Medical Questions » Other Problems Questions » Question No. 1398
| Question: | What' s your view on farmed salmon? |
| Answer: | No all farmed salmon is equal. While fish farming is generally a good idea, as it provides a way of avoiding the continual depletion of already struggling fish stocks in the world' s oceans, commercial pressures can lead to poor practices and corner-cutting. Farmed fish in general can be quite an unhealthy option compared to wild fish. Stocking rates in sea cages can be too high - the fish are too close together and sea lice and fish diseases are rampant. So chemicals, antibiotics and biocides are then used to keep the fish alive, and this regimen isn' t conducive to breeding healthy fish. As recent news stories report, farmed salmon can also be highly contaminated with industrial chemicals and pesticides.
Another key consideration is what the fish eat. The fishmeal-based feed is often lacking in the essential fats the fish would naturally get in the wild from plankton and so on, and farmed salmon may thus have a much lower content of omega-3 essential fats than their wild cousins. Farms also often add colorants to the feed to make the flesh pinker, and while some are simply natural red pigments, I imagine others are not. If you can' t get wild salmon, I recommend organically fanned salmon, where at least there are some controls on the stocking densities, the cleanliness of the waters, the types of feed used, and whether artificial colorants are prohibited. |
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