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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Yuck

Yuck

by John Cole|  June 12, 20053:35 pm| 16 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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I did not know this:

In essence, the presence of gigantic fish farms will supposedly relieve pressure to ensure the survival of wild salmon stocks, as a federal judge just ordered the administration to do. (No doubt he was merely an “activist” judge.)

So now Americans won’t have to worry about endangered salmon. Hey, they can get it right from the can!

Er, well, and pay no mind to what you’re getting in that can.

Most of you probably already know that when you buy farmed salmon, that nice “pink” color is faked. It would be naturally grey except for the dye they feed the fish:

Another difference in farmed salmon: their flesh would be light grey if they weren’t fed ad additive to give them their salmon colour. Farmers can pick the colour they want their fish to be from a ‘SalmoFan,’ something that resemble a collection of paint chips.

And, when it comes to eating them, farmed salmon have notably higher levels of toxins contained in their meat. Oh, and did we mention that they’re high in delicious and nutritious PCBs too? In addition, the live fish are constantly fed a chemical diet of antibiotics (more per pound, in fact, than any other kind of livestock).

And just like that, my appetite for salmon (one of my favorite fish dishes- filets baked or grilled with a brown sugar/soy sauce crust are my favorite), died.

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16Comments

  1. 1.

    wufnik

    June 12, 2005 at 4:03 pm

    Well, some rules here. First, never buy salmon (or any fish, for that matter) from a supermarket unless you know where it’s sourced from–in fact, that’s not a bad idea for all your food, but ESPECIALLY meat and fish. I live in the UK, where this is actually pretty easy to do, at least in London. I think in the US it’s harder, but not impossible–ask! Second, restaurants generally get wild salmon if they can–and they’ll say so. If the menu doesn’t say “wild” salmon, it’s not–it’s from a farm. Third, even in West Virginia you must have organic food stores–this may be where you have to go for real salmon from now on. Good luck!

  2. 2.

    Jon H

    June 12, 2005 at 5:46 pm

    Some store fish is treated with Carbon Monoxide (I think) to make it pinker.

  3. 3.

    Jon H

    June 12, 2005 at 5:47 pm

    I should add, that making store fish pinker helps conceal its age.

  4. 4.

    ed in texas

    June 12, 2005 at 6:17 pm

    Wild salmon is pink for the same reason that wild flamingos are pink; their natural food in the wild is primarily crustaceans i.e. shrimp. Crustaceans are bottom feeders, and tend to collect whatever’s around. (Yes this means what you think about eating shrimp and lobsters.) Would you like to discuss catfish, oysters, and clams?

  5. 5.

    John Cole

    June 12, 2005 at 6:27 pm

    I am kinda worked up about the chemicals being injected, not the natural color.

    I am sure there is some gruesome stuff about oysters and clams I don;t need to know, especially since raw oysters are one of my favorite things in the world.

  6. 6.

    Christie S.

    June 12, 2005 at 7:21 pm

    Ick…all the way around. In my case, what swims in the water can stay in the water.

  7. 7.

    Mike Jones

    June 12, 2005 at 7:41 pm

    Just avoid the Atlantic salmon. Here in upstate NY, salmon in the grocery stores is always id’ed as either “Atlantic” or “Pacific” (or “Alaskan”. That’s just about 100% equivalent to “farm-raised” and “wild”.

  8. 8.

    Brandon

    June 12, 2005 at 8:38 pm

    Your appetite for salmon is gone? This is just another reason why it’s better not to know what goes into your food.

  9. 9.

    demimondian

    June 12, 2005 at 9:17 pm

    The color isn’t actually injected: it’s fed. Farm-raised salmon are made orange by feeding them the same chemicals that their wild counterparts eat in their diets.

    I’m a big fan of fish farming — it’s the only way to save the wild runs. That said, it’s a new thing to raise fish on an industrial scale, and we should expect that it will take a while before the problems (like those tasty and nutritious PCBs) get worked out.

  10. 10.

    Andrew J. Lazarus

    June 12, 2005 at 10:27 pm

    Canned salmon is usually wild. Just check that it comes from Alaska (there are no fish farms in Alaska).

    I’m not necessaril against fish farming, and I’ve bought farmed trout, catfish, etc., but you can actually tell the difference in flavor and texture, and wild salmon is much, much higher in the Omega-3 oils that are alleged to be good for you.

    California now requires markets to label their fish. Don’t know if and when this moves to West VA.

  11. 11.

    Aaron

    June 13, 2005 at 3:15 am

    Just limit your intake to one meal a week and you’ll be fine.

    BTW, stone homes emit radiation and there’s more carcinogens in the apple naturally than in alar.

  12. 12.

    zabbadoo

    June 13, 2005 at 9:10 am

    Keep eating that fish! Remember, we all have to do our part and eat as much carcinogenic food additive crap as we can so that we will eventually evolve to not only thrive on this crap, but to actually require it. All of these non-smokers are really dropping the ball after 60 years of concerted effort towards building a lung cancer proof species. You selfish bastards.

  13. 13.

    James Emerson

    June 13, 2005 at 10:55 am

    Hasn’t yet been mentioned, but farmed Salmon contains…on average…sixteen times the amount of PCBs (widely recognized as the most dangerous industrial toxin released to the environment) feedstocks are manufactured from more contaminated sources than natural salmon food, but also because the farmed salmon are force fed to make them fatter, thusly more commercializable. Salmon fat provides the flavour we find so appealing, but is also where PCBs are most concentrated.

    If the FDA posted contaminated food warnings for farmed fish as those EPA nazis (Tom Delay’s term…not mine) do for wild fish, they would recommend the consumers limit themselves to less than one serving of farmed fish per month.

    About 23 million Americans eat farmed salmon more than once a month, including many pregnant women who probably think that salmon is good for fetal development. PCBs are known (without a doubt) to cause cancer in adults when consumed in accumulating doses, but are of particular concern for their effects on the developing fetus. They are a cause of brain abnormalities (amongst other effects) in children whose mothers have either consumed or been exposed to higher than the recommended levels of PCBs.

    Well, so much for our culture of life.

  14. 14.

    Mr Furious

    June 13, 2005 at 11:19 am

    Don’t even get started on the mercury in tuna…

    I think (don’t know) that if you choose wild alaskan salmon you should be fine.

    It sucks. Salmon is one of my two-year-old’s favorite foods, and I’ve only recently gained an appreciation for it. It is one of my favorites as well…

  15. 15.

    Gary Farber

    June 13, 2005 at 1:32 pm

    John, to paraphrase the old saying, and reduce things to their essentials, you’ll really be vastly more comfortable in life if you simply never read anything about the making of food, or politics, again.

    Or you could always pick just one.

  16. 16.

    Fledemaus

    June 13, 2005 at 4:13 pm

    On the bright side Copper River Salmon season is starting. If you’ve not tried it, you have no had salmon.

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