Why Don’t We Eat Sharks?

Ever wondered why we eat tuna, salmon, cod, shrimp, lobster, crab, squid… but almost never see shark meat on the menu? The answer is way stranger than fear, Jaws, or conservation. Shark meat has a chemistry problem. Sharks store urea in their bodies to survive in the ocean, but after death, that urea can break down into ammonia. That’s why badly handled shark meat can smell sharp, chemical, and completely wrong, even when it isn’t technically rotten. But that’s only the first problem. Sharks are also long-lived predators, which means they can build up mercury in their muscle. And unlike smell, mercury can’t be cooked out, frozen out, soaked out, or trimmed away. Then there’s the business side. For decades, sharks were often more valuable for their fins, liver oil, skin, and cartilage than for their meat. And when shark meat does enter the market, it is often sold under names that don’t sound like shark at all. Flake. Rock salmon. Huss. Cazón. White fish. So the real answer isn’t that humans don’t eat sharks. We do. We just often don’t call them sharks. This video explains the hidden science, economics, and food-labeling story behind one of the ocean’s most misunderstood animals.