If you love eating sushi, but worry about high mercury levels in fish, there is a new app that can help.
The Sierra Club recently released its Safe Sushi App. Sushi lovers can either search by mercury level (high, moderate or low) or search by the specific name of the fish.
The app is free and currently available in the Android Market for Android devices. An iPhone version of the app is expected to be released on iTunes on Dec. 16. The app’s release coincided with the Sierra Club’s celebration of Mercury Awareness Week Dec. 5 – Dec. 11.
Mercury is especially harmful to pregnant women or young children.
Statistics show that as many as 1 in 6 American women have enough mercury in their bodies to put a baby at risk and over 300,000 infants are born each year at risk of mercury poisoning.
President Obama is poised to approve measures that would cut 90 percent of toxic mercury from coal-fired power plants, which would reduce the amount of the substance found in fish.
Fish can become carriers of mercury that comes from coal-fired power plants. The emissions get into the air and mix with rain that fall into rivers and streams. The mercury absorbs into the fish, and then into humans when we eat the fish.
The Safe Sushi app includes a tutorial that explains the process and the movement of mercury through the food chain.
