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Why Your Salmon Is About to Get Very Expensive

  • January 25, 2017

A tiny pest known as sea lice has caused a resurgence in disease in farmed salmon, and because it’s also spreading to wild salmon near the sea farms, the cost of salmon is skyrocketing. Already, Norwegian salmon prices have jumped 40 percent, Time reports. Algal blooms and warmer water temperatures are also contributing to the problem.

Salmon farming is a disaster both for the environment and for human health, and tests show farmed salmon is about five times more toxic than any other food tested. In animal feeding studies, mice fed farmed salmon grew obese, with thick layers of fat around their internal organs. They also developed diabetes.

Aquaculture promotes itself as a sustainable solution to overfishing. But in reality, fish farms actually cause more problems than they solve. There’s really little difference, in terms of environmental pollution, between land-based feedlots and water-based ones.

So what’s the answer? Unfortunately, the vast majority of fish — even when wild caught — is too contaminated to eat on a frequent basis. This is why, as a general rule, I no longer recommend getting your omega-3 requirements from fish. However, I do make two exceptions. One is authentic, wild-caught Alaskan sockeye salmon, the nutritional benefits of which I believe still outweigh any potential contamination.

Alaskan salmon is not allowed to be farmed, and is therefore always wild-caught. The second exception is smaller fish with short life cycles, such as sardines, herring and anchovies, so it's a win-win situation — lower contamination risk and higher nutritional value.