Fish Story

I love eating salmon but David Neiwert's take down of the salmon farming industry is going to give me pause from now on.

Most of you probably already know that when you buy farmed salmon, that nice "pink" color is faked. It would be naturally grey except for the dye they feed the fish:
Another difference in farmed salmon: their flesh would be light grey if they weren't fed ad additive to give them their salmon color. Farmers can pick the color they want their fish to be from a 'SalmoFan,' something that resemble a collection of paint chips.
And, when it comes to eating them, farmed salmon have notably higher levels of toxins contained in their meat. Oh, and did we mention that they're high in delicious and nutritious PCBs too? In addition, the live fish are constantly fed a chemical diet of antibiotics (more per pound, in fact, than any other kind of livestock).

As it happens, those antibiotics are spread openly to the open sea, since some 75 percent of it, spread into the pens, actually escapes. This introduces into the wild marine environment new strains of resistant diseases that can devastate whole populations, both farmed and wild.

That's not all they're spreading into the wild. The salmon pens are also spreading sea lice and other diseases to wild salmon.

And then there are the farmed salmon themselves, which often escape, usually in larger numbers than the industry will admit. These are Atlantic salmon, an alien species. They are also notoriously aggressive toward the salmonids of other species -- that is, they selectively pursue and eat them. (This is probably why, in the Atlantic, there is only one species of salmon, compared to the five species that naturally prowl the Pacific.) And, in the wild, these Atlantic salmon have begun to breed and displace the wild Pacific salmon stocks.

Worst of all, the salmon farms are driving traditional fishermen out of business -- and destroying native salmon stocks. It's looking as if it's only a matter of time before you won't be able to buy wild salmon in the stores anymore, for anything other than
exorbitant prices...

Actually, I didn't know the pink in salmon could be dye.

Fortunately, I didn't read this until after my salmon at Gallagher's on Saturday. They have a wonderful Salmon and Crab Napoleon. And I have no idea where their salmon comes from anyway.

By the way, if you live in Springfield you know it's nearly impossible to get in to a decent restaurant (decent in this case being anything above fast food) on a Saturday night without a reservation or a long wait. May I suggest Gallagher's. We have found we can get in there right away without a problem and enjoy a great meal. I think there are two reasons for this: Gallagher's has lot's of seating and they are in a poor location (2242 S. Sixth St.). Whatever the reason, it's nice to have it available for those spur of the moment dates.