How healthy is fish for a teen?

[Ampresus]

Hello everyone. I only recently started making changes to my diet and this popped up in my head. What about fish? Leo talks a lot about how you should eat a lot of veggies and when I asked for advice here, people told me that I shouldn't eat meat too much. But what about fish? In my biology class I learnt that fish is very healthy and that I should eat it twice a week.

Now I call bullshit. In that same biology class I learnt how one should eat enough bread. Considering the perspective everyone on this forum has on bread, I don't think that is great advice to follow. Of course then the question is whether I should trust whatever stuff my government has put in our education system or an online forum.

So, back to the main topic of this post. How healthy is fish for me, a teen? Should I eat it twice a week like my biology book adviced me to?

[Outer]

http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

[Leo Gura]

@Ampresus Relative to what? Pizza and fries?

Questions of healthiness are always relative to what you're comparing to.

And canned tuna ain't the same thing as fresh wild Alaskan salmon.

The biggest concern with fish is heavy metal toxicity. You shouldn't eat too much of it.

Stay away from predatory fish like swordfish, tuna, mackerel, shark, bass, etc. as they contain the most heavy metals. Smaller fish are generally safer than bigger fish.

[Michael569]

When eating fish, prefer one of the oily ones from SMASH category. Sardines, Mackerels, Anchovies, Salmon, Herring. 

One of the key nutrient why people eat fish are the Omega 3 fatty acids, especially the preformed long-chain-fatty-acids called EPA and DHA that our bodies are very poor at making from the top Omega 3s especially males.  If you are not comfortable with the fish, look into a good source of Algae Oil and eat a lot of flaxseeds, chia seeds and walnuts to make up for it. 

Edited January 23, 2019 by Michael569

[Ampresus]

@Michael569 Thanks for the advice. How much a week would you think is healthy to eat fish? Like once a week or maybe two times a week?

[bejapuskas]

@Ampresus  If an Enlightened being told you, that you should eat fish twice a day, would you listen?

[Ampresus]

2 hours ago, bejapuskas said:

If an Enlightened being told you, that you should eat fish twice a day, would you listen?

@bejapuskas No because an enlightened being doesn’t always have a full understanding of other aspects in life (such as nutrition)

[dvdas]

 

Check this channel. You will find anything you need to know. 

[Michael569]

4 hours ago, Ampresus said:

Thanks for the advice. How much a week would you think is healthy to eat fish? Like once a week or maybe two times a week?

nutritionfacts.org are excelent source of nutritional studies as @dvdas pointed out. 

I personally don't eat any animal products if I don't have to but I would not push plant based diet on anyone who hasn't studied nutrition a little bit to avoid potential pitfalls such as lack of B12 , D, missing Omega 3 or Omega 6 dominance, lack of Zinc, calcium etc..

But to answer your question 1-2 a week should be safe as long as your liver is healthy and can detoxify the heavy metal load so make sure to get a variety of fruits, veggies, wholegrains and legumes to supply liver detoxification

But as @bejapuskas said don't take anyone's word for it and do some research yourself.