So I’ve been poisoned apparently, though it was years ago. And ‘why’ do you say? For being an observant Muslim it seems. Ok, well that’s not entirely true. But I’ll tell the story anyway….
Since 2000 as a Freshman in college, I had observed to the best of my ability the Islamic ruling on eating only halal (zabihah) food while at school. It was not something I had done my entire life as I was raised somewhat ‘secular’ but stayed away from culturally significant haram practices less so religiously prohibited ones. It was a struggle at first, like all uphill battles, but luckily my soul wasn’t so far into hell that I couldn’t get myself to do this. But what I do recall is how my Arab brethren were braggingly advertising the permissibility of eating ‘ahl al kitab’ or the meat of ‘the People of the Book’ (which is actually halal.)
No, this does not mean that they were eating the meat off the Jews and Christians. It meant eating the same meat that they were allowed (via Mosaic Law) to eat as well (i.e- Kosher.) Only their definition of what was included in ‘ahl al kitab’ varied from what my personal views on the matter were; namely the inclusion of any and all permissible animals slaughtered and served in this country. The logic was that this country (America) is a Christian country and that the meat of this country falls under the banner of ‘ahl al kitab.’ It didn’t take me long to completely dismiss their argument, but what I did envy was their apparent nonchalance and ease when choosing items of food to eat. Meanwhile, I was the guy who had to eat either:
- Pizza
- Pasta
- The occasional halal meal (fridays)
- Sushi
- Fish burgers
- Or my absolute ‘favorite’ default meal – Tuna sandwiches
That's a lot of fish huh? Which brings me to the the story of how I was presumably poisoned. In my freshman year, I ate a tuna sandwich everyday. Everyday; at least once, sometimes twice. Now let me give you a picture of how much tuna is packed into a college sandwhich. Normally a regular size can of tuna contains 5 oz. (142g) of meat which is about 2 serving sizes. However, these sandwhichs had easily 7 – 7.5 oz. of meat per sandwhich. That meant that I was getting anywhere from 7 oz. – 15 oz. of tuna, daily. This does not even include the days where I would make my own sandwhichs (tuna of course) at home after coming back from classes. As a general rule though, I would not eat more than 2 tuna sandwhichs a day (this was even before I learned about mercury poisoning.) The following years (2001-2004) I cut down on my tuna intake and averaged about 4-5 sandwhichs per week and would eat either pizza, pasta, sushi, or burgers (fish burgers mind you) for the other meals. There was hardly a day I can remember (and thanks to the mercury poisoning I can barely remember anything!) where I wasn’t eating some kind of fish – it was the safest choice for a Muslim kid trying to be observant and staying away from non-zabiha meat (or so I thought at the time.)
As early as 2003, I can still remember that I was experiencing strange physiological differences in my head which I had never felt before. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. I figured I was simply depressed and had a lack of focus in my career path, etc. I lived in a basement of a house at the time so I just blamed it on the lack of sunlight, sadly, it would be my fate to live in basements for the remainder of my college years so the ‘basement = no sunlight’ hypothesis was a convenient explanation for the strange feelings I was having. I would sometimes feel electric currents running in parts of my head, parts of my head would suddenly feel cold and at other times, numb. Strange pains and sensations would occur but it wasn’t really until I had started losing my short-term (working) memory that I started taking real notice of it.
By that time it was 2004 and I remember sharing this story with a friend about the strange sensations in my head, she told me that I should just go to the clinic if I was really concerned but that it was probably just stress from school. So I didn’t think much of it and continued to brush it off. I had taken the 2005 school year off due to family reasons and upon returning home, I had regressed back to old habits and thoughts and felt my depression coming back. It started dawning on me that perhaps the depression was the cause of my lack of concentration, focus, and memory (as is common in depression.) So I had begun taking nutritional supplements (gingko biloba) and others (Focus Factor) to help boost my slipping memory, which was really beginning to alarm me by this point. Upon returning to school in 2006, I remember I was afraid that I could no longer comprehend the difficult material I was accustomed to in some of my hardest classes (due to the concentration/focus/memory retention factors) and read something I had written in my earlier years and barely even recognized it as my own work! Things were looking weird.
