1. The Title should be "Norway became a global salmon behemoth. Now it's facing the consequences". It fits the character limit, why change it?
2. A lot of the conditions for Salmon farming can be drastically improved or completely eliminated if they have done it further away in deep sea rather than coast. It just cost more.
3. China is rapidly improving their Salmon Farming so there isn't much to worry about for Norway. In 10 - 20 years time half of it will be gone.
Points 2 and 3 kind of contradict themselves though, as China doesn't have access to deep sea (at least until the invasion of Taiwan or if China manage to take control of their claimed share of South China Sea).
They are doing both landlocked and mobile deep-sea methods farming with success. In typical Chinese fashion as they have done with Fruit and other food productions, I wouldn't be surprised if they could scale it 10x within 5 years. I doubt it will take away Norway's supply to Japan in the short term due to quality and trust issues. But export to China may be lowered.
China has the world’s largest distant-water fishing fleet, and Chinese vessels fish far beyond China's coastal waters like in South America, West Africa, Indian Ocean.
FYI it’s “dramatically improved” not “drastically improved”. Drastically has the connotation of something bad happening so it doesn’t make sense to drastically improve something, it’s like saying “horribly benefited”.
Using drastic in this instance is an appropriate, but rare, usage in a positive sense. You are correct that dramatic would be a more commonly used neutral synonym, but using drastic is technically just fine here. It is only slightly odd usage by common practice, but as a native english speaker I hardly noticed it until you pointed it out.
By using a less common word and outside of the common usage of that word, to my ear this adds emphasis, like reading the word in BOLD text or capitalized.
I think it is a very weird phrasing in this context
"drastically improved or completely eliminated"
because drastically often is a negative, improved often is a positive and increase, using a two word phrase were both words are essentially opposite of their common usage seems almost linguistic malpractice.
It would make much more sense to say either drastically decreased or dramatically decreased since the Or in the phrase indicates complete elimination.
It's interesting to see the power of wealth up close. For one the massive lobbying against any tax on the usage of the fjords(or on the wealth). But there is also cases where they will hire retired professors in tangentially related fields (like sea urchins) to write "scientific reports" "showing" whatever they want, which they then send to individual local MPs to convince them to allow more farming.
Strange to have an article about salmon farming drawbacks without mentioning escaped salmons polluting the wild salmon population. There has been a strong decrease in wild salmon as they lose the ability to migrate back up the river to lay their eggs due to breeding with escaped farming salmon.
I think the idea is that the migration instinct passed down by wild salmon is an epigenetic heritable trait. This trait is strongly selected for in wild salmon populations, but not in farmed populations. The constant influx of this maladaptive trait into the wild population is leading to an overall decrease in the ability of the wild population to successfully propagate.
Recently there has been a push to farm "dry-land" salmon. In other words, the salmon live in large tanks on land, rather than in pens in the sea.
At the moment a company is trying to start one of these close to me. Some local people are opposed, some are supportive, but most just want more objective study and information (i.e. not performed/paid for by the company itself).
The devil may be in the implementation, but it certainly has some big advantages over the coastal pens.
I'm no expert but that seems like it could be very energy intensive. All the systems to maintain water quality, temperature. Not to mention the problems that arise having fish in such high density.
There are other places in the world that farm salmon at a much lower density which helps in terms of disease and bioload on the environment. There's a company in New Zealand attempting to build open ocean fish pens, they might already have a prototype out already can't remember. Different species of salmon though.
I am surprised by the statement "Today, salmon sushi is a staple of Japanese cuisine"
While in Japan a few years ago, I found no salmon on the menu in sushi places.
When inquiring why, we were told that salmon is not that good, and that is more a food for kids than adults. Did it change or are we just one data point?
I'm trying to recall right now, and maybe the only places where I didn't find salmon in any of my visits was in the more expensive/ fine dinning places (think ¥8000+ places). All the common kaiten sushi places, or chains like SushiZanmai have all kinds of salmon pieces. Different levels of fat, broiled, rolls...
Is it maybe a bit more like "comfort food", for kids, for less delicate palates, cheaper? Maybe. But truth is I haven't asked why I haven't seen it in the expensive places.
I remember asking a Japanese chef in Japan, in 2019, and the answer I got was that sushi is much less popular in Japan than believed outside of Japan, and a lot more people eat rice and chicken, pork, etc., than salmon.
