Murgi wrote:

> > I do eat pretty much like the Okinawans -- plenty of seafood and pork,
> fresh
> > green veggies, and tofu
>
> Seafood is another story indeed. You never know whether your fish was at
> Minamata bay before to take on loads of mercury,

Methyl mercury can enter seafood, particularly predatory species like tuna
or whale, naturally. Even the Japanese government has finally had to issue
a warning, though they somehow think mercury is only dangerous to pregnant
women and their fetuses.

> or in some harbor while getting polluted with other chemicals.

There are also environmental hormones and other things, which also enter
seafood naturally. Mercury and dioxins have been found in dolphins and
whales caught off Antarctica, and the US found dangerous levels of mercury
and dioxin in their own seafood supply before Japanese made it public. You
may as well assume it is a global problem.

Japanese who worry about the slim chance of encountering some tainted
"foreign" food demanding bans and universal testing, when they have so many
of their own domestic food scandals which go practically unnoticed,
shouldn't eat at all.

> Then there the Vietnamese pigs suffering of avian flu.
> But as long as you live on nigauri (goya), you are probably safe.
> And there is the very fresh sashimi which might get you something of the
> tapeworm species...