Making farmed fish good for you

CANADA - Way back when, in 2003, the journal Science reported that fish raised in captivity - farmed fish - were dramatically higher in toxic pollutants like dioxin, PCBs and pesticides than wild fish. Contaminated enough that the EPA said eating more than one serving a month of farmed fish posed a serious health risk.

Obviously, that's bad news for everyone involved. Fish farmers and the fish industry get hosed because they regularly tout their product as healthier than other animal-based foods. Health-conscious eaters, who think they're doing a body good by eating fish, are actually stockpiling PCBs and dioxins at a much higher rate than they would be if they stuck to hot dogs and chorizo. And obviously, the fish suffer because they're crammed into floating pens to maximize profits.

An interesting wrinkle in the aquaculture phenomenon developed this week as Canadian scientists announced that vegetarian salmon can be much healthier than traditionally carnivorous salmon.

Source: AlertNet