News Coverage
Consumer Alert: Salmon
Published August 6, 2003
The most popular fresh fish in America may be detrimental to your health. Consumer Reporter Paul Moriarty has the details.
An estimated one in four Americans eat salmon but now the rosy-colored fish is in the middle of a debate over just how healthy and safe it really is.
The debate centers on farmed salmon, the salmon that is raised in captivity in offshore pens.
Moriarty reports about eight percent of all salmon comes from these farms and says most grocery stores in the Delaware Valley don't even sell wild salmon anymore because it can cost twice as much. However, an environmental group says you should avoid eating farmed salmon altogether.
According to a study by the Environmental Working Group, farmed salmon contain high levels of PCBs - a cancer-causing chemical.
Jane Houlihan, who took part in the salmon study, talked with Eyewitness News from Washington: "We think people should only be eating wild salmon," adding, "We found that farmed salmon had PCB levels 16-times higher than wild salmon and four times higher than beef."
The higher PCB levels are attributed to the diet of farmed fish. They are fed ground fishmeal and fish oils that are high in PCBs.
But that is not all. Moriarty says the fishmeal diet has sparked a separate controversy.
The fishmeal farmed salmon starts out looking gray or pale yellow but to make it look palatable to consumers they are artificially colored using a petrochemical-based dye.
The safety of that has not been called into question. Still, most shoppers Moriarty talked to know nothing about it.
Not only do consumers think it is deceptive, an attorney from Washington state recently filed suit against several supermarket chains for not disclosing the fact that coloring was added.
As a result, signs have started popping up at local stores.
Finally, according to the Department of Agriculture farmed salmon contains almost twice the fat and more than twice the saturated fat than Wild Atlantic Salmon.
As for salmon farmers, they say their product still contains less saturated fat than other foods. For example, their salmon has five-times less saturated fat than a burger.
They add some types of wild salmon do have more fat content than farm raised and as for those high levels of PCBs, salmon farmers say they are within the acceptable levels set by the Food and Drug Administration.