Dear Readers, As you know from reading Dr. Kleiner's books and articles, tuna products vary wildly in their health benefits and contamination levels. I asked Joe Malley, owner of Fishing Vessel St. Jude, to tell me more about how he discovered the benefits of troll-caught tuna. Here's Joe's reply:
My first experience with troll-caught, cold-packed canned albacore was before it was a widely known commodity. Among fisherman, “home pack” albacore had a fabulous reputation for its gourmet flavor. People talked it up so much that we decided to have some fish canned in Astoria Oregon in 1987. The cans came back to the boat delivered in a shopping cart. We loved the tuna and the responses we got from those we shared it with were so positive that we knew there was a future in it. Even then we didn’t know these cans were also outstanding in terms of their health benefits.
Sometime in 1999, I happened to hear early rumblings about mercury in tuna. The report I read worried me so I brashly approached the scientists who had done the study. At first, I just asked if the study had distinguished the mercury content of smaller (troll caught) albacore from the larger fish that predominate in the big cannery products. The person I spoke to was then the Director of Public Health for Maine. He said they had no way of knowing what tuna were in the tested cans, which were selected at random from grocery store shelves. I then asked if he felt it was likely that the younger fish might have different (lower) contamination levels. He said he would expect that.
This was enough for me to begin testing our tuna. Fortunately, the test results were clear and I never had to face the connundrum my wife posed, "Hey genius, what are you gonna do if the results are bad?"
Joe Malley,
co-owner of Fishing Vessel St. Jude