Re: CaveTex: mercury in bats

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 12:05:52 -0700 (PDT)

There is no safe level for mercury.

In any case a "x ppm" of mercury in a food product reflects what is safe for human consumption.  Eating a 10ppm bat of course would not give the consumer 10 ppm of mercury in their own body, but then again 10ppm is many times the lethal limit for mercury.  Eating food that is 1ppm can cause acute mercury sickness, even death depending on quantity consumed.

Having said that though, there are chelating agents that could be administered to the bats, potentially lowered the bats' mercury levels.  Then again you could have bat farms where the animals are kept separate from the nasty environment and could be raised virtually mercury free for human consumption.

We'll just have to find alternative foods or raise bats on a farm properly until this mercury thing blows over.


Stefan Creaser wrote: 
Finally, a reason not to eat bats.... -- Mixon
    
I dunno...

So the bats have 10ppm of mercury in them. A person has got
to weigh several hundred times more than a bat so this'll
get diluted to a maximum 0.1ppm. That's gotta be safe. And
as long as one doesn't mop up the oil left in the pan after
you cook 'em, with a piece of bread, then some of the mercury
will go that way too.

Anyone have any good bat recipes? I'm not keen on eating
raw meat :-)

Stefan


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