Ocean-FriendlyWhen I think of farms my mind automatically goes to the miles of cornfields I grew up around in Nebraska. I can still remember driving out of town and watching the rows of corn “walk” beside me like an old flipbook cartoon. My mind next goes to pastures of cattle, and fields of rice growing in the Arkansas delta. One thing that doesn’t automatically register, are farms of fish. Maybe it is because I have never driven past fish farms and admired them, or maybe it is because seafood and farming sounds so foreign. Fish come from fishing in my mind, going out to the water with a rod and reel and waiting until the fish bites the bait.
Farming fish, however, is one of the fastest growing animal based agricultural categories today. As you shop in your grocery store, it is becoming harder and harder to find the word wild behind the seafood counter. This raises concerns for many people as seafood is among the healthiest foods we consume, and concerns are raised when man begins to tinker with what has always been plentiful naturally.
Farming will always mean man controlled beyond what happens in the wild whether this is on land or water. Farmed fish means fish being fed foods other than what they would eat in the wild including gmo products. It means additional controls like antibiotics and dyes. All of this means a striking change in the nutritional values. Since wild fish have to hunt for food while farmed fish are fed, it even means the farmed fish are fatter (they don’t have to work off any extra calories while searching for food).
This isn’t to say that one should/can never consume farm raised fish. I’m simply not going to make a blanket statement like that. However, I will say that we should look for the word wild in our seafood counters and make requests of our local markets to carry wild caught seafood whenever they possibly can.
Follow Us!