Kelli:

>The guy in the seafood department at the Whole Foods market near me (Dallas)
>said they carry both farm-raised and wild salmon. I was surprised to see that
>the farm-raised fillets cost $1 more per pound than the wild. He explained
>that in buying  "farm-raised" they can assure that the fish are not given
>antibiotics or any other chemical substance and that there was no lead in the
>water, therefore no lead in the fish. And so people are willing to pay a bit
>more for that assurance.

What a hoot! Lead?!? The ocean is full of crap but _lead_! This guy must be
making it up on the spot. Farm-raised fish, especially salmon since they
have been farmed the longest, are fed all sorts of unnatural foods. There
is something of a parrallel between farned fish and battery-raised
chickens: they get sick because they are so confined and fed weird stuff
(the salmon equivilent of Purina Puppy Chow) so they try to come up with
new medications which let the fish live long enough to be marketed. Besides
farmed salmon is from cages in the ocean--the same ocean that wild salmon
are foraging from--and feed closer to the coast than wild salmon do. Wild
salmon are not pristine because the ocean is not pristine anymore, but
farmed salmon? You are definately on the right track to stick to wild.

It must've been a bumper year for wild salmon since I just bought some Coho
in the round for $2.99/lb in Hawaii! Enjoy it while you can. Curiously it
was explained to me by a fish wholesaler/buyer that the farmed salmon folks
wait until the wil season (June to Oct-ish) and then flood the market with
farmed (since they can basicallly market farmed whenever they want) so that
the wild price gets floored by the glut of farmed. And now your fellow
tells you that people will pay a premium for farmed because it is "Pure".
Sounds great to me. Let them all eat farmed--more wild for us folks. ;)

>Also, ever heard of a company called Arctic Bay Salmon? I would prefer fresh,
>wild salmon, but for the sake of extreme cost (and considering how much of it
>I eat) I thought I'd try this company's "flash frozen" fillets. They guarantee
>that the fish is skinned, deboned and flash frozen within one hour of being
>caught. It is vacuum sealed and they say once thawed is acutally fresher
>tasting than "fresh" salmon that acutally takes 3 or so days to reach the
>market floor. Anyone ever tried it or heard of it? I'd appreciate your
>feedback--thanks!

Lots of folks rave about Trader Joe's flash frozen salmon. On the whole it
must be much better than the pasty farmed junk sold most everywhere. But I
am a tad opinionated on the subject... ;)

Cheers,
Kirt

Secola  /\  Nieft
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