Which fish is safe for my baby, and what about mercury?

Fish is one of the foods worth being less cautious about than people are. It is recommended, not merely permitted: two to three portions of oily fish a week for a one-to-three-year-old, to reach the omega-3 intake European guidance sets.

The species to avoid

Mercury accumulates in large, long-lived predators. Avoid:

• Swordfish (pesce spada)
• Shark (squalo) and blue shark (verdesca)
• Pike (luccio)
• Smooth-hound (palombo) and spiny dogfish (smeriglio)
• Large tuna (tonno) - and keep tuna to roughly one portion a week

Italy’s food-safety committee found that a one-to-three-year-old reaches the weekly methylmercury tolerable intake with only about one and a half portions of these predator species. That is why they are a list rather than a caution.

The species to actually cook

The standard Italian first fish - merluzzo, sogliola, nasello - are all fine. Hake (nasello) is worth naming because it sometimes gets lumped in with the predators: measured mercury is around 136 µg/kg against swordfish at roughly 1,212, and it is not on the national limit list.

The rule that matters most

Vary the species. Monotony is the real risk here, more than any single fish. Rotating through several keeps intake well below the limits without anybody having to do arithmetic.

Preparation

Fish is also an allergen, so it comes in one at a time like the others - and early, not delayed. Bones out, cooked through, and flaked rather than in chunks.