It's hard to say, depending on how far back your idea of "a few years ago" might be or where exactly you ate. After all, Japan has a lot of sushi restaurants and even different sushi styles. For example, you definitely wouldn't find salmon in an edomae sushi restaurant.
I think this is a veiled advertisement for Norway. Half of the world is engulfed in wars and terror (half across the road towards Mad Max), however Norway is worrying about the environmental effect of salmon feces on its fjords.
A lot of interesting tech is being developed in salmon farming, and e.g. AI has been around for a long time. The north star is offshore farming in giant autonomus constructions far out at sea. Though problem but worth solving
Is it though - I feel like the north star is on land farming. So many benefits. Offshore farming will exacerbate farmed salmon escaping and polluting wild salmon + parasites etc (land farmed salmon can generally be eaten raw or under cooked without being frozen without any worries)
"Sushi has been consumed in Japan for more than 1,000 years but the Japanese had historically preferred tuna, seeing raw salmon as parasite-ridden and unpleasant to the palette. "
English isn't my first language and even I know "palette" is wrong. Is it normal for official news outlets to write stuff like this?
There have been critical articles about the lice problem in Norwegian newspapers for years, so it's honestly relieving to finally see it talked about abroad. I've felt shameful whenever people talk about the "superior Norwegian salmon".
Hopefully international attention is what it takes for change to meaningfully happen beyond some R&D.
I live in Norway and me and my family do not eat farmed fish - for multiple reasons; political, ecological, animal cruelty etc.
A hamburger probably has a better nutritional value than farmed salmon. Children and pregnant women should also limit the intake because it can disrupt development. And the color is fake, if they do not add coloring to the feed, farmed salmon would be gray.
I could go on the whole day about this stuff. The whole thing is just sad.
> A hamburger probably has a better nutritional value than farmed salmon.
Why would you think that? Ground beef typically has higher saturated fat than even farmed salmon and a lot less omega-3.
A hamburger adds a refined carbohydrate bun and sauces on top of that.
I think your political beliefs are overriding factual accuracy.
> And the color is fake, if they do not add coloring to the food, farmed salmon would be gray.
The color isn’t “fake”. It comes from Asataxanthin. Wild fish get it from food they eat. Farmed fish might get it from microalgae-derived sources. Why would it be “fake” if it’s the same chemical? They’re just feeding the farmed salmon the nutrients they need.
Astaxanthin is also sold separately as a supplement because people seek it out, too. It’s not some evil fake chemical dye. The wild salmon naturally eat it, too.
Absolutely valid to attack the political beliefs here. Farmed fish is somehow considered ecologically harmful but it's significantly less harmful than overfishing and allows for bringing extremely efficient, healthy food to the continental interior, which has the potential to reduce heart disease without medication.
It's so narrow-minded to treat farmed fish as some moral failing.
> A hamburger probably has a better nutritional value than farmed salmon.
A sensational statement that is utterly false.
Per 100g, Norwegian farmed salmon has 0.1x the sodium, 0.5x the saturated fat, 2x the protein, 20x the Omega-3 fatty acids and infinity-x the vitamin D of your hamburger.
Farmed salmon is a minimally processed single-ingredient protein, while your hamburger is ultra-processed and packed with refined carbs, added sugar and high-fructose corn syrup and chemicals synthesized in a lab.
> Children and pregnant women should also limit the intake because it can disrupt development.
Presumably you're talking about growth hormones?
Because that American fast-food hamburger has plenty of growth hormones.
Under Norwegian law and European Union/EEA regulations, the use of growth hormones in fish farming is strictly illegal.
Pardon, but how the hell is my hamburger packed with preservatives? And how, other than grinding, is it ultra processed, especially if the beef was given to me by a local rancher? I do not understand? And where the hell did the corn syrup come from? I never put Aunt Jemima on my burgers? Not even brown sugar.
Where in the
- Grass-fed beef
- Sourdough bun
- Lettuce
- Tomato
- Onion
Is all this stuff you cite? Any condiment in the known realm of terrestrial cuisine -- and even adult websites -- can be used on fish just as readily as a burger.
That’s not what “a hamburger” consists of for most of the population. I’d guess <0.1% of hamburger eaters are grinding their own meat and using sourdough. The average burger has preservatives on the bun, meat, ketchup, mustard, pickles, lots of sugar and other additives, a ton of condiments, and likely made of lower quality grain fed meat.
