Take salmon, for instance. Most of what you see in the grocery store, unless it is labeled “wild caught,” is farmed. What they don’t tell you is the farmed salmon contains 60 percent more fat because they are in pens, but it has much less of the beneficial Omega-3 fatty acids.

Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that more than 100,000 salmon can be in one pen with no filtration system. These fish are excreting and living in their own wastes. Findings from a study show that farmed salmon have three to 15 times more organic pollutants than their wild caught counterparts. [1] In 2004, Science Journal warned that farmed salmon contain 10 times more toxins (PCBs, dioxin, etc.) than wild caught salmon. The study recommends that farmed salmon be eaten only once a month, perhaps every two months as it poses a cancer risk to humans. [2]

Moral of the story, Read food labels. Only buy salmon, any fish for that matter, that is wild caught.

1. Salmon, Wild-Caught. www.jigsawhealth.com/products/carvaiho_king_salmon_html

2. Tsang G. PCBs – Is Farmed Salmon Safe to Eat? www.healthcastle.com. November 2004. www.healthcastle.com/farmed-salmon.shtml