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Tag: Salmon - Organic Lifestyle Magazine Tag: Salmon - Organic Lifestyle Magazine

The Environmental Impact of Salmon Farming

The company Tassal has plans to build an 80 hectare salmon farm with 28 large ocean cages filled with hundreds of thousands of salmon, along the coast of Tasmania.

Many along the coast are concerned about the environmental implications of salmon farming and expanding out into untouched waters. Along Macquarie harbor 21,000 tons of fish feed has ended up in the water in the past year alone, creating massive amounts of waste.

In 2015 80,000 salmon suffocated to death after a sudden drop in oxygen. The fish are often seen in distress not wanting to eat and seeking out more oxygen. Despite problems of overcrowding, the government increased the number of fish in the harbor. All this came after another smaller salmon company wrote a letter to the government stating that Tassal has totally disregarded environmental and fish health.

Recommended: How to Detox From Plastics and Other Endocrine Disruptors

Finding healthy sustainable fish can be difficult and expensive. Fish is often contaminated with mercury, microplastics, and other toxins. For this reason, we don’t recommend making fish a big staple in your diet.

ABC News released a video on salmon farming and the environmental concerns with it, which you can watch below.




Your Wild Salmon May Actually Be Farmed…Or Trout

Salmon season isn’t coming to a close on a high note, as August saw a massive farmed salmon escape, and the Chinese government decided it is acceptable to sell rainbow trout as salmon. Both incidents point to a breakdown in the quality and health of the salmon available to the consumer. Escaped farmed salmon mean more diseases affecting wild salmon, and China has basically sanctioned mislabeled fish. Eating fish is more fraught with issues than ever before.

Related: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

Farmed Salmon Escape

Between 2,000 and 3,000 farmed salmon escaped from their enclosures off the coast of Newfoundland in Eastern Canada when a rope came undone. Cooke Aquacultures didn’t notify local authorities of the breach, which was only noticed when fishermen noticed farmed salmon in their catches. The company has pledged to work the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to recapture the escapees. The lack of transparency has others expressing concerns as to how many breaches have actually occurred. According to Atlantic Salmon Federation coordinator, Steve Sutton on CBC Radio’s The Broadcast,

It raises the question of how many times have other escapes happened where nobody has seen the fish and nobody knows the difference…This is a public resource, public waters. They should be required to report these things to the public as soon as they have the information.”

This isn’t the first time Cooke Aquacultures has experienced a significant breach. The company is responsible for a 2017 spill that resulted in more than 100,000 Atlantic salmon escaping into the Salish Sea near Washington state. It’s hard to know exactly how many salmon have escaped since the inception of open aquaculture pens, though aquaculture firms are required to report any losses. Still, this doesn’t always happen, and Cooke Aquacultures doesn’t seem to have a procedure in place for notifying the authorities quickly and effectively. Will we start seeing stricter enforcement of policies now that GM salmon is on the market?

Trout or Salmon…Who Cares!

In other salmon news, the Chinese government has given the ok for rainbow trout to be labeled and sold as salmon. This makes sense from a biological standpoint, as both fish are part of the salmonid family (this family includes over 200 different species of fish). The similarities don’t extend to other key issues identified by scientists and consumers – salmon is a saltwater fish, and rainbow trout is a freshwater fish. Freshwater fish have a higher likelihood of parasites, especially when served in raw applications like sushi.

This dicate also leaves the door open for more instances of incorrectly labeled fish, a serious issue faced by seafood regulators worldwide. According to the advocacy group Oceana, one in five fish is labeled incorrectly. Often times a cheaper fish is substituted for a more expensive one, although there have been cases of people distributing endangered or protected species for consumption.

Related: Nitrates from Cured Meat Have Been Linked to Mania in New Study

Is It Too Late?

None of this bodes well for the continuing quality of the seafood we consume, especially salmon. Salmon used to be one of the simple fish. Good quality, wild-caught Pacific salmon was a safe, healthy option that came with fewer ethical or environmental concerns than other popular seafood choices.  But it’s no longer simple.

