It’s tempting to write a post for this week about all the good and bad fish for you and for the environment, but I realize I need to save SOMEthing to write about for when this Super Foods series is over! For today, I’ll give you the ways to find safe salmon and what to avoid. Be sure to read about the super health benefits of salmon first.
The basics of salmon
- You DO NOT want farmed salmon, because
- the fish are eating unnatural foods like corn, which may also be genetically modified, and when fed fish (salmon are carnivores) they eat more fish than they ultimately feed you (bad for the ecosystem called earth, you included)
- fish may be treated with antibiotics (bad for everybody)
- the highly concentrated waste from fish farms pollutes the water (bad for the earth)
- they are tested high in cancer-causing PCBs and dioxin, and endocrine-disrupting (hormone) PBDEs, a flame retardant (bad for your health)
- the farms breed diseases that kill wild salmon (bad for the earth)
Therefore you want to buy only wild salmon, which is higher in Omega-3s anyway.
- All Atlantic salmon is farmed.
- All Alaskan salmon is wild.
Anyone feel like they’re in elementary Math class? If this, then this… Which salmon fits all the descriptions (and you can remember all this when you’re standing in the grocery store)?!
How to remember what salmon to buy
Tricky! Since “Atlantic” and “Alaskan” start with the same letter, I had trouble remembering which was evil and which was preferred at first. Here’s how I remembered it:
Fish farming is illegal in Alaska, so I imagine pristine waters in the far north supplying my safe-to-eat salmon, swimming free (because they’re wild). I don’t think about the other “A” word. Just think “Alaska = wilderness = good salmon” and “wild = natural = good salmon”. When Gov. Palin ran for office last fall, that helped me put a face to the pristine Alaskan legislation, and it actually helped me remember the good salmon!
I read this information everywhere…except here, where they tell us to “feel good about farmed salmon.” Poor Atlantic salmon farmers. No one is buying their product!
Added Bonus: Most (all?) canned salmon is “Wild Alaskan“, and it’s the least expensive salmon to buy, so that’s great news!!! (Click here for my salmon patties recipe with canned salmon.)
Sources: World’s Healthiest Foods, Northwest Seafood, Real Food by Nina Planck, The Dinner Diaries by Betsy Block, and more.
Interesting quote
Research published by the Environmental Working Group (July 30, 2003) indicates that farmed salmon poses a cancer risk because it may be carrying high levels of carcinogenic chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). PCBs have been banned in the US for use in all but completely closed areas since 1979, but they persist in the environment and end up in animal fat. When farmed salmon from U.S. grocery stores was tested, the farmed salmon, which contains up to twice the fat of wild salmon, was found to contain 16 times the PCBs found in wild salmon, 4 times the levels in beef, and 3.4 times the levels found in other seafood. Other studies done in Canada, Ireland and Britain have produced similar findings. For more on the nutritional differences between wild and farmed raised salmon, please see our article on this topic.
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// Jun 12, 2009 at 11:38 am
Good post! As a former Alaskan, I am a fish snob and only buy “local” (well, it used to be local!
wild Alaskan salmon. Plus, I know several fishermen in Alaska personally whose livelihood depends on my eating their fish (even some friends from high school)! So I feel even better about that . . .
Makes me want salmon salad for lunch. Yum!
Best,
Sarah
Sarah’s last blog post..Honey Sweetened Strawberry Freezer Preserves
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We are big salmon eaters here. I have one daughter who will dance and sing when salmon is on the menu. For the most part, everyone in the family will eat fish if it’s salmon! My own love affair with it began as a 19-year old fighting a chinook to its place on my table from rod and reel off the coast of Astoria, Oregon to barbeque.
I can rarely find Alaskan salmon in the southeastern US anymore, but can often find boat-flash-frozen wild Pacific salmon, an intermediate step between Alaskan and Atlantic (which I wouldn’t eat if you paid me.)
Local Nourishment’s last blog post..Lung damage from nanoparticles
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Nice post. Since I don’t get a similarly positive feeling about Governor Palin, I prefer to think of the good feelings that I have about the intrepid fisherman on The Deadliest Catch. They catch from the seas in Alaska, so the salmon in Alaska is from the seas.
Jendeis’s last blog post..Cow Time
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We eat wild Alaskan salmon at least once a week. When we used to live in Oregon, quite a few of our friends would regularly go salmon fishing and share their hauls. I miss those days!
Thanks for submitting this in today’s Fight Back Fridays carnival.
Cheers,
KristenM
(AKA FoodRenegade)
FoodRenegade’s last blog post..Fight Back Fridays June 12th
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I didn’t eat any seafood for a long time based on fear of contamination. I changed that recently and have been eating salmon and shrimp about once per week. One of the things that helped me feel more comfortable eating seafood was finding a good place to get it from. I buy from Vital Choice and they supposedly test their salmon to ensure that it’s not contaminated. It’s expensive, but so far, I’ve been quite impressed.
Vin – NaturalBias’s last blog post..The Acai Berry: Don’t Believe the Hype
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Fight Back Fridays June 12th | Food Renegade // Jun 18, 2009 at 5:12 pm
[...] Kitchen Stewardship (Safe Salmon – how to remember)17. Every Kitchen Table (One-Sided GMO Debate?)18. Nourished Kitchen: 10 CSAs You Don’t Know [...]
Thanks for the great post, you did a great job outlining all the drawbacks to farmed salmon. My dad is a commercial salmon fisherman here in Oregon and he also fishes in Alaska in the summertime. The commercial fishing industry is having a hard time competing with lower priced farmed salmon, so I am so happy to see that word is finally getting out that farmed salmon is full of hazards.
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I know I am pretty late commenting on this post, but it is such a good one that I couldn’t pass it up
Thanks again!
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Pacific Salmon is wild too right? How does that differ from Alaskan salmon? Is one better than the other or about equal?
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Katie Reply:
December 19th, 2009 at 1:06 am
Sonia,
Katie
Pacific and Alaskan salmon are both generally safe. Alaskan seems to be the 100% sure bet, and pacific is usually…
I saw “Norwegian” on a menu tonight and didn’t know what to think about that!
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Sonia Reply:
December 19th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
actually I’ve heard that Norwegian is also farm raised salmon!
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Katie Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Sonia – That’s what I guessed – didn’t order it. –Katie
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