Shark meat is high in protein and has a mild, meaty flavor that many people enjoy, but it comes with serious health concerns that make it a poor choice for regular eating. The biggest issue is mercury: shark averages 0.979 ppm of mercury, nearly the highest of any seafood you can buy. That’s roughly 40 times more mercury than salmon and almost 10 times more than cod. For most people, the occasional serving isn’t dangerous, but the risks add up quickly with repeated consumption.
What Shark Meat Tastes Like
Shark has a firm, dense texture that’s closer to a steak than a flaky white fish. People often compare it to swordfish but with a wider grain and more fat, or to an extremely tender cut of pork. Mako shark in particular gets praised for its tenderness. The flavor is mild and slightly sweet when prepared well, without the strong “fishy” taste many people associate with seafood.
There’s a catch, though. Sharks regulate their body chemistry using urea, a compound that breaks down into ammonia after the animal dies. If the meat isn’t handled properly, it develops a sharp ammonia smell and a metallic, unpleasant taste. This is the main reason shark has a reputation for tasting bad. The quality of shark meat depends almost entirely on how quickly it was cleaned and how it was stored afterward.
Nutritional Profile
On paper, shark is a solid source of protein, ranging from about 24 to 37 percent protein by weight depending on the species and cut. The meat is also rich in DHA (an omega-3 fat important for brain health) and oleic acid, the same heart-healthy fat found in olive oil. It’s a lean protein overall, comparable to other firm-fleshed fish.
But nutrition doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and the contaminants in shark meat largely cancel out these benefits. You can get the same protein and omega-3s from salmon, sardines, or mackerel without the toxic baggage.
Mercury Is the Main Problem
Sharks are apex predators that live for decades. Every fish they eat passes its mercury up the food chain, and shark tissue concentrates it over a lifetime. FDA monitoring data puts the average mercury level in shark at 0.979 ppm, with some individual samples reaching as high as 4.54 ppm. To put that in perspective:
- Salmon: 0.022 ppm
- Cod: 0.111 ppm
- Canned light tuna: 0.126 ppm
- Fresh tuna: 0.386 ppm
- Shark: 0.979 ppm
- Swordfish: 0.995 ppm
The FDA places shark in its “Choices to Avoid” category for pregnant or breastfeeding women and young children. Even a single weekly serving exceeds what regulators consider safe for these groups. For healthy adults who aren’t pregnant, an occasional piece of shark at a restaurant is unlikely to cause harm, but making it a regular part of your diet is a different story. Mercury accumulates in your body over time and is difficult to eliminate.
A Second Toxin Most People Don’t Know About
Mercury gets the headlines, but shark tissue also contains a neurotoxin called BMAA, produced by cyanobacteria in ocean ecosystems. Researchers at the University of Miami found BMAA in the fins and muscle of every shark species they tested, at concentrations ranging widely across species. BMAA has been linked to neurodegenerative diseases. Studies in primates showed that animals fed BMAA for 140 days developed brain changes resembling those seen in Alzheimer’s and ALS patients, including the characteristic tangles and protein deposits.
What makes this particularly concerning is that BMAA and mercury appear to work together. Lab research suggests the two compounds have a synergistic toxic effect on brain cells, each one amplifying the damage caused by the other. Since shark meat contains both, the combined risk is likely greater than either toxin alone would suggest.
How to Prepare Shark If You Choose to Eat It
If you’ve caught a shark or bought some at a fish market, proper handling makes the difference between a genuinely enjoyable meal and something that tastes like cleaning solution. The key steps all center on managing that urea-to-ammonia conversion.
Kill, bleed, and gut the shark as quickly as possible after catching it. The longer the meat sits unprocessed, the more ammonia develops. Cut the meat into manageable chunks and trim away any dark red muscle tissue, which tends to have a stronger flavor and higher urea content. Then soak the pieces overnight in buttermilk, whole milk, or lemon juice. The acid and fat help neutralize residual ammonia and mellow the flavor considerably.
After soaking, shark takes well to grilling, pan-searing, or deep frying. Its firm texture holds up to high heat without falling apart, which is one of its genuine culinary advantages over more delicate fish. A simple coating of seasoned flour and cornmeal, deep-fried for about three minutes, is a popular preparation. Mako and blacktip are the species most commonly sold for eating and generally have the best flavor reputation.
Some Species Are Safer Than Others
Not all sharks carry the same mercury load. NOAA research on Atlantic sharks found that bonnethead sharks had the lowest mercury levels of the species tested, averaging 0.50 ppm with a median of just 0.29 ppm. That’s still higher than most fish you’d buy at a grocery store, but it’s roughly half the average for shark as a category. Smaller, younger sharks of any species will generally have lower mercury levels than large, old individuals simply because they’ve had less time to accumulate it.
If you’re set on eating shark, choosing a smaller species and keeping it to a rare occasion is the most reasonable approach. But for everyday seafood eating, fish lower on the food chain (salmon, sardines, tilapia, pollock) deliver comparable or better nutrition with a fraction of the contaminant risk.