Please pass the dioxin

The EPA has just released a study describing how farmed salmon is
loaded with chemicals:

Farmed salmon contains far more toxic chemicals than wild
salmon -- high enough to suggest that fish-eaters limit how much they
eat, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
They looked for 13 different chemicals known to build up in the flesh
of fish, including polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, dioxins,
toxaphene, dieldrin, hexachlorobenzene, lindane, heptachlor epoxide,
cis-nonachlor, trans-nonachlor, gamma-chlordane, alpha-chlordane,
Mirex, endrin and DDT.
Farmed salmon taken from markets in Frankfurt, Edinburgh, Paris,
London, Oslo, Boston, San Francisco, and Toronto had the highest
levels, and the researchers said consumers should eat no more than
one-half to one meal of salmon per month. A meal was eight ounces
(one-quarter of a kg) of uncooked meat.
Farmed salmon from supermarkets in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C.,
Seattle, Chicago, New York and Vancouver had toxins high enough to
suggest that people eat no more than two salmon meals a month, based on
Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) standards. In
contrast, it would be safe to eat up to eight meals a month of wild
salmon, they said. Other groups note that walnuts, flaxseeds and other
non-fish sources are rich in omega-3s.

What a bummer. I've been moving more and more towards vegetarianism
(holidays notwithstanding ;)), and fish was my only refuge when I got
hit with a craving for meat.
So much for that, I guess.

Posted by flow Frazao on January 8, 2004 at 04:55 PM | Permalink