Methylmercury in large predatory fish
Short answer
Large predatory fish carry a category-level methylmercury flag because regulators monitor this food category for it — FDA/EPA fish-consumption advisory. The flag describes the category, not the individual product you scanned, which has not been tested by anyone. It lowers a score by a capped amount and can never drive one to the bottom on its own.
What triggers the flag
The flag fires on the product’s food category, matched on tuna, swordfish, shark, marlin, tilefish, bigeye, king mackerel, orange roughy. It does not look at the brand, the batch or any laboratory result, because none exists at the level of a single package on a shelf.
What it does not claim
That your product contains methylmercury above any threshold. That would require testing this specific package, which no consumer app does. Any app that phrases a category-level signal as a per-product finding is overstating what it knows — which is why our wording stays at the category level and the penalty stays capped.
How to use it
As a prompt to vary your diet rather than as a reason to panic. Regulators’ own advice for monitored categories is generally to rotate: different grains rather than rice at every meal, different fish rather than the same large predatory species weekly. Infants matter more here than adults, because they eat a narrow diet at a low body weight.
Source: FDA/EPA fish-consumption advisory
Other contaminant flags
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