Do you eat FARMED salmon??

[JoeA]

I have a tank full of cichlids. Tilapia come from the cichlid family so I'd almost feel as if I'm eating "daisy"!!

 

[scrapquitler]

Can you please explain this a bit? I've heard that farmed tilapia is terrible -the new food scourge - but when I try to research it I find mixed messages. Particularly the "tilapia is worse than bacon" claim is hard to validate. I've seen that the original study was misquoted and it's more that tilapia shouldn't be the ONLY fish you eat. I'm leaning toward avoiding it, but I'd really like better resources to support that action.

I've read a lot about poor conditions in which they are farmed and that they eat their own excrement, but that's not even the real reason why I don't eat tilapa. I don't eat tilapia because tilapia is to fish what iceberg is to lettuce. To me, it has no flavor and a weird texture, just not at all appealing.

 

[tvguy]

I guess I'm doomed. I eat fresh farmed salmon, and I eat fresh Tilapia. I also eat Blue Hake but that is frozen and breaded, the kind sold by Schwans. The Tilapia with crab meat at Outback Steakhouse is awesome. I had cod for the first time in years 2 weeks ago. I ordered red snapper but they were out. Wild salmon is better, but we kind of have a price threshold on fish, so only buy what is on sale for under $6 a pound, and wild salmon only gets that low a couple of times during the course of a year.

 

[Jennasis]

Luckily we don't eat fish at all. DH has a terrible aversion to seafood.

 

[ImarriedGrumpy]

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a great website (and app) that can help you make good choices regarding sustainable seafood options. We use it all the time: http://www.seafoodwatch.org/

According to their recommendations, there are some farmed salmon that are good options, but there are also some that are not, so knowing where and how it was farmed is important. They update their list all the time, and we've seen some fish get moved up and down the list over the years.

 

[tasha99]

I never eat farmed Atlantic salmon--it's been dyed. Okay, never say never--I have had lox made of it and it was tasty, but I do look for wild caught Alaskan salmon even in prepared products. I don't eat tilapia because it tastes like dirt to me.

I used to live in Alaska, and actually caught a white fleshed King salmon once. It's a natural variant, even in the wild sometimes.

 

[Asherry25]

While we much prefer wild salmon or wild steelhead trout, it's often not available in our area (for instance, it wasn't at the store this week). The price diff is also huge - the wild is usually around $27/lb as compared to $11lb/for farmed.

So, we do buy farmed sometimes, but try to make the best choices based on what's available.

 

[HeatherC]

I used to eat it. But then I saw an episode on like 60 minutes or Dateline, etc. where they did a story on farm raised salmon and showed how the farmer actually has paint chips to choose the shade of orange they want their salmon to be injected with. That just seemed soooo wrong to me and now I will only buy wild.

 

[Goofy_Disney_Dad]

Haven't really thought about it. I eat what's on the menu or buy what's at the store. Guess I probably eat a lot of farm raised.

 

[ChloroformSdxn]

Wow. This is interesting. I live in an area where farmed salmon is a hugely contentious issue for a variety of reasons. I also work for a marine science organization that has a program to help consumers select more environmentally fish, and teach marine biology as a sideline. I've also worked with different scientists who design fish diets and rear fish for reintroduction, aquaculture, and to study the effects of ocean acidification and rising ocean temperatures.

Most of the issues here are not ones I would think of as a consideration when buying fish. My concerns are primarily environmental.

We are running out of fish and seafood. Full stop. There will be none left if we continue doing what we are doing. This is about as close to a scientific fact as you can get. Given the destruction of marine environments and climate change, we need to find a way to supply the world's population with the seafood it needs. For that, we need to invest in aquaculture research.

Some aquaculture is very environmentally friendly, and some is incredibly damaging. It depends on the organism, and where and how it's farmed. An example from earlier in the thread, tilapia, is a good one in this regard. They're a freshwater fish, usually reared in closed containment systems. You don't have to worry about them spreading out and contaminating local species or carrying pathogens. They're vegetarian, which means you're usually looking at a net gain of protein. Funnily enough, most people who complain about tilapia diets are completely ok with eating prawns and other shrimps, whose diet is just as, if not more nasty, and come along with significant environmental and human rights concerns.

Salmon, on the other hand, tend to be farmed in open water pens. For a variety of reasons, in North America, Atlantic salmon species are being farmed in the Pacific Ocean. There are concerns with parasites (specifically sea lice), disease, and when these salmon escape they are competing with local species for food and disrupting spawning. Lights use to increase growth attract local species which then become easy prey, both for naturally occurring predators and the farmed salmon (again, open nets are being used.) Salmon farmers are allowed to kill nuisance species which include marine mammals (this isn't including animals who just get caught in the net and die.) Algae blooms are another problem with disrupt the local ecology. Then there's the actual net loss of protein. Because salmon are carnivores, they're fed fish pellets made up of other ocean species of fish, so you're not actually "producing" fish protein at all. There have been some advances in soy based formulas, but they're aren't great yet. If you could fix that and move to inland closed containment systems, it would be much more viable. Personally, I have no issues with the GMO feed or dye used to colour the flesh. Both are recognized as generally safe in the scientific community.

