Wild caught seafood is excellent for your health, but farm raised seafood is not. In fact, farm raised seafood is inflammatory because the fish are usually fed omega-6 grains.
91% of the seafood consumed in the United States is imported, and a significant portion of that fish is unsustainably farmed and is unhealthy.
The most common farm raised fish are salmon, tilapia, cod, catfish, sea bass and carp. These fish are tightly packed in either tanks or cages with thousands of other fish.
They are typically fed fish food (anchovies, sardines, mackerel, or herring) then finished with fish meal of soy, corn, or other grain to fatten them up. As a result of this type of feeding, farmed fish is high in Omega-6 not Omega-3 oil that we are all led to believe. It is inflammatory!
The farmed fish are typically fed antibiotics (that get into you and your baby) to prevent infection.
Farm raised fish typically have 20% less protein than do wild caught fish.
Alaska exports 2/3 of its sustainable-harvested seafood to foreign markets, mostly China and Japan. It is illegal to farm raise fish in Alaska.
The consumption of salmon surpassed tuna in 2013 in the US.
70% of US wild caught salmon is exported from the US to China and Japan.
70% of the salmon imported to the US is from China, that was obtained from Russia (farm raised). Read that again. We export 70% of the
wild caught salmon to China and Japan, and then import 70% of farm raised salmon in Russia through China to this country. The other countries from where we import salmon is Chile, Canada, Scotland, and Norway and all are listed as “avoid” by the Seafood Watch group.
Oceana, an organization devoted to protecting sea life in the oceans (usa.oceana.org), conducted a DNA testing study on salmon collected from restaurants and stores across the US. They found that 47% of the samples of the wild salmon were either Atlantic farm raised salmon or a totally different species. The breakdown was 67% of restaurants and 20% of grocery stores mislabeled the fish. Smaller stores were 8x more likely to mislabel as opposed to large chain stores (ShopRite, Whole Foods and Wegman’s). The highest frequency of mislabeling was during the winter when it is off season for salmon.
Wild caught Atlantic salmon has been almost non-existent since the 1800’s when the construction of dams and industrial waste almost eliminated the spawning grounds of the fish and subsequently the numbers took a nosedive. As a result, virtually all Atlantic salmon is farm raised. Wild Atlantic salmon is now extremely rare. Don’t eat it.
In Europe, fish must be labeled with the commercial name of the fish, the scientific name, the relevant geographical catch area, the production method and if the fish product was previously frozen. This is not so in the US. When you purchase your fish, ask the fishmonger those questions. If they cannot answer you, walk away.