There is a place for farmed seafood in this world—farmed oysters, for example, are a protein that is good for our bodies and our planet—but industrial salmon aquaculture is not good for our greater good. We here at Alaska Gold Seafood usually focus on calling attention to what’s special about our wild salmon rather than detracting from others, but wanted to take a look at some of the issues that make farmed salmon not a good choice. In the end, supporting wild salmon supports small producers that have a stake in managing our fisheries stocks and habitats for the greater good.
The below are just some of the key points to highlight regarding why to choose wild salmon over its farmed counterparts and we’ll go into further detail later on:
1. Smell/taste—in general, farmed salmon have a generic, bland flavor and don’t really smell like a fish but a widget
2. Texture—because they are “couch potatoes,” farmed salmon have a flabby texture
3. Nutrition—wild salmon have the healthy fats (omega-3 fatty acids) in a much leaner protein
4. Destruction of ecosystems—industrial salmon farms with ocean pens wreak havoc on key marine ecosystems
5. Contamination of wild fish with disease and sea lice—in addition to destroying key ecosystems, industrial salmon farms can contaminate wild fish with diseases and sea lice
6. Overfishing—because it takes a lot more than one pound of feed fish to make one pound of farmed salmon, farming salmon encourages overfishing
Thinking about the downsides of industrial aquaculture was spurred by a discussion we had with a wholesale customer recently. This wholesale buyer—we’ll call him Sushi Sam—specializes in distributing our seafood to high-end sushi restaurants. His major in college in Japan was literally Freshness in Food. Spending time with Sam I always learn about all the many factors that go into what makes a fish taste one way or another and what makes a good fish.
Recently I asked Sushi Sam about farmed salmon. Since I do taste the competition from time to time, there was one brand of farmed salmon that I thought did a decent job, but there was something I didn’t like about it, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I didn’t like about that particular farmed salmon. And I asked him about it. “Couch potato,” he said in his thick Japanese accent. “What?” I asked. “Couch potato. And smell…” he continued. “They don’t smell like fish.” He didn’t mean the old rancid flavor of a fish that hasn’t been handled well and has gone off. He meant that each fish can have a different smell depending on its diet, where it came from, etc.
As we are a fishermen-owned co-op, we deal only in wild salmon, so we don’t have any control over these factors—they just are. And that’s the beauty of what we are doing. For example, there is a time in the year when keta salmon is coming through and it can smell like a delicious, mouth-watering watermelon. Nobody that I talk with is sure about whether this wonderful melon smell is coming from something in their diet or if it’s a particular time of year and they are in a particular physical state, or a certain stock of keta salmon coming to a particular river has a different smell, or what, but when you work at a fish plant there is a wonderful smell that comes from well-handled fish and you can start picking up on the differences in fish. Our processing plant smells wonderful—our crew does a great job of keeping it clean and moving fish quickly. And a farmed fish, since it is kept in very sterile environments, in pens protected from what nature intended, eating little pellets of homogenized “food,” is just not going to smell like a fish. As Sushi Sam noted, since farmed salmon don’t swim much but sit in a pen they’re “couch potatoes.” It’s true—many Americans like sterile tasting food—we’ve become used to homogenized industrially produced food. We’ve also picked up the bad habit of conflating fat with flavor. Flavor comes with smell and healthy fats are good for our bodies but just plain fat that comes from being a “couch potato” sitting in a pen isn’t really a flavor. Or is this flab good for our bodies.
In addition to the tasteless flab and the health implications and a lack of real smell, there are other deeply concerning environmental damages caused by industrial aquaculture. More than 70 scientists and conservationists from Chile, Argentina, Norway, the U.S., the U.K., the E.U., and other countries sent an open letter to world leaders expressing their deep concerns regarding industrial aquaculture, specifically noting Chile’s Patagonia region where there upwards of several hundred industrial farms. The growing threat posed by industrial salmon aquaculture in open-net pens in this region has damaged pristine waters and ecosystems.
In Alaska, we don’t have industrial fish farms, which is good for protecting rearing grounds for wild salmon. Industrial aquaculture operations can have a huge and devastating impact on marine environments, particularly estuaries and other areas crucial for young fish. In addition, escaped farmed salmon compete with native fish for food. Pesticides and antibiotics can leak out from farms and severely pollute the ecosystem. Sea lice infestations thrive in densely packed pens and can spread to other fish. Fish feces, uneaten food, and other biological waste all accumulate on the ocean floor near salmon farms, causing damage to pristine environments.
The big elephant in the room regarding industrial aquaculture that frequently goes unmentioned is that farming salmon is dependent on heavy extraction of other wild fish. It takes much more than one pound of forage fish, which eventually become pellets, to make one pound of farmed salmon. This mining of the ocean, all in the name of producing a fish that the general public is more aware of, destroys food chains, making it difficult for numerous species to survive, and leads to overfishing of species that are important parts of the ecosystem.
Sadly, because farmed salmon is much cheaper to produce, much of the salmon eaten in the United States comes from industrial farms in Chile or Norway. Earlier this year, seven Norwegian environmental NGOs representing hundreds of local groups expressed growing concern for communities along the country’s coast and called for a reduction in the total number of farmed fish at sea, including the creation of more Marine Protected Areas.
All of this brings us back full circle: Why choose wild seafood? Why pay more for Alaska Gold Seafood than other offerings?
In a world of heavily industrialized food controlled by outside investors with other interests, we are owned and operated by fishermen who take pride in the fish they serve customers. In addition, Alaska is a shining star in seafood sustainability with fish stocks managed so that our grandchildren’s grandchildren can enjoy wild Alaska seafood.
In terms of health, the lean protein of wild salmon has all the good omega-3 fatty acids without all the flab of the farmed salmon.
Nobody advocates as strongly for conservation of wild salmon and their habitats like the small boat fishermen in our fleet. Many watersheds might have been destroyed by mining or timber if it were not for fishermen who depend on the health of these places. There are only a few of these places left on the planet and our fishermen are fighting to protect them. The Tongass Rain Forest in Southeast Alaska is a key region that is literally fertilized by wild salmon and our fishermen are key players in protecting it. When managed well, as wild salmon stocks are in the state of Alaska, wild salmon is a resource that can last forever. Where salmon farms have started, the health of wild salmon has been deeply endangered.
We invite you to support the future of wild salmon by supporting our fishermen-owned co-op.
