There appear more and more lovers of healthy nutrition in recent years, and meat is increasingly falls into disfavor. However, nutritionists believe a person needs protein food, which means it’s time to pay particularly close attention to fish. What fish is more useful? Can it be dangerous to health?

Fish benefits
Fish contains extremely valuable proteins, vitamins and trace elements and other components to our body, including very useful, but absent in other products: omega-3 fatty acids, etc. But this is the most general information.

In general, fish, compared with meat and chicken is digested much better and faster by the body (fish remains in the stomach for 2-3 hours, and meat - 3-4).

One of the most useful fish components is fat. Its feature - high content of very useful unsaturated fatty acids and vitamins A and D. In addition, fish contains a set of trace elements. Sea fish is particularly valuable in this sense, it contains a lot of iodine and fluorine.

Nutritionists advise to use fish (especially marine) with metabolism disorders, atherosclerosis, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, etc.

But the assertion that fish is useful for active brain work is nothing more than a myth. The fact is that it was really believed that phosphorus was one of the main catalysts of thinking, which is is found in fish in the greatest number. But modern studies found this statement has two errors. Firstly, phosphorus is contained in other products in no smaller quantities (apples, vegetables, milk, etc.) and, secondly, successful brain work does not need phosphorus at all (other trace elements and vitaminscontrol this).

Learn to distinguish between fish varieties

One of the most frequent case - substitution of tasty delicacy chum with cheaper pink salmon. In order not to fall “bait” you should be aware of these fish. Salmon is usually quite large (weight of 5 kg is not uncommon), and hence its pieces must be small. In addition, it always has a bright pink color. Pink salmon cannot weigh more than 2 kg and is pale pink. But most importantly, it has a very distinctive hump on back.

However, salmon and summer salmon, contrary to popular opinion, is not different fish, but the same.

Now to less noble fish … To distinguish hake and grouper fillets (which is much softer and usually 30-40% more expensive) you should know the following: perch is almost always white, and hake - gray.

Two very similar fish - cod and haddock, the first of which is considered more useful, tasty and expensive. Unfortunately, their fillets are virtually identical, but the whole fish is easy to distinguish: “skin” of cod is covered with pale yellow spots, while haddock has dark dotted line from head to tail.

Can fish be harmful?
Alas, yes, and for very different reasons. Let’s start with the most traditional: the possibility of being infected by worms. Alas, when it comes to raw fish (as usual herring, and in the form of exotic sushi), it is quite likely. And freshwater fish is especially dangerous in this sense.

More exotic option - poisoning with marine fish because of its ciguatera content. The reason for this is excessive greediness of some fish that manage to eat not only conventional, but also poisonous plankton. Symptoms of poisoning are usual - vomiting, diarrhea, etc. But, fortunately, it is also quite rare and exotic case.

To finish the conversation about exotic fish poisoning, it is worth remembering a legendary Japanese Fugue fish. The fact is that with proper preparation of this fish, it is one of the most powerful stimulant of sexual potency. But if Fugue is prepared not properly - it becomes a deadly poison, and up to 300 people die in Japan each year.

And now the more common reasons fish can turn into harmful of a very useful product. Nutritionists usually present the highest claims to smoked fish, arguing it contains carcinogens (eg, benspiren) that trigger cancer. However, not all smoked fish is so harmful. In a kind of “risk rating” hot-smoked fish cooked on fire (especially thin-skinned) is on the first place, then - the one cooked in an industrial environment. The safest - thick-skinned fish of cold smoking.

Fish and diet
If you watch your figure, then meat should be replaced by fish. That is what you must have read in many articles about weight loss. That’s the way it is, but that’s just the thing is, what kind of fish you eat. Because some of its varieties can double pork as for calories! So it is good to know that fish is divided conventionally into three groups.

Oily fish - is the one which includes no less than 8% fat. This group usually includes fatty herring, mackerel, sturgeon, halibut, eel, etc.). For example, caloric content of fat herring fluctuates around 210-250 kcal per 100 g, eel - about 230-280 kcal, fat mackerel - 180-220 kcal. And this despite the fact that caloric content of lean beef and pork is just 120 kcal!

Varieties of fish from the second group (average fat content of 4-8% fat) are a few more suitable for a diet. These include, for example, sea bass, tuna, perch, mackerel, salmon, trout, catfish, carp, low-fat herring. Their average caloric value is comparable with same meat. So in trout it is ranged from 110 to 160 kcal, low-fat herring - 120-140 kcal, carp - 90-120 kcal, perch and walleye - 110-120 Kcal, tuna - 130-140 kcal.

And, finally, low-fat fish from the third group (with fat content not more than 4%) is suitable for those wishing to lose those extra pounds. These include cod, hake, saffron cod, ice, pollack, makrorus, river perch, lesch, flounder, ling, whiting, etc.). For example, caloric content of pike is 80-100 kcal, flounder - 80 kcal, and cod 70-90 kcal. Lose weight and stay healthy!