Salmon doesn’t need to actually be salmon. Salmonids can be substituted for one another. We also can’t be sure it’s the species we think we’re getting as thousands of farmed Atlantic salmon escape yearly, crowding out and endangering wild salmon. Salmon escapes are likely to become even more serious issues now that genetically modified salmon is on the shelves.

So here’s a question. Why are we still eating seafood?

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How Farmed Fish Degrades Our Health and the Environment – Better Options Included

More than 1 billion people across the world rely on fish as their main source of protein. Consequently, the world’s oceans are in trouble with marine life plummeting. More than 80 percent of the world’s fisheries are either considered fully exploited or overfished and on the brink of collapse. People who are dependent on the sea for income and food are left increasingly vulnerable. Our oceans are radically depleted. A decade-long international survey of ocean life completed in 2010 estimated that 90% of the ocean’s big fish have disappeared.

Aquaculture seems to be a sustainable solution to overfishing, but the reality is that fish farms are causing huge problems. As typical with big business, profits are more important than ecological sustainability or our health.

As the world began to attempt to limit overfishing the aquaculture industry boomed. Between 1980 and 2015, the total amount of fish production from aquaculture increased more than 16 times from 4.7mn tonnes to 76.6mn tonnes. If you eat seafood, unless you catch it yourself (or ask the right questions), it probably comes from a fish farm. More than half of the fish we consume is farmed. The aquaculture industry is growing faster than any other animal agriculture segment, overtaking beef production in 2012. A report by the Earth Policy Institute in Washington DC reported that farmed fish production reached 66 million tonnes in 2012, while beef production was at 63 million tonnes.

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Why Farmed Fish Are So Toxic To the To Us and the Environment

One study showed that aquaculture in Sweden “is not only ecologically but also economically unsustainable.” Another report looked at farmed fish in Chinese lakes and concluded that  it is an “economically irrational choice from the perspective of the whole society, with an unequal tradeoff between environmental costs and economic benefits.” Aquaculture harms the environment, which eventually costs a lot of money. In the U.S., fish farming is responsible for roughly $700 million a year in environmental costs. Fish farming operations typically generate more costs than profit.

Abhorrent Conditions

Research has shown that fish feel pain and stress. Large-scale fish farm operations have fish living in extremely crowded conditions, often leaving each fish less space than the size of an average bathtub. Living in this close proximity increases infection and disease, which leads to antibiotics which further pollutes surrounding waters.

Farmed Fish Eat Their Own Shit

The feces concentration is often so great as to cause the fish to ingest their own poop, increasing the likelihood of disease. The fish poop also promotes algal growth and reduces the oxygen content in the water, which makes it harder to support life. Fish waste and uneaten feed litter the sea floor beneath fish farms contaminates the area and generates bacteria that consume oxygen vital to shellfish and other bottom-dwelling sea creatures. Reportedly, the Israeli government closed two fish farms in the Red Sea after discovering the farms were causing algal growth that was harming coral reefs.

A Cesspool of Disease

Pathogens from farmed fish pools can spread rapidly to contaminate any wild fish swimming past. Sea lice, a type of crustacean that finds captive fish on farms to be an easy target, have become huge problems for the industry. And the increased prevalence of these crustaceans due to fish farming is being blamed for reduced numbers of wild pink salmon, as well as the species that eat them, including bears, eagles, orcas and others.

Lethal viruses that are known to spread from fish farms are being detected in wild populations. Salmon leukemia virus is said to act like HIV, in that it depletes the immune system leaving animals susceptible to other infection. Infectious Salmon Anemia Virus (ISA) is also known as salmon influenza. It’s highly lethal Piscine reovirus, which degrades salmon’s heart health, causing heart attacks and preventing salmon from swimming upriver.