That makes “a hamburger is healthier than salmon” wildly incorrect as a generic statement.
Respectfully, allow me to make subtle, but not insubstantial correction:
"“a hamburger is healthier than salmon”"
to
“a hamburger is healthier than farm raised salmon”
That holds closer to the actual context.
I admit, the ultimate truth of whether a burger is technically healthier than farm raised salmon, is questionable. In my opinion, in either direction, but will concede that.
That said, had the parent stated that opting for a salad might be the healthier option, the argument of absent vitamin D would be a bit less compelling than it already is. One does not expect every conceivable nutrient from every meal. I do not support culinary dictatorship either, and for some, I remain convinced that a quality burger may, for some, be the healthier choice. But that was also not the premise of my argument. My argument was against the erroneous framing of "hamburger", to imply by decree of prejudice, that condiments and cheap bread define "hamburger". I have not been to a fastfood restaurant since the 1980s. I boycotted McDonald's as an 11 year-old. 'Billions Served' but not me.
For someone who wants to promote farm raised salmon, the argument against the parent could have been much more fair. And the fact that the parent was turning gray, compelled me to defend it with some measure of balance. And since I cannot upvote...
I will also address the anachronistic absurdity of ex post facto time-travel justice as indicated by the other comment -- I cannot be punished in the past for what I do in the future. By their own causal reasoning, maybe farm raised is not so healthy after all, as it appears to have potentially negative effects on one's reasoning capacity. It's 2026; we aren't time traveling quite yet... or, wait.. That really doesn't make sense. OK, I yield. It's time traveling. Burgers are bad. Farm raised salmon good.
Appreciated, and I apologize not to the target-audience for my other vulgar comment, but to yourself and anyone else who may disagree with me, but at least has the dignity to stand by reason.
One has to wonder why anyone would want to make such a comment invisible, as if they could not see it was already generally suppressed. That is essentially flagging. For a comment that made no false claim or insult. So while I am embarrassed for those who might defend me, I am not deleting my ugly comment. That is the type of comment that might actually deserve flagging, and it was also sincere.
Fatty fish accumulates heavy metales and other unhealthy components and pregnant women in Norway is told to limit the intake. But it has been controversial, the industry is not happy with these recommendations!
I can see this being sensible regarding, for example, swordfish, which is long lived apex predator. They get the bio accumulation of everything they eat. Farm salmon has a short life and a controlled diet. Where would they get heavy metals?
From their food and over time, I assume? Since farmed salmon is fed and live a short life I would also assume that it has lower pollution levels than wild fish of similar size and composition.
You are exactly wrong. Farmed salmon has very high levels of heavy metals and PCB because the water where they are farmed is slow moving accumulate pollution. Wild ocean fish swim in the open ocean where overall pollution is less. That’s why if you buy omega 3 tablets it needs to be from ocean fish otherwise you’re getting a high level of toxic chemicals.
Salmon feed lots, with a similar problem of concentrated waste, cruelty and unhealthy animals. Sounds like the underwater egg solution they discuss in the article might also be solving an optics issue they have. Out of sight, out of mind.
Technically it works. Superior Fresh, as in the linked article, has a viable system. The challenge is that in the beginning it is hard to reach a scale that works economically. Added to that, in Norway it is challenging to grow leafy greens in greenhouses in the winter, compared to the latitude where Superior Fresh is located. It can be done, but is energy intensive. We ran a fully indoor pilot facility for five years in Sweden, it is still operational, under a new team. My ambition is to document what we learned in a CC licensed book. At the moment it is partially documented in a blog. https://cirkularodling.se/build-an-aquaponic-indoor-farm-par...
The article does not mention land-based fish farms but instead the "egg", a more enclosed pen that is underwater but estimate that it is 10 times the cost of a pen.
How would a land-based fish farm would compare economically to those innovative underwater sea pens in your seemingly educated opinion ?
Some of these farms are truly impressive. Although balancing the health of the fjords is hard. People seem to prefer "wild" salmon but just like we don't eat "wild" cow anymore, I imagine in 30+ years it will be the norm. Hopefully we can shift to that norm in an environmentally friendly way.
We don’t eat wild cows anymore because aurochs went extinct in the last few hundred years.
