With Lent beginning next Wednesday, February 25th, Catholics around the world will have to forgo eating meat each Friday and opt to eat meals centered around veggies, grains and fish. Eating fish is pretty “in” these days considering the massive amounts of research which has elucidated the powerful health benefits of eating a diet that regularly contains certain fish like wild-caught salmon.

Most fish are a lean source of protein and provide you with a healthy dose of essential fatty acids and other nutrients. But lean white fish, when dredged in breadcrumbs, deep-fried and smothered in artery-clogging tartar sauce is not so lean after all.

As Lent beckons your need to swap out your burger or roast beef sandwich for fish, how does your favorite finned sandwich fare from fast-food restaurants in regards to nutrition? Here is a comparison of the most popular fish sammies and their stats:

Most of us know that trans fats are bad for our health. In fact, a recent survey showed that a convincing 73 percent of us do. But only 21 percent of Americans can name three food sources of trans fat without the aid of multiple choice.

The thing is, even if you don’t know that the following foods have trans fats, you should certainly know that they are bad for you:

• French fries
• Potato chips
• Doughnuts
• Pastries
• Hard margarine
• Vegetable shortening
• Cookies
• Candy

Trans fats have a double whammy effect on your health. They increase your bad cholesterol (LDL), and they even lower the good kind (HDL).

The March issue of Prevention Magazine had a great article that will serve as a smart guide the next time you’re at the grocery store. All the marketing-speak and hundreds of choices can make choosing one food over another a difficult choice, especially when your goal is to be as healthy as possible. Here we share the good, better and best choice of 10 common grocery aisles.

Meat Counter

• Good – Lean Beef
• Better – Organic Beef
• Best – Grass-fed Beef

Egg Section

• Good – Packaged egg whites
• Better – Whole eggs
• Best – Omega-3-fortified eggs
  

There’s a squabble brewing in U.S. governmental agencies over the recommendations for fish consumption by children and pregnant women. The Food and Drug Administration wants to reconsider the government recommendation for expecting moms and children to limit their fish intake, due to harmful levels of mercury.

But now there’s a proposal to encourage eating fish for its health benefits, and that has some folks with the Environmental Protection Agency challenging the validity of these new recommendations.

I was reading an article discussing whether or not it is safe for people to eat fish. There is much controversy and debate over pregnant women not eating fish because the mercury found in fish can have a detrimental effect on fetal brain development. However, a more recent study showed that children of women who ate fish on a frequent basis did better on tests displaying higher cognitive scores compared to the children of women who did not eat fish.

There is no doubt that fish is a healthy food- it’s a good source of high-quality protein, contains essential nutrients, are low in saturated fat, contain omega-3 fatty acids and DHA; all of which are vital to brain growth and development and help reduce your risk of heart disease. However, some caution is needed regarding eating too much fish that contain high amounts of mercury.