Toxic Antibiotics, Pesticides & Other Chemicals

Concentrated levels of antibiotics, pesticides and other chemicals used to fight infection are found in farmed fish. The effects these practices have on our environment are only beginning to be understood. One study found that a drug often used to kill sea lice will also kill other marine invertebrates, and contaminates waters at least up to half a mile away.

Recommended: Start Eating Like That and Start Eating Like This – Your Guide to Homeostasis Through Diet

Farmed Fish Food

Many farmed fish are being fed genetically modified corn and soy. Some report that in China farmed fish are often feed animal feces. One report from the USDA from 2009 stated,

[It] is common practice to let livestock and poultry roam freely in fields and to spread livestock and poultry waste on fields or use it as fish feed.”

Carnivorous Fish Farms Eat Too Much Fish

Many fish require a fish-based diet, and can require much more food than they produce. Now anchovies and herring and other small prey are being dangerously overfished to the brink of extinction in order to meet the growing demands of aquaculture. Tuna and salmon consume up to five pounds of fish for each pound of body weight.

We have caught all the big fish and now we are going after their food,”- Oceana

It’s been shown that every pound of farmed salmon needs five pounds of smaller fish to feed it.

Oceana blames aquaculture for declines in whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, penguins, albatross and many other species.

Rather than relieving pressure on wild fish, growing these large carnivores [salmon and tuna on fish farms] requires a steady supply of prey that are caught and ground into oil and meal. As the industry grows, it is straining the existing supply of prey fish, putting additional pressure on populations that cannot supply the demand.”

Toxic, Diseased, & GMO Farmed Fish Escape

Many fish farms use netpens to confine fish in open waters. These systems are susceptible to being ripped from predators and due to storms. In the North Atlantic region alone it’s said that two million farmed salmon escape their farms each year. The result is that at least 20% of wild salmon caught in the North Atlantic are actually of farmed-fish origin. Farmed fish that escape will breed with wild fish and compromise the gene pool. Embryonic hybrid salmon, for example, are far less viable than wild salmon, and the resulting adult hybrid salmon routinely die much earlier than true wild salmon. This also harms predator populations that rely on fish like bears and orcas.

More Fat, but Less Omega 3s and Other Nutrients

Farmed salmon, for example, is much fattier than wild salmon, but it contains FAR LESS healthful omega-3 fats and less protein. The omega-3 levels in farmed salmon keep dropping with each new study.The International Fishmeal and Fish Oil Organization (IFFO) says that today’s farmed fillet contains as little as half of the omega-3s the fish had less than a decade ago. Salmon farmers in New Zealand were caught overstating the omega-3 fat levels of their fish.

Farmed salmon that is high in omega 3s get their higher levels from being fed fish oil. Like with the prey fish, the demand for fish oil is outstripping supply. This practice is becoming too expensive, and many fish are being fed cheap GMO oils to fatten them up.

Farm-raised tilapia is one of the most highly consumed fish in America. Studies show that tilapia has very low levels of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids and very high levels of inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids that may cause an “exaggerated inflammatory response.”

Recommended: What Causes Chronic Inflammation, and How To Stop It For Good

More PCBs

A report published in 2003 by the Environmental Working Group found that seven out of ten farmed salmon purchased at grocery stores in Washington DC, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon contained PCBs at levels that raise health concerns. It’s a safe bet that these statistics have only grown worse as plastic continues to pollute our planet.

It’s said that farmed salmon are likely the most PCB-contaminated protein source in the U.S. food supply chain.

Farmed salmon are fed contaminated fishmeal. Farmed salmon are fed from a global supply of fishmeal and fish oil manufactured from small open sea fish, which studies show are the source of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, in most farmed salmon. In three independent studies scientists tested 37 fishmeal samples from six countries, and found PCB contamination in nearly every sample.” – Environmental Working Group

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China…

Chinese farmed fish accounts for about 60 percent of farmed marine products worldwide. China is the leading provider of farmed fish to the US. If you’re buying tilapia, it’s probably from China.