People still eat junglefowl (ancestor of chickens) and wild boar (pig), but in the developed world domesticated animals are usually both cheaper and tastier.
Addendum: People will probably read that as "au-rochs" (and wikipedia's IPA sure isn't helping here), but it's actually split "aur-ochs". (that latter part being the foundation for the current word 'ox')
Source: studied german enough to recognise that word root
1. The Title should be "Norway became a global salmon behemoth. Now it's facing the consequences". It fits the character limit, why change it?
2. A lot of the conditions for Salmon farming can be drastically improved or completely eliminated if they have done it further away in deep sea rather than coast. It just cost more.
3. China is rapidly improving their Salmon Farming so there isn't much to worry about for Norway. In 10 - 20 years time half of it will be gone.
Points 2 and 3 kind of contradict themselves though, as China doesn't have access to deep sea (at least until the invasion of Taiwan or if China manage to take control of their claimed share of South China Sea).
They are doing both landlocked and mobile deep-sea methods farming with success. In typical Chinese fashion as they have done with Fruit and other food productions, I wouldn't be surprised if they could scale it 10x within 5 years. I doubt it will take away Norway's supply to Japan in the short term due to quality and trust issues. But export to China may be lowered.
China has the world’s largest distant-water fishing fleet, and Chinese vessels fish far beyond China's coastal waters like in South America, West Africa, Indian Ocean.
That's an interesting fact but that does not tell me anything about the possibility it has of raising salmon in its own waters
FYI it’s “dramatically improved” not “drastically improved”. Drastically has the connotation of something bad happening so it doesn’t make sense to drastically improve something, it’s like saying “horribly benefited”.
The connotation of drastic always being negative is through common usage and not strict definition. See: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drastically
Using drastic in this instance is an appropriate, but rare, usage in a positive sense. You are correct that dramatic would be a more commonly used neutral synonym, but using drastic is technically just fine here. It is only slightly odd usage by common practice, but as a native english speaker I hardly noticed it until you pointed it out.
By using a less common word and outside of the common usage of that word, to my ear this adds emphasis, like reading the word in BOLD text or capitalized.
I think it is a very weird phrasing in this context
"drastically improved or completely eliminated"
because drastically often is a negative, improved often is a positive and increase, using a two word phrase were both words are essentially opposite of their common usage seems almost linguistic malpractice.
It would make much more sense to say either drastically decreased or dramatically decreased since the Or in the phrase indicates complete elimination.
Not really, as people in some dialects do so horribly/terribly improved. Drastic doesn't even mean bad per se, it just means extreme.
It's interesting to see the power of wealth up close. For one the massive lobbying against any tax on the usage of the fjords(or on the wealth). But there is also cases where they will hire retired professors in tangentially related fields (like sea urchins) to write "scientific reports" "showing" whatever they want, which they then send to individual local MPs to convince them to allow more farming.
Strange to have an article about salmon farming drawbacks without mentioning escaped salmons polluting the wild salmon population. There has been a strong decrease in wild salmon as they lose the ability to migrate back up the river to lay their eggs due to breeding with escaped farming salmon.
I suppose natural selection will act on those salmon that can't reproduce.
That is... unintuitive. Wouldn't the escaped salmon have to be able to get back upstream enough to where the wild salmon are laying/milting?
I think the idea is that the migration instinct passed down by wild salmon is an epigenetic heritable trait. This trait is strongly selected for in wild salmon populations, but not in farmed populations. The constant influx of this maladaptive trait into the wild population is leading to an overall decrease in the ability of the wild population to successfully propagate.
They’ve bred more docile salmon, according to the article. Getting that DNA into wild populations would be problematic I’d imagine.
Don’t forget the dams and the humpback salmon.
Recently there has been a push to farm "dry-land" salmon. In other words, the salmon live in large tanks on land, rather than in pens in the sea.
At the moment a company is trying to start one of these close to me. Some local people are opposed, some are supportive, but most just want more objective study and information (i.e. not performed/paid for by the company itself).
The devil may be in the implementation, but it certainly has some big advantages over the coastal pens.
I'm no expert but that seems like it could be very energy intensive. All the systems to maintain water quality, temperature. Not to mention the problems that arise having fish in such high density.
There are other places in the world that farm salmon at a much lower density which helps in terms of disease and bioload on the environment. There's a company in New Zealand attempting to build open ocean fish pens, they might already have a prototype out already can't remember. Different species of salmon though.
