Farmed Salmon

A large proportion of salmon is consumed by Australian people per year, and many of those people would be selectively eating the fish due to its high level of sustained nutrients. Often people are told to consume more fish oil whether in tablet form or premium fish, this being told it can spike the habit of eating salmon which naturally contains an excellent source of B12, omega 3, vitamin D and selenium. Whilst withholding a good source of niacin, omega-3 fatty acids, protein, phosphorus and vitamin B6.

Salmon gets it's distinctive colour due to the amount of krill they eat - much like flamingoes - and once eaten the alpha and beta carotenoid pigments are absorbed by these organisms that they are eating which colours their scales, out of the large proportion of Australians who include salmon in their diet, much of the salmon bought is farmed. However, after hearing about the nutrients which they hold wouldn't you like to know whether the salmon your buying is actually withholding the natural ingredients? While Pacific salmon is caught straight from the ocean, Atlantic salmon is farmed and due to the zero krill population in the fish farms it is not getting that natural pink colour buyers expect. Therefore to uphold the business economics, farmers are devised with coming up with another solution to appetize consumers hence coming up with the idea to inject red food colouring into some of our Australian farmed salmon. Without the food colouring salmon would portray the colour grey which doesn't appeal to the consumer. A study done by DSM showed that shoppers are more attracted to the darker shades of salmon which are normally priced at higher ranges purely due to it resembling wild pacific salmon, this spikes farmers push to enhance their colour to keep their farms profitable.

 

As I have just brought the food colouring fanatic to mind there are also another few disadvantages that come with these farmed fish. Due to the large amount of salmon enclosed in a limited area the risk of disease outbreaks increase alarmingly, therefore farmers are pushed to vaccinate their salmon for a variety of diseases and these vaccinations imply a substantial drop in the use of antibiotics in salmon farming. To continue, to maintain intensive production, substantial knowledge of the biology of the individual salmon is crucial. Salmon depend on fresh oxygen-rich water as each different life stage requires different conditions of water temperature, salinity and light and all these things cannot be accounted for for every fish in a salmon farm. In a wild and natural environment salmon move to different water to accomodate for these conditions. Salmon farmers claim that they feed their salmon small fish which is high in protein, fats and omega-3, however by removing a large quantity of fish every year they are severely damaging the already over stressed global wild fish stocks and putting a dint in the natural ocean food chain. On average 1.5 - 8 kilograms of small wild fish are required to produce 1 kilogram of farmed salmon.  

Suggestions given by clients for good places to purchase fish are dandenong market, Yarra Valley poultry ( yes they have nice fish) and if canned salmon use vital choice. 

All things considered it is worth looking firstly at where to buy ocean salmon and secondly knowing that different salmon farms have different ways of farming. Farmed salmon may not be ideal but knowing the brands that are more environmentally conscious and the ones that do not use red colouring is information worth collecting. Food for Thought.