On: Up to the 1990s, raw salmon sushi was not eaten in...

[bwv848]

And yet you should avoid farmed salmon[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture_of_salmonids#Issue...

[lofaszvanitt → bwv848]

Your country's food regulation body should decide whether a given food source is safe for consumption or not. Never understood why people do these angst runs when they have zero informance on these issues and don't even have the means to decide whether the paranoia is warranted.

[brnt → bwv848]

This depends entirely where (under which rules) they are farmed.

Here in the EU, farmed fish from the Americas comes with the lowest health and safety ratings (and is maybe barely sold because of that), but EU farmed salmon is rated safest, better than wild, especially for babies.

[sneak → bwv848]

From your link:

> The US in their dietary guidelines for 2010 recommends eating 8 ounces per week of a variety of seafood and 12 ounces for lactating mothers, with no upper limits set and no restrictions on eating farmed or wild salmon.

? What am I missing?

[SapporoChris → sneak]

The reference in the link is fairly lengthy. If you go beyond the first paragraph there sections: Disease and parasites, Pollution and contaminants... (about 10 more sections). However under Pollution and contaminants there are some eyebrow raising bits of information. "In sites without adequate currents, heavy metals can accumulate on the benthos (seafloor) near the salmon farms, particularly copper and zinc.[14]

Contaminants are commonly found in the flesh of farmed and wild salmon..."

[kergonath → SapporoChris]

I am not going down that specific rabbit hole, but your quote does not say anything about not eating farmed salmon specifically compared to wild salmon. All large fish accumulate heavy metals.

[bwv848 → kergonath]

Please allow me to quote a passage from an article https://time.com/6199237/is-farmed-salmon-healthy-sustainabl...

> We know that every fish is a trade-off between omega-3 content and toxic content like PCBs. From the perspective of salmon in general, the balance favors consumption of that fish. Now the challenge here is that I can’t tell which salmon is farmed the right way or the wrong way.

[kergonath → bwv848]

Well yeah, that's a better quote, if you want to argue that way.

[itwasntandy → sneak]

Keep reading.

For example:

> A recent study in British Columbia links the spread of parasitic sea lice from river salmon farms to wild pink salmon in the same river

[Jolter → itwasntandy]

If we’re talking food safety, I don’t believe those sea lice are any danger to a consumer. Don’t they just invade the gills of the fish?

[itwasntandy → Jolter]

I wasn’t talking about food safety.

The lice from the farmed fish devastate the wild salmon populations, so ecologically they are awful.

That to me is a pretty clear reason to avoid farmed salmon.

[Jolter → itwasntandy]

I’m sorry, I believe the topic was dietary guidelines.

But you’re right, of course, if we should consider the environment as well. I haven’t eaten fish in 8 years, personally, partly because so much of it is fished or farmed in an unsustainable way.