News Coverage
Is salmon safe?
Published January 14, 2004
When Barbara Marino of Chatham, a communications instructor at Seton Hall University and consultant, sees her work schedule compressing the time she has to prepare her family's dinner, she makes a quick stop at her favorite supermarket and reels in some salmon.
"I call it the ultimate fast food, because it's a healthy 20-minute meal," she said. Set in a 400-degree oven with lemon juice, pepper and dill, it's done by the time she's composed a salad and boiled a pot of rice. "It's a family favorite," she said, popular even with her 9-year-old, Michael, who shies away from most other seafood.
One of the reasons Marino, like many other consumers, regularly plates salmon for her family is because its Omega-3 fatty acid content has been widely touted as a safeguard against heart disease. But she's also aware that the pretty pink fish has netted nastier publicity of late, having to do with possible PCB contamination among farm-raised salmon, and the use of colorants in their feed.
A study by the Environmental Working Group of Washington, D.C., a nonprofit public interest watchdog, reported last summer that farmed salmon were the most likely PCB-contaminated protein source in the national food supply, with a PCB content 16 times higher than that found in wild salmon and four times higher than the levels in beef. Industry groups criticized the findings, which were based on a sample of 10 store-bought fish in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Portland, Ore. Last week, a study of 700 salmon found that the level of PCBs in fillets taken from farmed salmon were seven times as high as levels in fillets taken from wild salmon.
Linda Candler, vice president of communications with the National Fisheries Institute, a nonprofit trade organization representing the seafood industry, in Arlington, Va., said PCB levels in farmed and wild salmon "are comparable at about 100 times below the FDA limit, so they're perfectly safe." According to the EWG, however, the FDA's standard is out of date and doesn't reflect the latest scientific research.
"When the FDA's standard was developed, salmon was something of a rarity in the U.S. diet," notes the EWG on its Web site (www.ewg.org). "Today it is standard fare at home and in restaurants, particularly among consumers who are health-conscious, well educated, and relatively affluent. Last year salmon overtook 'fish sticks' as the third most popular seafood in the American diet (trailing only tuna and shrimp)." More than 90 percent of the fresh salmon Americans consume is farm-raised.
Yet, according to the federal government's National Marine Fisheries Service in Washington, D.C., Americans ate just 2.02 pounds of salmon per capita in 2002, compared to 3.1 pounds of canned tuna and 3.7 pounds of shrimp. With a total annual seafood consumption of under 16 pounds per capita, Americans are hardly hooked on fish.
"Salmon isn't something we eat three times a week, so I consider it a non-issue," said Marino of the PCB scare. As for the use of colorants, "I was mildly concerned," she said. "But with so many foods there are issues like that popping up, so the best approach is to trust your food source, and have everything in moderation." She buys her salmon from a single source, even if it's less expensive elsewhere, and serves it about twice a month.
"There have been so many food scares, that people have been turned off to them," noted Linda O'Dierno, coordinator of the state Department of Agriculture's Fish & Seafood Development Program. Diana Szanyi, seafood manager at the Acme Supermarket in Morris Plains, observed that there have been "no questions at all" from customers about the safety of farm-raised salmon, which remains a popular item in her department.
To Robert Grippa, president of North American Lobster Co. of Carlstadt, which imports and exports seafood and operates two retail fish stores and restaurants in Carlstadt and Parsippany, the controversy over farmed salmon is "a bunch of bunk. It's got to do with the fishermen squawking because they can't keep up with the farming."
Environmental concerns also filter some debates over the net pens where farm-raised salmon are kept and coastal development. "People don't want it in their backyard. They're visually not appealing," said O'Dierno. Out west, where wild salmon are caught, commercial and recreational fishermen's lines sometimes tangle with Native American fishing rights and environmental campaigns regarding wildlife preservation and river dams.
Farm-raised salmon ensure consistent availability and price. But when it comes to taste, many seafood and cooking experts say nothing beats one caught in the wild.
On the horizon is a growing storm over an application before the Food and Drug Administration to market genetically engineered salmon that grow faster than normal. "We would like there to be a ban on the commercialization of genetically engineered fish because there are too many public health issues and environmental health issues," said Craig Culp, a spokesperson with the Center for Food Safety in Washington, D.C., a nonprofit public interest group. Among the concerns are what might happen if the transgenic fish got into the wild and whether the transgenic fish would be safe to eat.
Historical currents
When the English first crossed the Atlantic, the waters from Greenland to Long Island Sound were teeming with Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). The abundance of this fish, native to rivers on both sides of the North Atlantic, was one of the lures used to attract settlers to New England in colonial times.
Overfishing and the damming of upper streams took their toll on wild Atlantic salmon, now an endangered species. Today, all farmed salmon belong to the Atlantic genus, while only the Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus) is commercially caught in the wild.