However, I successfully completed the semester with a 4.0 GPA and aced the 2 hardest classes of my college career thus far – it was a resounding victory for me in that I knew I had conquered the doubting demon that was trying to tell me that I was going ‘mad.’ Sadly, that demon had other plans for me the following years.
Since 2006, I have been living at home, taking care of my sick mother, doing errands/chores, and managing bills and other duties of all kinds (aside from the caretaking.) For 101 other reasons, I was justified in losing my mind. But this was different – I had started forgetting important memories, childhood hallmarks I had remembered for my whole life. I was getting scared and depressed. I didn’t know why I was losing so much of my memory. I felt I was being cursed for my sins and slowly began slipping even more because of all this.
It was during my years at home that I came to the knowledge of heavy-metal toxication (namely in the form of mercury poisoning,) what its symptoms are, how long it lasts, how to avoid it etc. I learned that the FDA recommends about 12 oz. of various fish per week (lower in mercury content of course.) Sadly, I was getting a minimum of 35 oz per week – nearly three times the FDA recommendation per week, for about six months a year, for the course of six years total. And to make matters worse, of all fish, it was tuna. Due to the relatively high concentration of mercury in[albacore] tuna, many physicians discourage pregnant women from eating tuna altogether to avoid birth defects in infants.
Tuna, shellfish, shark, and other large fish contain higher levels of methylmercury (the form of organic mercury converted in water) which accrue through a process known as ‘bioaccumulation.’ The way it works is that natural elemental mercury will find its way into water (and in the case of most of the tri-state area) large industries will dump mercury-waste straight into the waters as well. The little fish will naturally take in trace amounts of mercury whereby larger predatorial fish will eat the smaller ones, building up the mercury levels through accumulation. The cycle continues until the largest fish in the ecosystem eat the little guys and have built up quite a bit of mercury in their systems. These big fish then make their way into our stomachs and yup, you guessed it – if you eat enough of it, you get poisoned. The tri-state area is actually found to have the highest degree of mercury content in its surrounding waters than any other region in the entire nation, as can be seen in the picture at the bottom of the post.
It is so potent in fact, that the FDA allows 5000 times less amount of mercury than it does even lead! Some symptoms of mercury poisoning are (taken by the EPA:)
- Impairment of the peripheral vision
- Disturbances in sensations (“pins and needles” feelings, numbness) usually in the hands feet and sometimes around the mouth
- Lack of coordination of movements, such as writing Impairment of speech, hearing, walking;
- Muscle weakness
- Skin rashes
- Mood swing
- Memory loss
- Mental disturbance
And sadly, I had experienced nearly all of these symptoms during the course of the years. Unfortunately mercury poisoning takes years of detoxification and if in large enough amounts can cause irreversible changes in brain chemistry. This is in no way an exhaustive research article on the subject and I encourage you all to read up more on the devastating long-term effects of mercury poisoning (and other toxin exposure) as these toxins are, unfortunately more common than we may think.
So back to my story of being an observant little good Muslim. Nobody told me about the dangers of eating too much fish and now I am suffering heavily because of it. There is no telling when (or if) these symptoms will be abated and/or if they can be compounded by other organic symptoms and changes in brain chemistry through things like depression, hormonal changes, and neurotransmitter levels. Without knowledge of the subject, I was duped into poisoning myself, but I write this in the hopes that it will warn others not to rely overly on one or two sources of food. A well-balanced diet is always recommended no matter how busy you may be. This is particularly common among Muslims in the West who are faced with problems concerning halal food and the ‘quick fish’ alternative. This matter must be more thoroughly researched and presented in our communities so that we can be armed with knowledge and make healthier choices in food. Don’t even ask how bad my memory is now….
(I live in an area with concentrated levels of mercury in its waters)
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