There are a lot of very good options out there for seafood. And there are some very bad options, whether you're talking about health concerns (for example, mercury levels in pelagic predators like tuna), environmental (sharks, orange roughie, chilean seabass), or human rights.

 

[Christine]

I used to eat it. But then I saw an episode on like 60 minutes or Dateline, etc. where they did a story on farm raised salmon and showed how the farmer actually has paint chips to choose the shade of orange they want their salmon to be injected with. That just seemed soooo wrong to me and now I will only buy wild.

I realize there are different ways to "color" a farm raised fish. Most of it's done with their feed which has components in it that make them change color. If they want a redder fish, they put more of that component in the feed. The supplement that makes them pink to red is sold right on the shelves of most grocery stores, GNC, and Costco as a human supplement. Not a lot of people take it but no one thinks twice about it.

I'm sure there are some places that "inject" their salmon but I have not seen those articles. Of course, it's hard for me to get haughty over artificially colored fish when I have no issues eating M&Ms, gummi bears, maraschino cherries on my sundae, etc. But I can understand a person who is a food purist and eats 100% "natural" not going for farmed salmon because of the way it gets colored. But if they aren't out swimming in their natural habitat they don't get that marine life that makes them pink (similar to pelicans living in captivity if not given those specific feeds).

Anyway, I will always do choose the wild salmon when it is close in price to farmed. Feeding a family of four with wild salmon really breaks my food budget.

 

[FairestOfThemAll37]

I only eat wild caught salmon.

There can be pretty big differences between the two nutritionally, the biggest of which (for me) farmed salmon has way higher amounts of Omega-6s (3-4x the amount of wild)

Part of the reason many people eat salmon is to get a dose of omega 3 fatty acids. Farmed and wild both have similar amounts. But our modern diet is skewed way too heavily to omega 6s which can lead to inflammation and heart problems. I don't want one of my main sources of Omega 3 to be counteracted (ratio wise) by the additional 6s

 

[lakelandgal70]

I rarely buy any farmed seafood. I would rather pay more for wild caught in general.

And NEVER ever ever ever Tilapia.

This times 100. We used to eat Tilapia a few times a week and then read up about them and no more lol. Gross. I have tried Salmon at some pretty high end restaurants when hubby orders it and never liked the taste. Plus I can't get past those Salmon patties my grandma used to make from the can.

 

[Cindy_Rella]

The only tuna I eat comes out of a can so you can pretty much guess that I'm not too picky about how the fish I eat was raised.

 

[Bec3b1g]

Never.

We eat fresh/wild caught salmon, steelhead, and halibut at least twice a week. Our business is in this industry so I have more fish in my freezer than I can eat.

I urge everyone to look into the difference between wild vs farmed. Open water pens and farmed fish are a threat to our wild salmon runs, not to mention the nutritional risks.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

I prefer not to eat any farmed fish.

 

[tvguy]

I prefer not to eat any farmed fish.

The big thing here now in the stores is "Sustainable" fish. I noticed today that none of the wild caught fish are labeled as sustainable, only the farmed. Wonder what's up with that?

Of course, given that almost all wild salmon start their lives in hatcheries, how wild are they anymore?

 

[Kogo Shuko]

The big thing here now in the stores is "Sustainable" fish. I noticed today that none of the wild caught fish are labeled as sustainable, only the farmed. Wonder what's up with that?

Of course, given that almost all wild salmon start their lives in hatcheries, how wild are they anymore?

I have actually bought wild caught sustainably fished sockeye salmon. It was written all over the package.

Maybe it's just a Canadian thing?

 

[DopeyDame]

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a great website (and app) that can help you make good choices regarding sustainable seafood options. We use it all the time: http://www.seafoodwatch.org/

According to their recommendations, there are some farmed salmon that are good options, but there are also some that are not, so knowing where and how it was farmed is important. They update their list all the time, and we've seen some fish get moved up and down the list over the years.

I was just going to post the Seafood Watch website as well. If you care at all about the fish you eat, this is a website you should bookmark and an app you should download. It's super easy to use, gives you "best, better, and bad" choices, and is updated frequently. It also is tailored to different parts of the country, so you can see what the situation is where you live. Most importantly, it's all based on actual, real science, by some of the best marine scientists in the world.

According to Seafood Watch, farmed tilapia is a "Best Choice" when farmed in the US, Canada, and Ecuador and a "Good Choice" when farmed in Tiawan, China, or certified farms.
Salmon farmed in net pens, regardless of where they are from, is an "Avoid". Salmon farmed in recirculating systems is a "Best Choice" and there are several other varients as well. All wild salmon is either a good choice or a best choice, depending on where and how it is caught.

 

[shortbun]

We eat canned sockeye. According to Andrew Weil, it's always wild. My husband makes killer salmon patties and we make a chick pea/canned salmon/broccoli salad that is wonderful.(mustard lemon sauce and finely chopped green onions.) When I want a filet or steak, I splurge a little. As someone else already said, wild salmon isn't horribley priced right now.