A Huffington Post column by Moms Clean Air Force Senior Director and Co-Founder Dominique Browning is a perfect example of poorly sourced, emotionally based nutrition advice that scares people away from eating seafood. You really dont have to go any farther than the title to recognize the absurd rhetoric signaling that the column is bogus: A Worried Mother Does Better Research Than the FBI.

But if you do, youll see that she expresses her concern as a mother that air pollution, mercury, and other chemicals find their way into our seafood. I agree that we should improve the environment, but disparaging seafood and scaring people away from eating it in order to advance her groups agenda is intolerable. Not only that, she contradicts the latest medical and government advice encouraging people to eat more seafood so that they dont lose out on essential nutrients and protections from disease.

But Ms. Browning sure fooled the Huffington Post. We pointed out these egregious errors to the outlets top editors three times. In each instance, we asked them to run a rebuttal column from Jennifer McGuire, NFIs registered dietitian, to untangle the inaccurate advice for readers and hold the Huffington Post accountable to its own editorial standards on disseminating factual information. We were met with a deafening silent refusal.

Since the Huffington Post wont clear things up, we will:

Its not just that eating a variety of seafood twice a week is a beneficial thing to do for our heart and brain health, which according to the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, it unequivocally is. A number of scientific studies and guidance, including this 3-minute video from the Energy & Environmental Research Centerof the University of North Dakota, have recently started to emphasize the fact that not eating enough seafood can be a real health risk. Here are some examples:

Public Library of Science Medicine Low seafood consumption is the second-biggest dietary contributor to preventable deaths in the U.S., taking 84,000 lives each year (for perspective, low intake of fruits and vegetables takes 58,000 lives each year).

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and World Health Organization For the general population: When you eat fish, it reduces your risk of dying from heart disease. And when you dont eat fish, you might miss out on this heart health protection.For pregnant and breastfeeding women: When you eat a variety of fish, it helps boost your babys brain development. And when you dont eat fish, your baby might miss out on this brain boost.

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Babies of mothers who eat the least seafood during pregnancy took longer to meet developmental milestones like crawling, climbing stairs, and drinking from a cup compared to babies of mothers who eat seafood-rich diets during pregnancy (2 ounces per day on average).

Currently Americans eat only 15.8 pounds of seafood each year, compared to 110 pounds of red meat and 73 pounds of poultry. The North American diet contains the second-lowest percentage of fish in the world (7%), although the 2010 Dietary Guidelines say that 20% of the protein we eat should be seafood. The positive effects of eating seafood are too many and the risks of a seafood-deficient diet too harmful to not heed current expert advice.

As the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics explains, not all nutrition advice is created equal.With the wide array of disease-preventing powers provided by seafood, it is essential to sort out fact from fiction.