Delicious, and it can cause oily anal leakage. This is not a joke.
Escolar contains wax esters it cannot metabolise, and neither can you. Eating more than a small portion commonly causes keriorrhoea — oily orange discharge and cramping. It is banned in Japan and Italy.
Mercury accumulates up the food chain. Large, long-lived predator fish
eat many smaller fish and concentrate the methylmercury from every one of them, which is why
species size and lifespan predict mercury content better than anything
else.
Methylmercury crosses the placenta and affects foetal brain development, which is
why the advice for pregnancy is absolute rather than a matter of moderation.
Per 100g cooked.
Based on the nutrients and fibre this food supplies. These are supporting foods, not treatments.
Eat a very small portion, or none. Under about 150g is where most
people avoid symptoms — and many still get them.
It is often mislabelled
as butterfish, white tuna or sea bass. If a white fish is unusually oily and
buttery, ask what it actually is.
Grilling on a rack lets some of the
wax drain, which reduces but does not remove the problem.
Escolar and oilfish store energy as wax esters rather than triglycerides. Human
digestive enzymes cannot break these down, so they pass through the gut intact and pool as
oil.
The result is keriorrhoea: an oily orange discharge, often with cramping, usually
starting a few hours after eating and lasting a day or two. It is unpleasant rather than
dangerous, and it is entirely predictable from the chemistry.
Escolar and oilfish commonly cause keriorrhoea — oily orange
anal discharge and cramping. They are banned in Japan and Italy for this reason. Eat a small
portion or avoid.
Pregnancy, trying to conceive, and young children: avoid entirely.
This is a high-mercury species and mercury crosses the placenta.
Everyone
else: occasional rather than routine.
Shellfish allergy is
separate from fish allergy.
This is information, not a prescription. If you are managing a diagnosed condition or taking medication, talk to your doctor before making a large change to your diet.
Nutrition figures on this page come from standard food composition data. These links let you check the numbers and read the underlying research yourself rather than taking our word for it.