I am surprised by the statement "Today, salmon sushi is a staple of Japanese cuisine"
While in Japan a few years ago, I found no salmon on the menu in sushi places.
When inquiring why, we were told that salmon is not that good, and that is more a food for kids than adults. Did it change or are we just one data point?
I'm trying to recall right now, and maybe the only places where I didn't find salmon in any of my visits was in the more expensive/ fine dinning places (think ¥8000+ places). All the common kaiten sushi places, or chains like SushiZanmai have all kinds of salmon pieces. Different levels of fat, broiled, rolls...
Is it maybe a bit more like "comfort food", for kids, for less delicate palates, cheaper? Maybe. But truth is I haven't asked why I haven't seen it in the expensive places.
I remember asking a Japanese chef in Japan, in 2019, and the answer I got was that sushi is much less popular in Japan than believed outside of Japan, and a lot more people eat rice and chicken, pork, etc., than salmon.
It's hard to say, depending on how far back your idea of "a few years ago" might be or where exactly you ate. After all, Japan has a lot of sushi restaurants and even different sushi styles. For example, you definitely wouldn't find salmon in an edomae sushi restaurant.
For reference, salmon was the most popular choice in conveyor belt sushi places 3 years ago. https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01627/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_multi-trophic_aquac...
I think this is a veiled advertisement for Norway. Half of the world is engulfed in wars and terror (half across the road towards Mad Max), however Norway is worrying about the environmental effect of salmon feces on its fjords.
A lot of interesting tech is being developed in salmon farming, and e.g. AI has been around for a long time. The north star is offshore farming in giant autonomus constructions far out at sea. Though problem but worth solving
Is it though - I feel like the north star is on land farming. So many benefits. Offshore farming will exacerbate farmed salmon escaping and polluting wild salmon + parasites etc (land farmed salmon can generally be eaten raw or under cooked without being frozen without any worries)
There seems to be few offshore production facilities compared to on-land ones.
"Sushi has been consumed in Japan for more than 1,000 years but the Japanese had historically preferred tuna, seeing raw salmon as parasite-ridden and unpleasant to the palette. "
English isn't my first language and even I know "palette" is wrong. Is it normal for official news outlets to write stuff like this?
Maybe they are painting the fish and find the experience unenjoyable? :)
Perhaps a happy accident.
No. Sometimes the spill checker just auto co-wrecks people.
auto-erotics ... it was sitting right there.
I'm sure you've never made a typo or mixed up two similar words before.
I'm a native English speaker and before your comment, I never noticed that palette, pallet, and palate are different words!
Full title: Norway became a global salmon behemoth. Now it's facing the consequences
There have been critical articles about the lice problem in Norwegian newspapers for years, so it's honestly relieving to finally see it talked about abroad. I've felt shameful whenever people talk about the "superior Norwegian salmon".
Hopefully international attention is what it takes for change to meaningfully happen beyond some R&D.
I live in Norway and me and my family do not eat farmed fish - for multiple reasons; political, ecological, animal cruelty etc.
A hamburger probably has a better nutritional value than farmed salmon. Children and pregnant women should also limit the intake because it can disrupt development. And the color is fake, if they do not add coloring to the feed, farmed salmon would be gray.
I could go on the whole day about this stuff. The whole thing is just sad.
> A hamburger probably has a better nutritional value than farmed salmon.
Why would you think that? Ground beef typically has higher saturated fat than even farmed salmon and a lot less omega-3.
A hamburger adds a refined carbohydrate bun and sauces on top of that.
I think your political beliefs are overriding factual accuracy.
> And the color is fake, if they do not add coloring to the food, farmed salmon would be gray.
The color isn’t “fake”. It comes from Asataxanthin. Wild fish get it from food they eat. Farmed fish might get it from microalgae-derived sources. Why would it be “fake” if it’s the same chemical? They’re just feeding the farmed salmon the nutrients they need.
Astaxanthin is also sold separately as a supplement because people seek it out, too. It’s not some evil fake chemical dye. The wild salmon naturally eat it, too.
Absolutely valid to attack the political beliefs here. Farmed fish is somehow considered ecologically harmful but it's significantly less harmful than overfishing and allows for bringing extremely efficient, healthy food to the continental interior, which has the potential to reduce heart disease without medication.
