I am inquiring about the winning in the kitchen meal plan. I noticed on the screenshot shown in the plan description that Salmon is shown for dinner every night for that given week. This plan will be for my wife and she is concerned that having fish for that many times during the week will be bad for her, mercury-wise. Can you provide some input into this please?
“Via email from FasCat Training Plan User”
Thanks for reaching out. All of the proteins within our meal plans are interchangeable and most of the recipes even give suggestions for what you could swap them out with. The meals are repeated in order to give the athlete time to get comfortable preparing that recipe. Ideally once they have a few recipes they can make with ease, they will begin to mix and match throughout the week (which is what happens in week 4 of the plan).
If your wife is pregnant or you are hoping to become pregnant, it is advisable for her to have 2-3 servings of low mercury fish each week (salmon falls into this category) and research actually shows that women who consume this much have children with better brain development. So I would suggest you guys have the fish for 2-3 days and for the other days, turn the “salmon watts” into “chicken watts” or even “tofu watts!”
Here is a good handout for pregnant women/ children regarding mercury intake and fish consumption if you want to learn more: https://www.fda.gov/media/102331/download
For the vast majority of athletes though, 5 servings of low mercury fish in a week is just fine as it is nutrient dense and is a great source of omega 3’s, which most athletes do not get enough of in their diets. Here is another article if you wish to read more on why is say that (see paragraph titled “striking a balance”) https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/fish/
Hope that helps!
Please don’t hesitate to reach back out with more questions or throw them up on the forum under our nutrition tab (this helps other athletes who may have a similar question).