Start Eating Mussels

Problem: mussels can bio-accumulate lethal naturally occurring toxins, and it is difficult to evaluate their safety.[1] I grew up around commercial fisherman in Alaska. All sorts of wild food was commonly hunted or gathered, but eating wild mussels was not done. They were supposed to be safe most of the time, but it was regarded as not worth the risk. CDC continues to document cases of PSP in that region.[2]

Please don't gather wild mussels unless you really know what you are doing.

Per US Dept of health:

"If the water isn't red, does that mean the shellfish are safe to eat?

Not necessarily. Paralytic Shellfish Poison can be present in large amounts even if the water looks clear. Also, the toxin can remain in shellfish long after the algae bloom is over.

Can I tell if shellfish are toxic by how they look?

No. Shellfish containing toxic levels of Paralytic Shellfish Poison don't look or taste any different from shellfish that are safe to eat. Laboratory testing of shellfish meat is the only known method of detecting Paralytic Shellfish Poison.

Does cooking the shellfish make it safe to eat?

No. Paralytic Shellfish Poison isn't destroyed by cooking or freezing."

[1] https://www.doh.wa.gov/CommunityandEnvironment/Shellfish/Rec...

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6045a3.htm?s_cid...

My favorite nonprofit, GreenWave, is focused on growing mussels for these reasons as part of a vertical aquaculture system including scallops, seaweed, oysters, and clams. Their system provides protection to vulnerable shorelines, cleans the water, and provides protein-rich nutrition with few inputs. https://www.greenwave.org/

We used to eat mussels off the beach all the time but now it seems like there’s a near continuous red tide that makes all shellfish toxic. I’m not sure if it’s pollution or just climate change.

What I do wonder though is if the aquaculture mussels are being grown in the same seawater, why are they safe to eat?

> "We didn't so much evolve to eat fish, but we did evolve to eat mussels. Neanderthals 150,000 years ago in Europe were found eating mussels. Mussels can simply be grabbed, whereas catching fish requires a level of technology and intelligence we seem to have reached only in more recent eras. It's the seafood our ancestors ate."

I know this is an old post and everything, but this is pure nonsense. Modern day humans didn't descend from Neanderthals; they were a branch of early hominids that died out. Yes some Neanderthals genes survive today due to some inter-species breeding, but citing Neanderthals as a reason to eat mussels as if it were their only food source and simultaneously claiming that we didn't evolve to eat fish is just pure bs.

Just put them into a pot of boiling water with a beer, salt, garlic, and butter. Very good!

How did you stumble upon this old post?