It's so narrow-minded to treat farmed fish as some moral failing.
Sushi in the middle of the desert (for example in Las Vegas) is and has never been ecological sustainable.
> A hamburger probably has a better nutritional value than farmed salmon.
A sensational statement that is utterly false.
Per 100g, Norwegian farmed salmon has 0.1x the sodium, 0.5x the saturated fat, 2x the protein, 20x the Omega-3 fatty acids and infinity-x the vitamin D of your hamburger.
Farmed salmon is a minimally processed single-ingredient protein, while your hamburger is ultra-processed and packed with refined carbs, added sugar and high-fructose corn syrup and chemicals synthesized in a lab.
> Children and pregnant women should also limit the intake because it can disrupt development.
Presumably you're talking about growth hormones?
Because that American fast-food hamburger has plenty of growth hormones.
Under Norwegian law and European Union/EEA regulations, the use of growth hormones in fish farming is strictly illegal.
cooked salmon and cooked ground beef seem to have similar amounts of protein per my cursory research.
A hamburger would have a bun at least. We're not comparing filets to patties... which could also contain additions like onion or egg.
Pardon, but how the hell is my hamburger packed with preservatives? And how, other than grinding, is it ultra processed, especially if the beef was given to me by a local rancher? I do not understand? And where the hell did the corn syrup come from? I never put Aunt Jemima on my burgers? Not even brown sugar.
Where in the
- Grass-fed beef
- Sourdough bun
- Lettuce
- Tomato
- Onion
Is all this stuff you cite? Any condiment in the known realm of terrestrial cuisine -- and even adult websites -- can be used on fish just as readily as a burger.
That’s not what “a hamburger” consists of for most of the population. I’d guess <0.1% of hamburger eaters are grinding their own meat and using sourdough. The average burger has preservatives on the bun, meat, ketchup, mustard, pickles, lots of sugar and other additives, a ton of condiments, and likely made of lower quality grain fed meat.
That makes “a hamburger is healthier than salmon” wildly incorrect as a generic statement.
Respectfully, allow me to make subtle, but not insubstantial correction:
"“a hamburger is healthier than salmon”"
to
“a hamburger is healthier than farm raised salmon”
That holds closer to the actual context.
I admit, the ultimate truth of whether a burger is technically healthier than farm raised salmon, is questionable. In my opinion, in either direction, but will concede that.
That said, had the parent stated that opting for a salad might be the healthier option, the argument of absent vitamin D would be a bit less compelling than it already is. One does not expect every conceivable nutrient from every meal. I do not support culinary dictatorship either, and for some, I remain convinced that a quality burger may, for some, be the healthier choice. But that was also not the premise of my argument. My argument was against the erroneous framing of "hamburger", to imply by decree of prejudice, that condiments and cheap bread define "hamburger". I have not been to a fastfood restaurant since the 1980s. I boycotted McDonald's as an 11 year-old. 'Billions Served' but not me.
For someone who wants to promote farm raised salmon, the argument against the parent could have been much more fair. And the fact that the parent was turning gray, compelled me to defend it with some measure of balance. And since I cannot upvote...
I will also address the anachronistic absurdity of ex post facto time-travel justice as indicated by the other comment -- I cannot be punished in the past for what I do in the future. By their own causal reasoning, maybe farm raised is not so healthy after all, as it appears to have potentially negative effects on one's reasoning capacity. It's 2026; we aren't time traveling quite yet... or, wait.. That really doesn't make sense. OK, I yield. It's time traveling. Burgers are bad. Farm raised salmon good.
Peace
Perfectly valid point actually, not sure why you are in gray.
Appreciated, and I apologize not to the target-audience for my other vulgar comment, but to yourself and anyone else who may disagree with me, but at least has the dignity to stand by reason.
One has to wonder why anyone would want to make such a comment invisible, as if they could not see it was already generally suppressed. That is essentially flagging. For a comment that made no false claim or insult. So while I am embarrassed for those who might defend me, I am not deleting my ugly comment. That is the type of comment that might actually deserve flagging, and it was also sincere.
On land we abandoned the hunter/gatherer system for farming thousands of years ago.
Because it just doesn't scale! It can feed 50-100 million people at most.
Maybe we need to empty the oceans of wild fish before we make that transition for seafood, but I hope it can happen a bit more quickly.
