Wild vs Farmed Salmon

Farmed salmon has been shown to have 5-10x more PCB's than wild salmon, and higher levels of pesticides like DDT, flame retardants and other carcinogens.

Based on EPA guidelines (updated 1999), humans should not be eating farmed salmon more than once a month. Much less for children or older people. FDA guidelines, which allows for more frequent consumption of farmed salmon, were published in 1984 and are outdated--they do not reflect newer data. In my opinion, we should never consume farmed salmon until corrections to the fish-farming industry are made and implemented. Farmed salmon can be a reasonable source of protein in the future if done sustainably and safely--but until then, I would stay away from it.

How to tell if salmon is farmed or not? If the label does not explicitly state that the salmon is wild, then assume that it is farmed.

Wild salmon is a much safer choice compared to farmed salmon, and a better source of omega-3's. If we translate the EPA advisory, we can eat wild salmon 5-10x in a month.

PCB's are ubiquitous and it has been detected in many of our meat based protein sources: beef, chicken, other seafoods, even milk. So the bottomline is to minimize our exposure: do not overeat, eat organic as much as possible, rotate between different protein sources. Consider vegetarian sources of protein.