Eating Shark in the U.S.: Everything You Need to Know

Whether you're a recreational angler or a culinary enthusiast, you might be wondering about shark meat and whether it's safe to eat, how to prepare it, and even if its consumption is legal. Though it is far from the most popular seafood, there is a growing market for shark meat in the United States. This meat is prepared and served in many ways and under various names. Species such as mako, thresher, and blacktip are among those that are fished for their meat.

Alternate names for shark meat include flake, dogfish, grayfish, and whitefish. Imitation crab (surimi) and fish and chips are sometimes made from shark meat as well.

One misconception about shark meat is that it is illegal. Shark meat is, in fact, quite legal in the United States. What is illegal, however, is the practice of finning—or cutting the fins off the animals and throwing it back in the water to die.

Mercury in Shark Meat

Probably the main concern when it comes to consuming shark meat is the fact that shark has one of the highest concentrations of mercury of any seafood. Mercury is a metal that is extremely toxic to humans. The effects of mercury poisoning can include blindness, loss of hair, teeth, and nails, skin peeling, and kidney failure. Unfortunately, one of the most common ways that people ingest mercury is by eating fish and seafood, especially large fish such as swordfish, tuna, and shark.

The cycle for mercury to get into these fish starts in power plants. When these burn coal, the resulting smoke, which contains mercury, enters the atmosphere and is carried into the oceans by rain. Fish then absorb this mercury through their gills. Unlike other toxins, mercury isn't excreted as quickly as it is consumed, which causes it to build up in the animals' bodies. As the food chain progresses, bigger fish like swordfish, tuna, and sharks absorb the mercury from the water but also the mercury present in the smaller animals they eat. The bigger the fish, the larger the amount of mercury in its meat.

This means that when humans eat sharks, they effectively become the top of the mercury food chain. This is why the FDA recommends avoiding the consumption of shark meat.

Shark Meat Can Smell of Ammonia

In many ways, shark meat is similar to other large ocean fish like swordfish or marlin. It's a firm, white fish with meaty flesh. But it differs from other large seafood in one key respect, and that is the presence of a chemical called urea. Sharks' bodies produce urea to regulate the difference between their body fluids and the seawater they live in, through a process called osmosis. For the culinary-minded, if you've ever seen the way salt pulls water out of a steak or a vegetable like sliced eggplant, this is an example of osmosis.

In sharks, urea helps ensure that their cells don't absorb or excrete too much water but instead maintain the proper balance. In fact, most animals, including humans, produce and excrete urea as part of their normal metabolisms. But when a shark dies, the urea in its blood breaks down and is converted into ammonia, which has a strong, unpleasant odor. There's no truly effective way to remove this odor from the fish, so chefs who prepare shark meat have learned how to mask it, either by brining it or marinating it. A typical marinade might include milk, lemon juice, or vinegar. The milk used in this process should be full-fat, since ammonia is fat-soluble, and then discarded after the meat is taken out of it.

Preparing Shark Meat

Like other firm-fleshed white fish, shark meat can be grilled, pan-seared, baked, or even made into ceviche. It's sold both in the fillet, which are boneless cuts taken parallel to the spine, and steaks, which are bone-in cuts made by slicing directly across the fish. When cooking shark, the standard fish guideline of 10 minutes per inch of thickness is useful to bear in mind.

Shark is a low-fat fish so it can dry out quickly when cooked over a very hot grill. This can be prevented by poaching the shark briefly in milk, wine, or stock and then finishing the cooking very quickly over a hot grill. A 100-gram serving of mako shark has 134 calories, a whopping 21 grams of protein, and only 4.4 grams of fat. 

Pan-frying is also a good way to cook shark steaks. Heat some oil to shimmering in a cast-iron skillet, then add the steaks. Lower the heat to medium and cook for 5 to 6 minutes per side, turning just once, depending on thickness. The steaks or fillets can also be cut into cubes and skewered for cooking either over a grill or in the oven.

What Is Shark Finning?

Shark fins are popular in some Asian cultures, especially in Chinese cuisine, where they are typically prepared as the main ingredient in shark fin soup. While it is legal in the United States to consume shark meat, that is not the case for shark fins. The fins are the most valuable part of the shark, and unlike the sharks themselves, the fins don't occupy much freezer space, very limited on fishing vessels, so the usual practice is to catch a shark, cut the fins off its body while it's still alive, and then dump the finless animal back into the water. The animals, unable to swim, sink and drown, unable to move and get oxygen through their gills, or bleed to death.

Besides cruel and inhumane, the practice of shark finning is responsible for as many as 100 million shark deaths per year, which has threatened a number of shark species with endangerment.