Episode 010 - What is Biomagnification?

Why I don't eat seafood and how mercury impacts your health and the environment. A lecture from Brendon Anthony. 

In this fourth lecture of Environmentality., Brendon discusses what "biomagnification" and "bioaccumulation" are and how it impacts both human and environmental health.

In short, bioaccumulation integrates toxins into life, such as plants and animals, and biomagnification intensifies the concentration of these toxins as they move up the food chain. As humans are at the top of the food chain, we feel the full force of highly magnified toxins as we eat other apex predators, especially in our oceans such as tuna. These can have negative health consequences. 

Biomagnification also poses a threat to many endangered species that sit at the top of their ecosystem, as toxins become increasingly abundant in their food sources. The ultimate goal is to reduce toxins, metals and pesticides from ever being introduced into the environment, i.e. reduce bioaccumulation and address the source of these emissions. 

The solution? Eat lower on the food chain, eat more plants instead of fish to obtain omega-3s, reduce fossil fuel consumption to prevent heavy pollutants, such as mercury, from emitting into the environment in high concentrations and potentially avoid seafood altogether. 

To learn more about what the EPA has to say about mercury, check out: https://www.epa.gov/mercury