition?!

When you eat carbohydrates, try to stick with only complex carbs such as whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, and legumes. And be sure to buy the highest quality you can afford of these items (think Whole Foods freshly baked whole grain bread, not Oroweat 7-grain bread). In addition, making sure you get plenty of antioxidant nutrients like vitamins A, C and E will help prevent or repair poor eyesight. These are found primarily in fresh fruits and vegetables. Controlling alcohol intake will also benefit eyesight (and countless other things) throughout our lives.

So, if you’re like me, you may have taken a little hit in college (but it was oh so worth it… college was so great!), but it is never too late to improve our diets and reverse or prevent the many diseases that are associated with high sugar intake.

Roasted Cremini and Red Pepper Tapenade

Before I started nutrition school, I attended a few of the senior presentations. They were on a variety of topics, such as the link between nutrition and childhood eczema, and how nutrition can be used to prevent Alzheimer’s and age healthily. However, one that really stood out was the presentation given by Amy Habuda entitled Mushrooms: A Look at Their Culinary Uses and Therapeutic Values. Amy talked for almost an hour about all the different ways mushrooms can be used to support our health, and I was completely fascinated the entire time!

And to top it off, she had actually prepared mushroom tapenade lettuce wraps for everyone to sample. Amy is not only a nutrition therapist but also a personal chef, so needless to say this mushroom tapenade was absolutely delicious and full of flavor.

Amy happened to distribute her recipe, and I realized last week that I had all the ingredients in my fridge! So I gave it a try. Maybe not the first recipe you’d turn to in the middle of winter, but now I have practiced it and will be ready to make it again for a summer cocktail party!

With Amy’s permission, I am going to share it with you today. Amy served this in lettuce wraps. Ed and I ate it with crackers and also mixed into quinoa and chicken for dinner. It was simple to prepare and contains 100% healthy ingredients that are safe for gluten-free eaters as well.

Recipe

8 ounces fresh cremini mushrooms, halved

1 large sweet red pepper, seeded and quartered

1 medium sweet onion, unpeeled and halved

2 tbsps olive oil, divided

2 large garlic cloves, minced

½ cup kalamata olives, pitted

2 tbsps balsamic vinegar

2 tbsps fresh basil, finely chopped

¼ tsp sea salt

¼ tsp black pepper

1 pinch cayenne pepper

Toss mushrooms and red pepper with 1 tbsp olive oil. Place mushrooms, red pepper, and onion on baking sheet cut sides down. Broil on HIGH of middle rack until skins are blackened (time depends on oven; took me 10 minutes). Cool 5 minutes and peel pepper and onion, discarding skins. Cut pepper and onion into chunks. Place roasted veggies, garlic, olives, vinegar and remaining oil in food processor and pulse until finally chopped (not pureed). Transfer mixture into a bowl and mix in basil, salt, black pepper and cayenne. Cover and chill until serving time.

Cremini mushrooms are usually labeled at the grocery store, but just in case, this is what they look like:

We ate this for snacks, lunches and dinners for two full days! Thanks to Amy for letting me share the recipe at PWN. If you have any questions for Amy or want to learn more about her personal chef and nutrition consultation services, you may e-mail her at amy.mnt@gmail.com or visit her website here.

Another thumbs up from Ed for this recipe! (Yes, that is our living room coffee table… we eat in front of the tv a little too often, please don’t judge! We got seasons 1 - 5 of 'The Wire' for Christmas and we are hooked!).

Salmon Skin: Do You Eat It?

Last week Ed and I made salmon for dinner. He noticed I was eating the salmon but leaving the skin on my plate, and commented on it. Ed happens to love the skin of any type of fish. He is even known to ask the waiter to please prepare his fish with the skin on. I never really gave this much thought until he asked me why I wasn’t eating it. I typically just eat the fish and whatever skin sticks to it, but leave the rest on my plate.

So I did some research on salmon skin, and other fish skin in general. Turns out there are many important nutrients in the skin of most fish, and almost all skins are edible. Salmon skin, for example, contains concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids. This is because the salmon’s fat is in the layer just beneath the skin, so when it is cooked with the skin on, the skin soaks up these (healthy) fats. However, all of this information is based on the assumption that the fish was swimming in uncontaminated waters. And, as we all know, this is usually not the case.

The salmon’s skin can also be a source of chemical pollutants that can be harmful in large quantities. Waters can become polluted from things like factories, sewage treatment plants, chemical spills, and city street or farm runoff. When these chemicals are transferred to the salmon, they become concentrated in the skin, the fatty layer right next to the skin, internal organs, and sometimes muscle tissue.

Some precautions to take if you are a frequent salmon-eater include removing skin and the darker fat layer right next to the skin, and also selecting smaller salmon, as they are younger and have had less exposure to toxins in the water. This applies to other types of gamefish too, such as lake trout, walleye or bass. Some fish, such as stream trout, perch or smelt, feed on insects and other aquatic life and are less likely to contain pollutants. Therefore it is probably safer to eat the skins of these fish. The bottom-feeders in lakes and streams, such as carp and catfish, are more likely to contain high levels of chemical pollutants.

Unfortunately, mercury is found throughout a fish’s tissue, so it is difficult to avoid. There are certain types of fish that tend to be lower or higher in mercury, and it is a good idea to become familiar with this information. A good website to reference is this one.

So, it seems like eating salmon skin is fine occasionally, but if you are someone who eats salmon twice per week or more, you may want to avoid it some of the time, and also choose the best quality salmon possible. This isn’t meant to scare anyone away from eating fish on a regular basis. The nutrients in fish far outweigh the risks, as long as you are choosing your fish carefully and staying aware of current warnings and information about what is safe to eat.

Eddo, you were right about the skin containing lots of omega-3s! And since we buy wild salmon and typically don’t eat it more than once per week, I’d say you’re safe to keep on eating the crunchy skin. And maybe I’ll give it a try every once in a while too!