Astaxanthin for the color fair. What about the salmon is bad for pregnant women?
Fatty fish accumulates heavy metales and other unhealthy components and pregnant women in Norway is told to limit the intake. But it has been controversial, the industry is not happy with these recommendations!
I can see this being sensible regarding, for example, swordfish, which is long lived apex predator. They get the bio accumulation of everything they eat. Farm salmon has a short life and a controlled diet. Where would they get heavy metals?
From what I understand the fjord are relatively enclosed ecosystems and tend to accumulate stuff from the human acitivies around it
Can you link to those recommendations? I can't find anything on the Norwegian public health sites specifically about farmed salmon.
From their food and over time, I assume? Since farmed salmon is fed and live a short life I would also assume that it has lower pollution levels than wild fish of similar size and composition.
You are exactly wrong. Farmed salmon has very high levels of heavy metals and PCB because the water where they are farmed is slow moving accumulate pollution. Wild ocean fish swim in the open ocean where overall pollution is less. That’s why if you buy omega 3 tablets it needs to be from ocean fish otherwise you’re getting a high level of toxic chemicals.
I thought this was true for tuna and somewhat never registered it might be true for salmon too. I need to look this up and update, thank you.
Generally speaking, heavy metals accumulate as you move up the food chain, so it will be true for any large fish.
Growth hormones. It’s better now than some years ago, but still. Some claim the do not use them at all.
And they use a lot of antibiotics.
And there is some accumulation of dioxins and PCBs in the fat due to the feed, but this has also been approved somewhat.
>Some claim the do not use them at all.
It is against the law in most if not all EU countries. It is also the dispute between US and EU agriculture trade.
FWIW, Norway is not a member of the EU - if that is what you are implying.
If that is not your point, I apologize, but then I don’t see the connection (maybe you could elaborate?)
But Norway is part of the EEA and is therefore bound by many EU regulations.
> Astaxanthin for the color fair.
Why is it fair? Wild salmon also consume astaxanthin.
It’s like complaining that the farmers are bad for trying to mimic the fish’s natural diet.
Farmed salmon meat is pink, whereas wild salmon meat is white/greyish. A dull color.
They don’t put the coloring in the food to emulate natural food sources. They do it because it looks more appealing to most consumers.
I dont know what the fuck u r talking bout.
>seeing raw salmon as parasite-ridden and unpleasant to the palette.
Painting with salmon is a .. novel take on the art of food.
Salmon feed lots, with a similar problem of concentrated waste, cruelty and unhealthy animals. Sounds like the underwater egg solution they discuss in the article might also be solving an optics issue they have. Out of sight, out of mind.
Two salmons can feed 5000 men. At least that’s the belief 20% of the US population has.
Maybe this is the future https://www.science.org/content/article/oceans-away-raising-...
Technically it works. Superior Fresh, as in the linked article, has a viable system. The challenge is that in the beginning it is hard to reach a scale that works economically. Added to that, in Norway it is challenging to grow leafy greens in greenhouses in the winter, compared to the latitude where Superior Fresh is located. It can be done, but is energy intensive. We ran a fully indoor pilot facility for five years in Sweden, it is still operational, under a new team. My ambition is to document what we learned in a CC licensed book. At the moment it is partially documented in a blog. https://cirkularodling.se/build-an-aquaponic-indoor-farm-par...
The article does not mention land-based fish farms but instead the "egg", a more enclosed pen that is underwater but estimate that it is 10 times the cost of a pen. How would a land-based fish farm would compare economically to those innovative underwater sea pens in your seemingly educated opinion ?
Some of these farms are truly impressive. Although balancing the health of the fjords is hard. People seem to prefer "wild" salmon but just like we don't eat "wild" cow anymore, I imagine in 30+ years it will be the norm. Hopefully we can shift to that norm in an environmentally friendly way.
We don’t eat wild cows anymore because aurochs went extinct in the last few hundred years.
People still eat junglefowl (ancestor of chickens) and wild boar (pig), but in the developed world domesticated animals are usually both cheaper and tastier.
Addendum: People will probably read that as "au-rochs" (and wikipedia's IPA sure isn't helping here), but it's actually split "aur-ochs". (that latter part being the foundation for the current word 'ox')
Source: studied german enough to recognise that word root
Would not feed it to my worst enemy.