I eat some tinned fish… used to be tinned tuna but there's heaps of mercury in them so I'm mainly eating sardines… these are mainly thailand or eastern europe.
Thing is I havent seen any oysters and mussels that arent from china even the expensive brands.
Any thoughts? Besides not eating that shit.
Go to local fisho
Mercury in fish is a media scare with no basis in reality.
Whilst it's true that seafood contains some levels of mercury these are at levels that have never been shown to have any negative effects in populations that eat seafood everyday.
The media is wrongly informing you that you are being poisoned in order to sell your attention to advertisers. And of course there's the entirely worse group of simply nutters informing you that you're being poisoned just because that's their pet issue they latched onto.
Mercury is mostly in the fish that are higher in the food chain, eg the big fish like Tuna. Missed some high school biology classes? Makes more sense than "studies" finds computers lower academic performances.
The word in particular is biomagnification.
While for most of the world it's not an issue, fetus' and babies are most susceptible (which is why pregnant women are recommended to moderate their intake).
Also, there are specific instances of localised poisoning.. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata,_Kumamoto#Minamata_en….
Given China is notorious for food contamination, I don't blame the op for looking around for something else.
I can buy local oysters that are smoked ( South Coast ) N.S.W. There in a jar and pricey but really fresh and great .
Buying food from the most polluted land on earth is something that consumers either do or don't.
We cook Chinese a lot, but never buy food from 'home'. The reason to be in Oz is primarily environmental, but and has a lot to do with health and freedoms too.
The regard people show for their environment here is different to China, though often equally appalling, from people running goats on depleted farmland or to ring-bark trees they are not allowed to cut-down, to mining in methods that are untested and cannot be remediated when they go wrong.
I imagine that the tins you are finding are being sold by multinationals through multinationals, so the contents comes from wherever it can be collected most cheaply, processed or tinned in Asia and then on-sold down to you. Lowest cost production, no need to comply with restrictive laws covering supply, pollution, health or safety, etc. Consumer saves a little in the short term but its not long before the multinational wins, competition loses. All along our planet loses- the carbon cost of this kind of trade could not be worse.
Tins allow important things like food to be commoditised and convenient, and there must be some around that are good enough. Look at your local hippie shops perhaps, or better still, buy fresh/non-processed food instead.