Why You Should Eat Mussels

Steam them in chopped tomato, olive oil, wine, oregano, and garlic. Eat with a baguette.

I'm pretty excited about eating mussels, because

1. they are a good source of protein,
2. the probably don't feel any pain, and
3. because they are filter feeders, they actually *clean* the water they are in. This is something you can't say about many farmed animals. So they are good for the environment.

I was at the Canadian Science Writer's conference recently and asked a fish farming scientist a question I get asked: because mussels are filter feeders, should I worry about bioaccumulation? Bioaccumulation is when unhealthful pollutants (often heavy metals) accumulate in fish over the course of their lifetime. This is a problem with big fish, like tuna. He said no, because they are farmed in fairly clean water, and because they grow to maturity so quickly the pollutants inside are negligible. 

I plan to eat more!