          
          
                             SEAFOOD MYTHS
          
               Many myths and misconceptions have sprung up 
          concerning seafood. As is the way with myths, they are 
          handed from generation to generation, reinforced with each 
          telling, until they become an almost inherent part of the 
          culture in which they grew.  Nor are these myths fare for 
          the unlearned; educated people are likely to believe them 
          as well.  Here are a few of the myths and misconceptions 
          concerning seafood that have come down through the years:
          
               * Oysters and other shellfish should be eaten only in 
          months with an "r" in them.  So far as the United States is 
          concerned, this is not true.  Under commercial raising and 
          harvesting conditions, oysters and other shellfish are safe 
          and good to eat any month of the year.  Certain European 
          oysters, which brood their young in months without an "r" 
          are less palatable at that time of year, but this rule 
          doesn't apply to U. S. oysters, which don't brood their 
          young.  As a contradiction to the myth about "r" months, 
          shellfish containing a paralytic shellfish poison are 
          occasionally found along the Pacific Coast in "r" months.  
          When this occurs, people are warned against gathering and 
          eating these particular shellfish.  The California 
          Department of Health places a quarantine on the harvesting 
          of mussels between May 1 and October 31; and along the 
          Oregon Coast, people are warned by the news media against 
          gathering and eating the mussels that cling to rocks that 
          rim the beaches.  The cardinal rule is that any 
          commercially available shellfish is non-toxic and safe to 
          eat.
          
               * Oysters are an aphrodisiac.  The idea of eating 
          oysters for their aphrodisiac qualities, which has been 
          around for a long time, is basically untrue.  Oysters do 
          contain considerable amounts of nature's building block, 
          cholesterol, as well as being extremely rich in protein -- 
          although it is doubtful that this was common knowledge when 
          the aphrodisiac myth was perpetrated.
          
               * Shellfish that die before being cooked should not 
          then be cooked and eaten.  People have been warned not to 
          eat clams, mussels, crabs, lobsters and other shellfish 
          unless they are alive when cooked.  From the standpoint of 
          flavor, this is a good suggestion, but shellfish don't 
          become toxic when they die.  When shellfish die, their 
          digestive glands break down, releasing digestive enzymes 
          that begin digesting the flesh of the animal.  Cooking the 
          shellfish alive prevents this process from beginning.  The 
          reason you should only clean and cook live or frozen 
          shellfish is that those that die before being cooked or 
          frozen will have a decomposed flavor and odor.
          
               * Seafood it a brainfood.  The myth of fish as a brain 
          food goes back to a 19th Century Harvard University 
          scientist who discovered that phosphorus is abundant in the 
          human brain, and from this fact, wrongly concluded that a 
          diet of fish should increase the human IQ.
          
               * Eating seafood with fresh milk will make you sick.  
          This is totally untrue, both from observation and the 
          application of logic; the combination of two wholesome 
          foods cannot possibly make one sick.
          
               * Mahi-Mahi is actually porpoise meat.  This myth 
          probably originated because the Mahi-Mahi is also called 
          dolphin fish or dolphin.  Mahi-Mahi is really a fish, 
          caught in tropical waters and marketed throughout the 
          world.  The dolphin, as a mammal, is protected by the 1972 
          Marine Mammal Protection Act, and is not harvested or used 
          for food in the United States.
          
               * Frozen seafood is inferior to fresh seafood.  This 
          is more a simple fallacy than a myth and probably 
          originated around the time when the marketing of seafood 
          went through the transitional stage from primarily 
          refrigeration and icing methods, to freezing methods.  The 
          truth is that fresh seafood is processed quickly after 
          being harvested, with surpluses beyond the immediate 
          marketing demands being frozen by the "glaze" method, which 
          literally coats the product with a layer of ice.  This is 
          an improvement over the old dry-freezing method, which 
          itself was a viable way of handling a highly perishable 
          product.  Fresh-frozen seafood is of exactly the same 
          quality and flavor as when it was frozen.
          
          
