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The real health benefit of eating seafood is its much lower saturated fat content. Seafood
contains high polyunsaturated fatty acid (called omega-3), which nutritionists consider important
for people susceptible to heart and blood pressure problems. Even though many people switched
to seafood for that reason, more recent research published in 1997 disputed the cardiac benefits
of omega-3 fatty acids. Nevertheless, seafood is still a good, healthy fare.
It is harder to determine how much fat is in a serving of seafood than in the meat of
domesticated land animals. The animals we raise are on controlled diets so the fat content of the
meat or seafood that reaches our plates is fairly constant for a specific cut of meat. That’s not
true for seafood they catch in the wild. The same species of fish can vary considerably in the
amount of fat depending what the fish have been eating or the life cycle they are in. The cod
steaks you bought three months ago may have been very lean, but when you look at cod in the
supermarket today, you see a layer of fat between the skin and the flesh. What we know as a lean
fish may be much fatter just before spawning season. Herring, for instance, may contain only 5
percent fat one season but 15 percent in another. In general, farm-raised seafood has slightly
higher overall fat content than the same species caught in the wild and does not very with its life
cycle.
There is more fat stored in some parts of the fish than in others. The liver always contains
a lot. Muscle, the fleshy part we eat, has fat within the fibers similar to marbling in beef. Fat also
surrounds fish muscles, just like in red meats, but in lesser amounts. In red meat the surrounding
fat is easy to see and you can trim it. In seafood it is harder to see and cut out because it is very
similar in color and texture to the meat.
The good news is that, overall, seafood have less of the unhealthy type saturated fat, and
more of the desirable type, polyunsaturated fat, than other meats, and that makes fish a "hot"
item for people who are concerned about their fat intake and cholesterol levels. This isn't such
good news for the cook, because it is polyunsaturated fat that makes fish spoil much faster than
other meats. It turns rancid quickly.
Seafood also contains many important micronutrients, particularly iodine, that people
living far inland used to lack before the days of iodized salt. The introduction of fish on Fridays,
in fact, had significant health benefits in restoring the body's iodine needs, provided the fish was
not from fresh-water source.
TASTINGS Is it oil or fat?
Some cookbooks use the term "oil" instead of "fat" when referring to fish, "oily
fish" instead of "fatty fish." The only difference is in the spelling. They are both
the same. The reality is that when you cook the fish, the fat in it melts and
becomes oil.
Help! What Kind Should I Buy?
The first skill you need to develop is what to buy. Most cooks stick with fish and shellfish
they know, and they are influenced by price, what's on sale and what looks good under the
tightly-wrapped package or behind the glass counter. Sometimes, we look for that wonderful
seafood the waitress served us last month in that chic restaurant.
Most kinds of seafood have more than one name. And what you find in the seafood
display changes from season to season, but at any one time you can find a dozen or two different
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