Excerpt from The Disgusting Truth About Fish And Shrimp From Asian Farms:

  • Tilapia in China’s fish farms, are fed pig and goose manure — even though it contains salmonella and makes the tilapia “more susceptible to disease.”
  • In Vietnam, farmed shrimp bound for the US market are kept fresh with heaps of ice made from tap water that teems with pathogenic bacteria.
  • Bloomberg also notes that at the same company “there’s trash on the floor, and flies crawl over baskets of processed shrimp stacked in an unchilled room.”
  • Like US meat farmers, Asia’s shrimp farmers rely heavily on antibiotics, many of which are banned for use in the United States.
  • In May, ABC News bought 30 samples of imported farmed shrimp from across the country and had them tested for antibiotic traces. The result: Three of the samples contained detectable levels of these dangerous antibiotics.
  • According to a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a quarter of the food-borne illness outbreaks caused by imported food from 2005 to 2010 involved seafood — more than any other food commodity.

Fish To Avoid and the Better Seafood Choices

Bivalves, such as oysters and mussels, can be farmed in an environmentally conscious manner because they are “filter feeders,”; they actually make the water in their ecosystem cleaner, and they are much easier to contain due to their lack of mobility. But, this means that the environment bivalves grow in should already be fairly clean, or else the seafood can transfer pollutants and other toxins to the consumer.

Alaskan salmon is not permitted to be farmed. Sockeye salmon cannot be farmed. Atlantic salmon comes from fish farms. Farmed salmon is rife with chemical contaminants ranging from pesticides and antibiotics to PCBs.

In restaurants, mislabeled salmon will typically be described as ‘wild’ but not ‘wild Alaskan.’ This is because authentic ‘wild Alaskan’ is easier to trace. The term ‘wild’ is more nebulous and therefore more often misused. In many ways it is very similar to the highly abused ‘natural’ designation. – Dr. Mercola

Atlantic Flatfish, including sole, flounder and halibut, are high in contaminants and they have a long history of being radically overfished. Pacific halibut is a safer and more environmentally friendlier option.

Almost 90 percent of catfish comes from Vietnam – a country with loose regulations on the use of dangerous antibiotics and other chemicals. Like catfish, Pollock is a mild, white fish with a delicate flavor that’s naturally low in mercury. Look for pollock from the US, Canada, and Norway which provide the most eco-friendly harvesting.

Eel, also called unagi, is primarily farmed in China.  A powerful carcinogen called nitrofuran, and many other drugs and pesticides, are used to control disease in eel farms. Eel also has plenty of mercury and cancer-causing PCBs. Squid is an eco-friendly alternative to eel.

Imported & Farm-Raised Shrimp is one of the dirtiest seafood sold. Chemical residues, antibiotics, and an assortment of other contaminants have been found in farmed shrimp. While avoiding imported, farmed shrimp can greatly reduce your exposure to contaminants, it’s important to note that 70 percent of domestic shrimp comes from the Gulf of Mexico. With the recent oil spill, this raises concern for the health of these shrimp stocks. Your best bet is MSC-certified wild-caught Pacific shrimp from Oregon.

Atlantic bluefin tuna is said to have the highest levels of mercury and they have plummeted to near-extinction levels. The eco-friendly tuna varieties (like albacore or yellowfin) areproblematicc as well. Oceana collected 1,215 samples from seafood vendors from 2010 to 2012reported that 59% of fish labeled tuna is not just mislabeled but it is almost entirely compromised of escolar, which is not likely a fish we want to be eating:

To be frankly and bluntly specific — and I’m sorry for this — consumption of escolar causes explosive, oily, orange diarrhea. People have reported that the discharges are often difficult to control and accidents can happen while passing gas.” – The Kitchn

A good alternative to tuna is the Atlantic mackerel or try sardines.  They both are high in omega-3s, and they don’t have the high levels of mercury and other contaminants that tuna accumulates.

