Auswahl der wissenschaftlichen Literatur zum Thema „Maud Lewis“

Oceans cover the majority of the planet and are home to a vast quantity of diverse yet interconnected ecosystems. The volume of living space provided by the sea is 168 times greater than that provided by the earth’s landscapes (Clark et al. 5). Given the wealth of creatures living in the seas, as well as those in lakes, swamps, and rivers, and given the much-touted health aspects of aquatic flesh and the environmental nightmare linked with animal agriculture, should we turn to a diet of pollock, shrimp, and salmon? In the 18th and 19th centuries, a mercury wash was used to produce felt hats. In the process workers were exposed to and absorbed bits of the substance and developed mercury poisoning. As a consequence, those who were employed in the felt hat industry often stumbled about “in a confused state with slurred speech and trembling hands” and “were sometimes mistaken for drunks” (“Mad as a Hatter”). Mercury poisoning “attacks the nervous system, causing drooling, hair loss, uncontrollable muscle twitching, a lurching gait, and difficulties in talking and thinking” (“Mad as a Hatter”). From this comes the term made famous in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, “mad as a hatter.” Between 1973 and 1997, fish consumption rose from 45 to 91 million metric tons (Delgado 1). The American Heart Association recommends eating fish at least twice a week for heart health (“Omega-3 Fatty Acids”). The National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition accepted “thousands of dollars from the fishing industry” to promote a recommendation that pregnant women eat “at least 12 ounces of fish per week” (“Fishy Recommendations” 23). Fish flesh is touted as “healthy meat” in comparison with the flesh of terrestrial animals. Omega-3 fatty acids found in fish are credited with helping everything from heart disease to diabetes, but fish flesh also contains deadly mercury (as well as “dioxins . . . and poly-chlorinated biphenyls”—PCBs) (“Omega-3 Fatty Acids”). Longer-living predator fish such as tuna, marlin, shark, mackerel, and swordfish “can have mercury concentrations that are hundreds or thousands of times, possibly even a million times, greater than concentrations in the water in which they swim” (Smith and Lourie 151).