A Little Too Fishy For Me, Why I Stopped Eating Farm Raised Salmon

The Truth About Farm Raised Salmon

The lack of proper public education and inadequate labeling of fish continues to be a major public health risk worldwide. Most food manufacturers, grocery chains and big box stores refuse to, or are not required to properly label their fish as farmed or wild. That’s likely because the public is largely unaware of the dangers associated with cheap, high profit farmed fish that is so abundant in the conventional food supply. If you love fish, at what cost does this come to your health, and how can you protect yourself and your family?

Dr. David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany, published a major study in the journal Science on contamination in fish.

The problem: Nature didn’t intend for salmon to be crammed into pens and fed soy, poultry litter, and hydrolyzed chicken feathers. As a result, farmed salmon is lower in vitamin D and higher in contaminants, including carcinogens, PCBs, brominated flame retardants, and pesticides such as dioxin and DDT. According to Carpenter, the most contaminated fish come from Northern Europe, which can be found on American menus. “You could eat one of these salmon dinners every 5 months without increasing your risk of cancer,” says Carpenter, whose 2004 fish contamination study got broad media attention. “It’s that bad.” Preliminary science has also linked DDT to diabetes and obesity, but some nutritionists believe the benefits of omega-3s outweigh the risks. There is also concern about the high level of antibiotics and pesticides used to treat these fish. When you eat farmed salmon, you get dosed with the same drugs and chemicals.

The solution: Switch to wild-caught Alaska salmon. If the package says fresh Atlantic, it’s farmed. There are no commercial fisheries left for wild Atlantic salmon

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Healthy and Happiness,
Jay
www.NixonElite.com