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Fri 9 Jan, 2004 06:12 am
For the last year or so, I have been purchasing farmed salmon from my super market. I eat it at least once a week. It has made me feel very noble, as the salmon is rich in fish oil, which is supposed to be healthful for you.
Now it comes out that farmed salmon has lots of contaminants, which could be carcinogenic. Great. I am preventing heart disease, and encouraging cancer.
It is getting to the point, where people don't know WHAT to eat. Do you eat farmed salmon? Do you think that you will stop eating the salmon, because of the potential problems with the contaminants?
http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/01/08/salmon.pollution.ap/index.html
Phoenix
Eat, drink and enjoy for tomorrow we die. If one to were listen to the daily warnings about our food supply and what we eat we would stop eating altogether.
Latest pronouncement drink six cups of coffee daily to fight diabetes. Stay tuned tomorrow we will tell you about the dangers of coffee drinking.
If possible, I don't eat farmed salmon at all for years - this isn't new at all: ther have been discussions here in Europe sincea couple of years ...and afterwards changings in farm and feeding methods: you now can get organic farmed salmon.
I'm not a tremendous fan of salmon to begin with, but I stopped buying farmed salmon about 18 - 24 months ago after reading about this issue at a cooking forum I frequent.
The medical experts on one of the channels here in Boston stressed that the study looked at the differences in PCB levels between wild and farm raised salmon and while farm raised salmon had more PCBs the overall levels were still pretty low (lower than what is commonly found in beef and poultry.. The study found dioxin at 1.88 bbp in farm raised salmon and chicken runs as high as 4 ppm)
Walter Hinteler wrote:If possible, I don't eat farmed salmon at all for years - this isn't new at all: ther have been discussions here in Europe sincea couple of years ...and afterwards changings in farm and feeding methods: you now can get organic farmed salmon.
Interesting.. In this particular study the Northern European salmon were found to have the highest levels of contaminents...
fishin' wrote:
Interesting.. In this particular study the Northern European salmon were found to have the highest levels of contaminents...
Yeap - surely one of the -perhaps THE- reason, why you can get organic farmed salmon now since a year or so.
Hell, I never knew anything about farm-raised vs. wild salmon. This reeeeeeaalllly pisses me off and I'm sick and tired of being told one thing and having the rug pulled out from under us later on.
I love salmon. I guess I'll start paying attention to farm-raised vs. wild but dammit, I'm sick of this flip-flopping.
eoe wrote:I guess I'll start paying attention to farm-raised vs. wild but dammit, I'm sick of this flip-flopping.
Unfortunately, it isn't usually that simple when you are shopping. As the original article mentions, most farm raised salmon sold in North america is from Chile and has much lower levels of PCBs and dioxin that the salmon from Europe. The farm raised salmon from Chile had about the same levels of toxins as the wild salmon so the real key is watching where your farm raised salmon came from.
fishin' wrote:Unfortunately, it isn't usually that simple when you are shopping.
Well, can't you just look at the label? If not the farm itself, at least the country of origin should be named there.
Walter Hinteler wrote: Well, can't you just look at the label? If not the farm itself, at least the country of origin should be named there.
Salmon has scales, not lables!
I'm sure about other states but in my area there are few labels on fish and (literally) nothing on fresh fish. Apparently we don't have a Federal level law that requires labeling for whether or not it's farm raised or wild or the country of origin.
I buy salmon regularly and there really isn't anything on the package other then the price.
When you buy fish fresh at the fish shop, you should see where it is from (Scottish, Irish, Nowegian, Pacific, Alaska salmon for instance, and than if farmed or wild; organic per se [since it sells better].
And on frozen packages, there certainly can be seen a) the country of 'producing the package', b) the country or region ['North-Atlantic', 'South-Pacific'], of origin of the food (if that is not identic with the former).
I usually buy fresh organic farmed salmon or frozen wild one.
Ours (in Canada) are labelled much the same way they are in Europe. If you know the right shops, you can get even more specific information about source location and feeding practices.
I'm from a "fishing village" so most people here are pretty fussy about supporting the wild salmon fishing industry. The groceries I go to say whether the fish is frozen or not, farmed or not and all of them have signs that say the farmed fish has coloring added to their feed. Usually there's a label saying if the salmon is from Alaska or Canada, sometimes even from the region, like Copper River.
It is just like you said, eoe, they've pulled the rug right out from under the consumers, again.
farm raised salmon
A fish store employee told me, about a year ago, salmon from Chile was the worst. I think that was in reference to sanitation. To my knowledge salmon, organic or not, is vaccinated.
Some salmon feed contains salmon. In other words, non cannibalistic species are eating each other. I don't know if that is true of organic.
Farm raised salmon looks and tastes different from wild. It also has fewer bones and I believe nutrients are supplied by the presence of
bones. I'd suggest not eating it.
The use of chemicals, growth promoters, anti-biotics etc. in organic salmon production is not allowed in Europe (at least 'EU-Europe').
("Genetically engineered vaccines and synthetic pesticides including organophosphate, pyrethroid and ivermectin products are prohibited.")
At least 50 per cent of the aquatic feed ration in the fish pellets must come from the by-products of wild fish caught for human consumption (eg, the waste from filleting). The balance must be sourced from wild marine resources independently certified as sustainable. All of the agricultural feed ration must be certified as organic.
No growth hormones, genetically modified organisms or ingredients are permitted.
No artificial or synthetic pigmentation [dye] is permitted.
because they are intensively farmed there is also a problem with diseases
This is a succinct description of the difference in taste between wild & farmed salmon from Waitrose.com:
Quote:The trouble is, nothing tastes quite like it (wild salmon). To compare sweet, sleek, muscular, deep-toned, fresh-caught wild salmon to the pink-dyed, bland, flabby, flaccid, fatty flesh of the farmed variety is the equivalent of comparing Manchester United to the Fort All-Stars Sunday-Afternoon XI.
The Sierra Club says:
Quote:... while aquaculture is a good choice for some species of fish, it is not for salmon. Since the wild runs of Atlantic salmon are practically exhausted and hard to find, they recommend troll-caught and Copper River salmon from Alaska. Theyremind us that canned salmon is also wild, as farmed fish don't pack well.
Though the wild Atlantic salmon has had a collapse of the industry, wild Pacific salmon runs in recent years have been large and are increasing.
Quote: from: Pacific Salmon Runs Proving to be the Best in Thirty Years.
PR Newswire, June 24, 2003
Early season catch and release records compiled at Whale Channel indicate strong returns of salmon for the entire coast of North America from Alaska to California... This is definitively the best Pacific Salmon run the West Coast has experienced in thirty years.
Sadly for the fishermen of my area, though there are plentiful runs, the price of salmon has gone down. Despite the high price you may pay at the fish market, the fishermen were getting less than 10 cents a pound last season.
Deep frozen Pacific salmon was cheaper than fresh 'normal' farmed Norwegian today here.
Re: farm raised salmon
wannabee wrote:Some salmon feed contains salmon. In other words, non cannibalistic species are eating each other. I don't know if that is true of organic.
All salmaniod species (Salmon, trout,m etc..) are cannibalistic. They naturally feed on their own, as well as other, species of fish.
Quote:naturally feed on their own, as well as other, species of fish.
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