Fish

[PinkDaydreams]

Afternoon all!
I am wondering if my one year old can have tinned mackerel/sardines in sunflower oil? He’s one. I know he can only have two portions of fish a week but have read a lot of conflicting info regarding fish in sunflower oil.
I don’t eat fish myself, hence the reason for thinking tinned will be quicker and easier.
He currently has salmon fillets which I cook in the oven and he loves, he also likes tinned tuna (in spring water) and fish fingers.
Thanks all!

www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/fish-and-shellfish-nutrition/ you are not limited to 2 portions of fish per week especially as you have a boy rather than a girl. There is a limit on oily fish. I would just watch salt content of the tinned fish

That’s a really helpful link thank you! It was actually the hv a while ago that told me no more than two portions of fish a week, not the first time I’ve been misinformed by them!

Fish is great. You can have it everyday. Here are a couple of options. If you can educate him to the natural taste of fish and avoid all the fried fish, it is fantastic.

My sons love a simple sole cooked in a bit of butter.

Also a frozen piece of cod. Fill a small pot with cold water, add the frozen cod, if you want you can add a carrot and half onion for flavour, bring to boil, once the cod floats, it is cooked. Eat as it is or with some extravirgin olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper.

Try to find a small tuna steak or swordfish steak and just cooked in the pan with a bit of olive oil or butter.

Mussels and clams are also great. And so easy to prepare. Packed with iron and of great nutritional value.

That’s great thank you so much! I like tuna steak so I’ll give him some of that :)

Just be aware that tuna and swordfish and any other big fish have higher level of mercury so only give it once a week.

If you go in a fish shop, they will tell you how to prepare and cook the fish.

Continue offering fish and you might find out you are actually enjoying it yourself (unless you don't eat it for allergies).

Any fish filet can be cooked in 5 min in a pan with a piece of butter and just add a bit of salt and pepper at the end.
Fish goes well with a butter lettuce or a mini-roam tomatoes salad.

Clams are such a great food, buy 300gr to begin with, wash them several times in a bowl filled of water until you find no more sand at the bottom of the bowl. Put extra virgin olive oil in a pan at high heat, with a clove or two of garlic if you like it, put all the clams together and cover. Leave for 5 min, open the lid, the clams should be open and that's it. You can adapt the basic recipe with a branch of parsley, a bit of white wine, a squeeze of lemon, a handful of pieces of tomatoes .....

The nhs link I gave does not say you need to limit tuna unless you are pregnant. For children it only warns against shark, swordfish or marlin due to mercury

I started dd on fish at 6 months. It’s her favourite food now, which is great because it’s so so quickly and easy to prepare. She’ll choose steamed salmon over fishfingers. That’s not to gloat, she is a total fusspot the rest of the time! But I eat a lot of fish so it makes my life easier that she does too.

Tuna has a high mercury content and can be an issue for neurological development in young children. Big fish should not be the main source of fish.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28183054

[In contrast to the aforementioned benefits, seafood is contaminated with methylmercury
76 (MeHg) (Mergler et al., 2007). Mercury (Hg) is a toxic chemical of global concern due its
77 wide ranging of adverse human health effects particularly towards children’s neurodevelopment (Clarkson et al., 2003;Ha et al., 2017).
.../...

MeHg content in 7 of 23 seafood species and 5 of 9 canned tuna brands purchased
92 exceeded the U.S. EPA guidance value of 0.3 ug/gram, and that 11 of the 23 seafood
93 species and 6 of the 9 canned tuna brand exceeded the U.S. FDA guidance value of 0.1 ug/g
94 (U.S.Food & Drug Administration, 2017 ]]

www.edf.org/oceans/mercury-alert-canned-tuna-safe

May not be the same for UK. Depend on the source I suppose

Does it say on a can of tuna where the tuna comes from?

In the end, everyone feeds their kid the way they prefer. However, if it isn't safe for pregnant women, this should be a flag for toddlers. But again, some give their kids bacon or ham everyday, despite the WHO's warning

In the UK we mainly get skipjack tuna. We don't have the other types mentioned. Skipjack has lower mercury levels according to your link

I am just saying to a mother who doesn't eat fish herself that there are plenty of fish in the ocean and I wouldn't give too much big fish and this includes tuna. Just a as precaution.

So many things are harmful if you look closely enough, such as acrylamide in chips and crisps, and millions in UK have them daily

And i gave her a link to the nhs guidelines for fish and shellfish which gives plenty of info about different types of fish

Good on on