Tilapia from overseas fish farms have a bad reputation due to the aforementioned practices, but tilapia farmed in the U.S. and Canada typically use closed recirculating tank systems that alleviate many of the problems like water pollution and fish escapes. In Ecuador, tilapia are typically farmed in low-density freshwater ponds, which eliminate overcrowding and reduces disease. Tilapia are fed a mostly grain-based diet, so they don’t deplete prey-fish resources.

Farmed Seafood Documentaries

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Genetically Modified Salmon Is On Its Way To Your Store

If you enjoy salmon, eat your fill now. The Food and Drug Administration has announced approval for the first genetically modified animal for consumption, and it’s the Atlantic salmon…and the Pacific-Chinook salmon…and the ocean pout, a creature also known for inspiring a synthetic contribution to less-fattening ice cream, all rolled up into one sentient creation.

The possibility of a genetically engineered salmon is not an unfamiliar one, as biotech company AquaBounty has been attempting to bring the Frankenfish to the public for twenty years. The fish is said to be advantageous because it grows at twice the rate of a regular salmon and requires 75% less food. The company is not planning on letting consumers know that the fish is genetically modified, claiming that as “…the first and only, labeling is a dangerous decision. We’d like to label it as a premium product, but we’ll probably introduce it as Atlantic salmon.” It’s ironic that they use the word dangers in conjunction with actual labeling, as the health and environmental dangers of this fish don;t seem to concern  AquaBounty or the FDA.

Safety Concerns Over the Next Step in GMOs

The debate over the GM salmon from AquaBounty (officially referred to as the AquaAdvantage) has been going on for quite some time, although the approval from the FDA has shifted abstract concepts into something very real and potentially scary. Food and Water Watch and the Consumer’s Union have both expressed concerns about the fish and its impact on health and the environmental threat of a possible escape. Like all GMOs, the salmon has been labeled safe to eat by the FDA. That alone is suspect when you consider the amount of countries worldwide who are banning GMOs, but there are also concerns regarding allergies and how the mix of different fish genetics combined into one fish will affect people. Consumer’s Union has been claiming that the research used to make the decision to approve the salmon suffers from inadequate analysis and a sample size that is too small.

But What if Gets Loose?

Meanwhile, Food and Water Watch is viewing the AquaAvantage from a different angle, and seeing a different problem – escape. The salmon are grown in land-based, contained tanks in Canada and Panama that are sealed completely off and all fish grown for food, as opposed to breeding, are sterile. Or at least they are sterile by FDA standards, which require 95% sterility. Setting aside the questions of what and where exactly the fish for breeding are kept (or if there is even a need for breeding fish when they’re potentially raised in a lab), the FDA maintains that even if the fish were to escape, they would be unable to thrive and establish themselves. Even if the fish aren’t able to sustain a population out in the natural environment, isn’t it naive to assume there won’t be other consequences? Wild salmon that come in contact with farmed salmon have registered a population drop of more than half due to parasites and disease. At what point does the desire for cheap salmon outweigh the increasing delicate needs of the actual wild salmon providing the genes for the Frankenfish? Despite claims that the potential of escape is highly unlikely, Food and Water Watch remains committed to making sure that GMO salmon does not reach the marketplace.

More Care is Needed in Introducing GM Meats

The marketplace at the moment has a slightly different view from the FDA. Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s have been critical of the AquaAdvantage and have publicly pledged not to sell the salmon. Other retailers like Safeway and Kroger also have no plans to stock the product. The criticism from consumer and environmental groups, as well as the lack of support from stores, have the potential to stop the forward march (swim, really) of the GMO salmon. Anything can happen within the two-year period from approval to market. If you oppose GM salmon, now is the time for your voice to be heard.

