A Side of Antibiotics with your Salmon?
The New York Times has a story today about farmed salmon from Chile that makes a few pretty scary points:
- Chile used almost 350 times more antibiotics in its farmed salmon in 2008 than Norway, its chief competitor.
- Chile is the biggest supplier of salmon supplier to the United States. So, if you’ve purchased the pretty pinkish fillets lately, they’ve likely come from Chile, though the story does note that Safeway and Wal-Mart, have reduced purchases of Chilean salmon due to concern about the fish illnesses that require producers there to use so many antibiotics.
- Some of the antibiotics used in Chile are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
11:00 am
Thanks Christine...I just saw FOOD, Inc. this weekend and was told the horrors of Beef, Pork, Chicken, & Corn. Now you are taking Salmon away. :(
11:39 am
Q, I know! I saw FOOD, Inc. a few weeks ago. Those shots of the slaughter houses are still with me.
11:57 am
Any chance you know where I can get any "grass-fed" sustainable farmed salmon that aren't kept in dark-tunneled tightly constricted areas? I've been eating the corn-fed anti-biotic kind too long. When it came to Salmon the only choice I thought I had to think about was Sockeye, Atlantic, Lox, or Smoked. Now I gotta check the labels for country of origin too.
12:17 pm
Just get wild Alaskan salmon. It’s more expensive, but tastier and better for the environment.
1:44 pm
Agree with Sunny. Even vacuum packed frozen wild Alaskan salmon tastes better than the fresh farmed stuff. It's got a better nutrition profile, too.