Why We Don't Eat Sharks?

You slice into a piece of fresh shark steak. Within seconds, a smell hits you that has no business coming from food. Sharp. Chemical. That's not spoiled meat. That's what shark tastes like by default, and the reason why reveals something genuinely strange about how these animals are built. In this video we cover: Why sharks store urea in their muscle tissue instead of excreting it like other animals The second compound, TMAO, that sharks need just to survive their own waste system The 2013 Madagascar poisoning that killed 11 people from a single shark Why sharks carry some of the highest mercury and arsenic levels of any seafood How Iceland's hákarl solves this problem with weeks of burial instead of speed Why shark meat was never impossible to eat, just incompatible with modern food industry ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subscribe for more 🔔 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sources: Elasmobranch urea and TMAO osmoregulation: Yancey, P.H. et al. "Trimethylamine oxide counteracts effects of hydrostatic pressure on proteins of deep-sea teleosts." Journal of Experimental Biology, 2001, and subsequent elasmobranch physiology research. Madagascar bull shark ciguatoxin poisoning, 2013: Diogène, J. et al. "Identification of ciguatoxins in a shark involved in a fatal food poisoning in the Indian Ocean." Scientific Reports, 2017. FDA mercury advisory for shark: U.S. Food and Drug Administration, "Advice about Eating Fish," 2004/2017 revised guidance. Shark arsenic levels: Southern Cross University research on heavy metal contamination in shark species. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ #foodfacts #didyouknow #sciencefacts #biology #animalbehavior #mindblowingfacts #ocean