Extensive research occurs when new varieties of conventional foods like fruits and vegetables are introduced. A newly developed type of apple, for instance, takes an average of 15 years. A salmon spliced together from three different fish and altered at the base genetic level is a huge step in the food system and should not have any room for groups to claim inadequate analysis. The consequences of unleashing the Frankenfish could permanently damage the oceanic ecosystem or even play out like a science fiction movie. Do we want to be the at the mercy of our own ill-advised creation because the population is looking for cheaper salmon? At the very least we should be able to know what we’re being sold.

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Wild Caught? Maybe Not – Salmon Sold to You May Have Been Farm-Raised

The wild caught salmon sold to you in restaurants and grocery stores may have been farm-raised. Unfortunately, the results of a new study suggest that unless you catch it yourself, you can’t be sure it wasn’t farm raised.

Using DNA testing techniques, the non-profit ocean conservation group Oceana examined numerous samples of fish being sold as wild caught salmon both from restaurant menus and grocery stores. Of the restaurant samples, 2/3 of the “wild-caught” salmon was farm raised. Retail salmon fared better, with one out of five incorrectly labeled. The study also revealed instances of chum salmon being sold as king salmon and rainbow trout sold as wild salmon.

A startling 43% of the salmon tested, collected in New York, Washington, Chicago and Virginia from upscale and takeout restaurants and from various neighborhood and chain groceries, was mislabeled. The most common deception was Atlantic salmon being sold as wild salmon.

These Scientists Say We Need to do Something About It

The researchers authoring the study recommend that new policies be implemented to protect both the public and fishermen from mislabeling.

Our results are consistent and wide enough to know that this is a problem that can occur anyplace, anytime, with any type of seafood,” said Kimberly Warner, a senior scientist at Oceana.

Oceana definitely knows what they are talking about. From 2010 to 2012 they conducted an extensive seafood fraud investigation, collecting more than 1,200 seafood samples from 674 retail outlets in 21 states. The objective was to determine if the seafood was honestly labeled. DNA testing found that a full one 1/3 of the 1,215 samples analyzed were mislabeled.

In that earlier investigation, seafood sold as snapper and tuna had the highest chance of being mislabeled. The majority of the samples identified by DNA analysis were not consistent with the labeling. In fact, only seven of the 120 samples of red snapper purchased nationwide were actually red snapper. The other 113 samples were another fish.

Accuracy in Labeling Also Depends on the Time of Year

The current study revealed that the time of year was a big factor in whether or not a restaurant would sell mislabeled salmon. During the winter months, fresh wild salmon is less available, creating a motive to substitute readily available, farmed salmon. The researchers found that large chain groceries were less likely than small grocers to offer mislabeled salmon to the public.

The authors of the study have a few suggestions for consumers looking to protect themselves from purchasing the wrong types of salmon. They suggest consumers ask their sellers about their seafood’s exact point of origin, its species, and whether or not the merchandise was fresh or previously frozen.

Salmon can travel halfway across the world and back before we get a chance to eat it. For instance in 2013, U.S. fisheries exported roughly 85,000 metric tons of salmon to China while importing 37,000 metric tons of salmon from China. Much of this import was the same fish that was shipped to China for processing.

To cut down on salmon mislabeling, the report’s authors are calling for comprehensive tracking of all seafood sold in this country from catch to point of sale.

What’s Wrong With Farm Raised Fish?

The first and obvious difference between farm raised and wild caught salmon is the cost. You are being overcharged if you are paying the price for wild caught salmon and not getting what you paid for. But there are other issues at stake. First there is taste, and secondly there are health concerns associated with farm raised fish and shrimp. Pathogens, contamination, and GMO feed are serious quality issues with fish and shrimp being raised in an unnatural and crowded environment. The virulent diseases spread through the salmon farms are suspected to have spread to the wild, severely impacting the wild salmon population. Factory farming raises unhealthy animals, and fish farms are nothing more than factory farms for fish. Stick to wild caught fish – if you can find a trusted source.

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