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| Down on the Farm ? |
Fish are living sponges, absorbing nutrients, toxins, pollutants, and waste, from the world around them. While that world has changed, recommendations from the experts, urging us to eat them, persist. It’s time to get real.
- From a health perspective, we’re told to eat fish to get fat ... healthy fat. Fish eat algae from the ocean floor, and process it in a way we can’t. Experts suggest we eat several servings a week to optimize our health. But few advise which fish, from what water, fed what food, and raised how. If you're following this type of advise, you’re misinformed. What follows is important information you need to know:
- Healthy Fat: Fish weren’t born with Omega 3 fatty acids... they ATE them. And we, in turn, eat fish to get ours. But what else are you getting? Today more than half the fish in the world are farmed. Producers succeed by realizing the largest profit and lowest cost per pound, based on the largest yield per unit of surface area. The man-made production of fish finds many living in cramped quarters that propagate parasitic sea lice, which feed on mucous, skin and blood. Many spend their days surrounded by fecal matter, providing a veritable breeding ground for bacteria, intestinal worms, and protozoa. Pesticides and vaccines are used to “shout it out.” Remember, “You are what you eat-ATE.” Though all farmed fish are not created equal, most are fed modified fish-meal, -mash or -oil made from small bony fish not fit for human consumption1. Substances that are both neurotoxic and endocrine-active, according to J.G. Dorea "2" Raised in metal cages that are sprayed with chemical solvents to keep them clean (remember, you are what you eat - ate), the closest they get to the ocean floor, is a floaty. Studies indicate that farm raised fish have 7 x greater contamination from PCB’s (a mixture of 209 chlorinated chemicals) than wild "3 "Farmed salmon contain 16 times more PCB’s than wild, according to the Environmental Working Group "4"!
- WILD caught? For starters, what’s wild? Most of us believe wild means they're born and bred in their natural habitat; not confined in above ground cages or aqua-farms. But when money's involved, it’s rarely what you think. Today, it’s estimated that as many as 1 in 3 wild caught alaskan salmon are artificially propagated in intermediary fish farms and released in waterways later ... a year later, or more. "5,6" According to the folks at the Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corporation, founded by fishermen in 1974, to optimize the value of the salmon in Prince William Sound, approximately “600 million salmon fry and smolt are produced for release into Pacific waters "7". Pretty wild, huh? Most fish, even those in cold remote water, have some degree of toxicity. Pollution, in the form of PCB’s, or from mercury-laden, smoke-belching, coal burning power plants, leaves even the most remote waters unscathed.
- Marketing: Most tuna sold today is fat FREE. What’s up with that? Omega 3’s or Mekong Delta? Sticks and stones: Cutting the head off an ugly fish like a monk, and marketing it as a poor man's lobster, is one way purveyors romance a stone. But the mislabeling of fish is commonplace. DNA tests performed on random purchases of fish found on grocers shelves find that less than half are what we thought they were. Instead they’re a completely differently fish than the package said they were. Blatantly deceptive, a more subtle approach is a slight of hand, known as the name game. As Douglas Fox, writing for the Conservation Magazine 8 (Vol. 9 , No, 4) tells us, there’s no such thing as a Pacific Snapper, except on grocery counters. Pacific Snapper isn’t a member of the snapper family. Not even a distant relative. It’s a catch-all term sanctioned by the government to refer to any of “13 species of rockfish.” Oh, and real snapper? It formerly went by the names scnapper or cockney. But, if you’re like most seafood lovers, you’re probably craving slime-fish. At $10 a pound they're all the rage ... regardless of a health advisory by the Environmental Defense Fund warning us of their high mercury content. On the verge of being endangered, they’re already overfished. After-all, it’s hard to keep up with soaring demand worldwide when you can’t reproduce until 30 years of age and your average life span is over 100! By the way, you know them as Orange Roughy. But maybe Chilean Sea Bass are more to your liking? However, they’re not bass. Not even distant relatives. Formerly known as the Pantogonian Tooth-fish "9", they were renamed when they couldn’t draw flies. No hankering for Toothfish? No problem. There’s something new swimming down river. The latest incarnation - a delicacy, named for its namesake, and your sake. Say hello to the Kentucky Tuna! Catfish farmers brought it from Asia and threw it in the Mississippi to curb algae growth. Anything goes. So, if it looks like a slimehead, acts like a slimehead , and swims like a slimehead, it’s Orange Roughy!
Bon Appetit !
Randy
1 Where does the fish meal and fish oil for feeds come from?
2 Persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic substances in fish: Human health considerations. The Science of the
Total Environment 400(1-3): 93-114, 2008. Dorea, J.G.
8 http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_factsheet.aspx?gid=6
(Excerpts from the book, Misinformed About Food, R, by Randy Karp)
(Excerpts from the book, Misinformed About Food, R, by Randy Karp)
Randy Karp, Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. No copies, reproductions, or transmissions of this article, or any portions of this article are permitted by law without the express written permission of the author.
