Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Thanks for showing the complexity. In our instant gratification, short attention span culture, it is very nice to read something that discusses people who believe that they are acting well without demonizing them.
We only buy wild salmon. The main reason is that I do not believe that farmed salmon contain any omega-3 fatty acids. Wild salmon get their omega-3's from the food chain that starts at the algae that create them. For the same reason we would never order salmon in a restaurant. What is the the point of eating salmon at any price if the most important nutrient is missing? That should be the key argument against farmed salmon. Unless the farms are feeding the salmon with wild herring, etc, they will contain no omega-3's. I have heard that some salmon farms are feeding salmon with corn, so you will not only get no omega-3's, but will get addditional omega-6's, which although necessary are toxic in large quantities. We should be paying for nutritional benefit, not quantity. But of course that is not the American way.
So if I buy $20/lb 'correct' fish then what do I do about the Chinese people who baked the plate in a kiln or plated the stainless fork? Did the whole foods store correctly implement its harrassment policy for the cashier? Paying more for something is not in and of itself a virtue. If you feel that strongly about it, then tithe.
My plate was made locally. I can't remember where the forks came from, I've had them a long time. I shop at a locally owned store and I know the cashier, no harrasment. I don't find it very hard to make these choices. I'm sure if you looked hard enough you would find something in the choices I make to criticize, but I try.
I'll find some mistakes as I go along and correct them.
I care that buying something at Wal-Mart encourages Wal-Mart to pay low wages, support sweat shops, etc. so I don't shop there. I try to find out how the choices I make effect other people. Why shouldn't I?
And why not tithe as well as being concious about what you buy, and where you buy it?
Why are we even talking about eating salmon? As stated in the article, salmon used to be a delicacy and rarely served in the lower 48 states.
We are not eating salmon because of the master minds and marketing geniuses at Walmart -- we are eating salmon because various health pundits over the last decade or so have told us to do so. It's supposed to be full of various health benefits, Omega 3 acids and so on. It's also supposed to be good for our hearts and arteries, and let's not forget the most important part -- eating fish is low calorie (vs. eating red meat) and is supposed to make us thin. Eating meat, fish and especially salmon is part and parcel of every low carb diet.
Maybe it will turn out that eating salmon is bad for us. I don't know. I have been told so many different things over the last 25 years, that I have no idea what is OK to eat at all. Oat bran is a life saver...oh, no oops, it's not that good after all. Eat lots of carbs, pasta, veggies...ooops, no I guess that makes you fat. Eat only protein....oops, no that gives you heart disease. Eat only vegetables....oops, no, those are coated with pesticides.
Basically, it's apparently that NOTHING is good enough for our precious bodies to consume as fuel. Oh, unless it's something rare and wild and caught with a special net, and sold only at some primo, uber-pricey store called Whole Foods, which doesn't even do business in the state I live in.
Most American families, including mine, cannot feed themselves on any substance -- whether wild caught salmon, Beluga caviar, Kobe beef, etc. -- that costs $19.99 a pound or more. This is the kind of precious eating that can only be done by maybe ONE or two high income yuppies who are eating teeny tiny portions anyhow so that they can stay super slim. If I even attempted this, it would cost $100 a day to feed my family! GET REAL!!!!
A more productive conversation would be why Americans are so nutty and obessive about what they eat, how much they weigh, and what kind of status can be achieved by eating precious, fancy, expensive foods that other people can't afford.
I am not defending Walmart -- I object to the way they treat employees and the lack of health insurance, etc. I act on this to some degree by writing them with my concerns, by writing my state and federal representatives and by choosing, mostly, to shop elsewhere.
However, we are deluding ourselves if we don't think that other grocery megacenters (SuperTarget, Costco, Bjs and so on) are not doing pretty much the same darned thing. Do you think THEIR salmon is wild caught in Alaska? Please! And what about your neighborhood grocer -- what are the chances that he is buying the same exact Chilean farmed salmon and just charging you more, then pocking the difference?????
As a British Columbian I am all too familiar with the damage being done to pacific wild salmon stocks by the introduction of their farmed atlantic cousins.
Sea lice are crustacean parasites that can also affect fish. Both wild and farmed salmon are at risk. Scientists here studied 5,500 young wild pink and chum salmon over 37 miles of their migration route along the BC coastline. Juvenile salmon carried almost no sea lice prior to the farm but became heavily infected as they approached it. Infection levels reach over 70 times higher than normal.
The impact of a single farm is far-reaching. Sea lice production is four orders of magnitude - 30,000 times - higher than natural. These lice then spread out around the farm.
Sea lice can lower the fitness of salmon - and in some cases be lethal - as they create open lesions on the surface of the fish that compromises its ability to maintain its salt-water balance.
When infection rates are high enough, the parasites feed on the fish at rates greater than the fish can feed itself, literally eating the fish alive. Young salmon are much more vulnerable due to their small size.
In Alaska, where fish farms are banned, sea lice are not found to prey on juvenile pink salmon.
The aquaculture problems in Canada’s Broughton Archipelago echo those in Norway, Ireland, and Scotland, where the environmental impacts of fish farming have led to large scale collapses of wild salmon populations.
Some European countries use chemicals to control the parasites and dye to turn farmed salmon flesh pink. The use of those chemicals has led some environmentalists to hold demonstrations run ads urging consumers to boycott farmed salmon. Some grocery stores carry labels saying farmed fish contain dye. And a major study in the journal Science last year found more cancer-causing PCBs in farmed fish over wild fish.
Please read FARMED SALMON - A DREAM TURNED NIGHTMARE by by Dr. Roderick O’Sullivan for more on how contaminated farmed salmon is.
http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/osullivan.shtml
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
