Warning--FARM raised SALMON

[Fishhead]

Last month the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a research and advocacy organization, reported results of a study that found excessive levels of PCBs, organic pollutants once used as industrial insulators, in samples of farmed salmon bought in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Portland, Ore. The amounts detected were 16 times higher than those found in wild salmon. PCBs have been banned in the United States since the late 1970s because exposure poses a cancer risk.

The EWG findings aren’t the first on PCBs in farmed salmon. A study reported last year in the journal Chemosphere found the level of PCBs in farmed salmon in the U.S. and Canada to be five to 10 times higher than those in wild salmon. According to the EWG study, PCBs in wild salmon are about five parts per billion, compared to about 27 parts per billion in farmed salmon. Those numbers are far below the 2,000 parts per advertisement
billion permitted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) but well above guidelines set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of four to six parts per billion.

In addition to PCBs, farm-raised salmon also contained residues of antibiotics and other drugs used to treat diseases that occur in the unnatural, crowded conditions of the pens. They’re also artificially colored pink and generally have less omega-3 fatty acids in their tissue than their wild counterparts.

The big advantage farmed salmon has over wild is its availability and lower cost to the consumer. You definitely want omega-3 fatty acids in your diet on a regular basis, and oily fish are one of the best sources. My advice: forget about farmed salmon and splurge occasionally on wild Alaskan salmon. You can get the same omega-3 fatty acids found in salmon from sardines, herring and mackerel, as well as from walnuts and flax seeds.

 

[Fishhead]

Cortesy bump

 

[RobFunk]

Fish, do you think buying unpurified omega 3 at the pharmacy is just as bad as eating this stuff?

I do.

 

[Fishhead]

ROB-- one needs to only ingest PHARMACITICAL fish oil.

To test your fish oil, put 2 ounces in the freezer and see if it freezes.

If it does, that is a sure sign it is full of toxins of some kind.

If it doesnt, it still does not prove anything conclusive however.

 

[MoneyManager]

Fish,

I always thought " farm raised " would mean less pollutants in a fish. Thanks for the info. By the way, have you seen anything that suggest this might also hold true for other types of farm raised fish ?

 

[TTinCO]

Fish is dead on here. Anything "farm raised" is going to be raised in a restricted body of water. This lack of "natural" space leads to these higher levels of PCB's and the other items Fish mentioned that are needed to keep them alive when so many of them are kept in such tight quarters. I would assume that this holds true for ANY farm raised fish.

 

[Fishhead]

Fish is dead on here. Anything "farm raised" is going to be raised in a restricted body of water. This lack of "natural" space leads to these higher levels of PCB's and the other items Fish mentioned that are needed to keep them alive when so many of them are kept in such tight quarters. I would assume that this holds true for ANY farm raised fish.

Would presume so also, but not 100% certain.

 

[Fishhead]

Update concerning salmon..........

The New York Times story (published on April 10, 2005) certainly is a cautionary tale. For those of you who didn’t see it, the Times sent a reporter to buy wild salmon at eight stores in the city. Some of the fish sold for as much as $29 per pound. The Times then had the salmon tested and learned that six of the eight pieces of fish purchased were farmed, not wild.

It appears that the suspicions of the food writer at the Times were raised by the fact that so much wild salmon was on the market during the off-season (from November to March) when the fish is not widely caught. Wild salmon is almost extinct on the East Coast and, the Times reported, West Coast wild catches are restricted by quotas. As a result, 90 percent of the salmon sold in the United States is farmed. Unfortunately, farmed salmon has been found to contain residues of PCBs and other toxic contaminants, as well as residues of antibiotics and other drugs.

The tests performed on the salmon purchased by the Times measured the amount of food coloring added to farmed fish. (Without this, the advertisement
flesh of farmed salmon would be white.) You can’t tell at a glance whether fish is wild or farmed – they look alike although they taste different. And consumers certainly can’t be expected to have fish tested to find out whether or not it is farmed or wild.

You’re better off assuming that salmon sold as wild during the period from November to March really is farmed. I recommend eating wild Alaskan salmon because it is delicious and a good source of health-protective omega-3 fatty acids. However, you can get the same fatty acids from other cold water fish including mackerel, sardines, herring, and black cod.

If you want wild salmon, you can order it online from one of my favorite sources, Vital Choice Seafood (www.vitalchoice.com). The wild Alaskan salmon available from this source is flash-frozen when caught.

If wild Alaskan salmon is too pricey for your food budget, you can buy canned sockeye (red) salmon in the supermarket; it’s all wild. It will give you the same omega-3 fatty acids found in fresh or frozen Alaskan wild salmon.

Otherwise, all you can do is buy from trusted sources and ask them how they make sure their fish is really wild.

Andrew Weil, M.D.

 

[RobFunk]

I'm just not going to buy any damn fish then.


Fishhead you have scared me off of it.

 

[chanman83]

I just get my omega 3s in pill form.

 

[Fishhead]

I just get my omega 3s in pill form.

Make sure it is PHARACITICAL GRADE and nothing less!

You want to avoid TOXINS in your fish oil supplements.

 

[Fishhead]

I'm just not going to buy any damn fish then.


Fishhead you have scared me off of it.

CMON!

 

[RIOSHILL]

thanks for the heads up guys.

 

[Fishhead]

thanks for the heads up guys.

 

[quantumleap]

Good post. Thanks for bumping.

 

[stacilu]

Just caught my eye, I take only pharmceutical grade
omega three. 1000 mg softgels, a little expensive
but I buy a years supply. They are supposed to be
effective for over two years.

 

[PatPatriot]

How do you know which brands are not farm raised?

 

[stacilu]

How do you know which brands are not farm raised?

Pat

Market will usually tell you if you ask, also some packages state
farm raised.

 

[bigbet1234]

If it says Atlantic, it is farm raises. Usullay whily dining I see this, I awlays look for Alaskan.

BB

How do you know which brands are not farm raised?

 

[JackDee]

"Make sure it is PHARACITICAL GRADE and nothing less!
"

There's no such thing as pharmaceutical grade fish oil, there are some like barry sears that CLAIM they are producing pharmaceutical grade oils but that's a fallacy since in order for a substance to be of pharmaceutical grade, there's gotta be a governing body defining the signature of what is pharmaceutical grade, and there's no such things in supplements. (in other words if a substance does not have an established pharmaceutical form, how can it be of pharmaceutical grade?) Of course there are better and worse quality supplements, but in omega 3's the basic process they all follow is a simple extraction process, of course multiple extractions, means more refined final product and hence less pcbs and other contaminants, hence try going for the fish oils with a high percentage of epa and or dha, and very low percentage of other fats and don't take supplements with unrifined fish oil. The source of the fish oil is also important, krill oil (krill is a very small shrimp like animal) for example is one of the less polluted, and most expensive, because krill being so small it's much lower on the food chain and hence less succeptible to pollution (the bigger the fish, the more the pcbs, because bigger fish take the polutants from both the waters AND the smaller fish they eat). Most good manufacturers also routinely test their products to have less than the minimum values of pcbs.

To be one the safe side, try not taking more than a couple of grams per day.