Pacific Salmon
Pacific Salmon
Does Farmed Atlantic Salmon Pose Any Heath Risks?
You are probably aware of the many benefits of salmon, but when you’re at the local fish market are you aware of the differences between Atlantic and Pacific salmon? Other than the obvious geographical separation, there is one fundamental difference between the fish.
The salmon is renowned for it’s tragic life cycle. The fish are born in freshwater but then migrate to the open saltwater of the oceans to live their adult lives. When salmon are ready to spawn, they return to familiar freshwater hardwired by imprint or a keen sense of smell. We have all seen salmon swim valiantly upstream only to spawn and then die. But do they really? The Pacific salmon does meet its unfortunate demise but the Atlantic salmon does indeed live to spawn another day.
The question to ask now is whether or not there’s a nutritional difference between Pacific and Atlantic salmon. The answer is yes but perhaps it is more a function of mankind’s interference or intervention depending on your point of view.
Because salmon is such a popular fish, commercial fish farms have been set up to meet the demand of the public. It has been estimated that greater than 99% of Atlantic salmon sold in world wide fish markets are farmed versus greater than 80% of Pacific salmon are wild-caught.
The free swimming Pacific salmon are found to have less contaminants and dioxins than its farmed Atlantic counterpart. However, Atlantic salmon do contain more essential omega-3 fatty acids. The health benefits of this fatty acid include cardiovascular and neurological benefits among many others.
So, do the benefits of omega-3 outweigh the risks of eating chemically contaminated salmon stock? Given consumption in moderation, studies show that the net benefits of salmon’s nutritional value exceed the pollution issues. However, always ask where the salmon comes from when purchasing to follow these guidelines. Farmed fish from eastern Canada, Norway and Scotland should not be consumed more than three times a year. Likewise, farmed fish from Maine, western Canada, Washington State and Chile should not be consumed more than six times a year. If your palate swings toward wild salmon, then you can enjoy wild chum salmon once per week; pink, sockeye and coho bimonthly, and chinook once a month.
As with everything in life, too much of a good thing can cause you harm. To enjoy the health benefits of eating salmon, one has to practice moderation.
About the Author
Enjoy wild Pacific salmon when you go Southeast Alaska fishing. Juneau Alaska fishing offers a truly unique experience of fishing and scenery.
Learning the Truth about Salmon Fish Oil
Many people have heard about the many wonderful benefits of indulging in omega-3 rich salmon fish oil. Whenever you hear about the rewards that fish oil in the diet provides, salmon is listed as the primary source. How it made the top of the list of the “family” of oily fish is beyond me however, as salmon does not contain any significantly greater amount of omega-3 fatty acids than any of the others.
The fact is that the ingestion of the omega-3 fatty acids that come from salmon involves more risk than is involved with eating other oily fish. Whenever anyone thinks of salmon, they envision the once pristine waters of Alaska. The truth is though that all salmon does not come from Alaska, and those are not the waters in which even Alaskan salmon spend the majority of their lives.
The majority of the salmon fish oil is harvested from the Atlantic Ocean, and far more of it comes from fisheries than is wild caught. Farmed Atlantic salmon outnumber wild caught salmon by about 85 to 1, and these Atlantic farms provide greater than 99% of the total salmon on the world market. This is why you want to be careful about where the salmon you eat has come from.
Farmed salmon loses much of its nutritional value due to the fact that the fish are not able to eat their normal diet. These fish develop much of their oil through the prey that they consume, while the farmed salmon have to be provided with fish oil by the growers. The oil that they are fed is very low quality, and has been discovered to have extremely high levels of dioxins.
Dioxins in salmon fish oil are chemical agents that are known to be carcinogenic when ingested by humans, and they can also cause problems such as skin abnormalities. They are also thought to cause defects in the endocrine and reproductive systems. There are also dyes fed to these salmon in order to achieve added pigment, as their meat would otherwise be grey from the grain that they are fed instead of pink.
These salmon are regularly fed pellets that contain growth hormone in them, and who knows what else. There are really no regulations controlling what it is that the farmers can and cannot give these fish. This is a serious problem, because whatever those fish ingest becomes a part of them over time, and you are taking in whatever toxins they contain when you eat them.
If you want the benefits of salmon fish oil you can safely eat wild pacific salmon. What you really need to do in order to enjoy everything that omega-3 fatty acids can do for you is find a high quality fish oil supplement to take. Probably the best supplement on the market takes advantage high DHA value, and low toxicity of the New Zealand hoki fish. This supplement is by fare the purest fish oil being sold.
Now that you know all this, there are far better sources from which to get your DHA, than through salmon fish oil.
About the Author
Laurel Cohen is a strong advocate of natural health in all its forms: skin care, supplementation, and farm fresh foods. She enjoys introducing people to the best natural products she can find and uses herself daily. Visit her site http://www.omega-3-for-health.com to learn about the omega 3 fish oils Laurel uses daily for optimal health.
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