Darin J. Ward DDS PC
BY BRIAN BOONE
Health Centered Dentistry
Livestock with Fins
What’s on your plate.
At Health Centered Dentistry, we focus on your overall wellness.
By taking a holistic approach and arranging for health rather
than merely treating disease, we offer an opportunity to restore
your oral health to its optimum.
H
igh cholesterol, hormones and
mental images of fattening pens
and slaughterhouses make the
prospect of eating meat a bit unappealing for
many of us. Perhaps fresh salmon is a
healthier alternative. And look, here it is on
sale at Neighborhood Grocer for just $3.99
per pound. That price does seem awfully
low, seeing as how salmon runs in the
Northwest have decreased dramatically over
the years and some species are endangered.
It’s highly likely that’s not wild, Pacific
salmon you’re buying, but rather farmed
Atlantic salmon, the most popular fish vari-
ety in the world today. An invention of the
past 15 years, farmed Atlantic salmon are
bred and raised in open net cages in con-
trolled offshore sites in northern Europe,
South America and especially British
Colombia, where Atlantic salmon account
for 80 percent of all farmed fish. These
cages are crowded to restrict and control
movement. The fish are fattened and given
antibiotics until ripe for sale.
Not only is the Atlantic farmed salmon a
steal, this fish comes with a little something
extra for the money. Coloring agents are
added to the fish’s food to color the flesh
pink in order to appear more like its wild
Pacific cousin. Without it, Atlantic salmon
are an unappetizing brownish-gray.
Pigments used are astaxanthin and its syn-
thetic, cheaper counterpart, canthaxanthin, a
dye so caustic that the European
Commission reduced the maximum amount
allowed after studies indicated over-con-
sumption caused eye damage in humans.
Also added to the fish food are various an-
tibiotics to fight off the rampant diseases
caused by open net cages.
A B.C. industry association website says
the pigments used today are actually benefi-
cial to consumers, and antibiotic use has
been cut 90 percent in the past decade to the
point where it is only administered when
fish are sick, and not as a preventative meas-
ure.
Atlantic salmon are fed steadily larger
food pellets consisting of processed fish-
meat, grains, minerals, vitamins and fish oil
until they reach their market weight of 8 to
10 pounds, which takes about 30 months.
The combination of movement-restricting
quarters and a high-fat diet quickly grows
meaty, marketable, cheap salmon — albeit
with dioxins, saturated fat and PCBs (poly-
chlorinated biphenyls), which only occur in
minimal levels in wild salmon.
Vancouver geneticist Michael Easton
published a study last year that found eating
farmed Atlantic salmon even once a week is
hazardous because of high amounts of
PCBs, which have been linked to immune
system suppression and slowed childhood
mental development.
Similar efficiency increasing methods
employed by livestock growers have been
applied to fish. Much like chickens
crammed into tiny spaces, farmed Atlantic
salmon live in crowded net enclosures.
Similar to beef cattle, farmed salmon are fed
a diet that creates a fatty, juicy meat product.
Like livestock farming, Atlantic salmon
300 Country Club Rd. Ste. 290
Eugene, OR 97401
We look at the whole picture, consider systemic health and
underlying factors, and take steps to perfect your smile while
preventing problems before they occur. Friendly faces welcome
you in a relaxing, stress-free environment to ensure you are as
comfortable as possible.
Call today and experience the benefits we offer with the
extraordinary people and unique setting only Health Centered
Dentistry can provide.
(541) 686-2441
Erin Dent at Newman’s shows an Atlantic
salmon in this EW file photo. The store no
longer sells the farmed fish.
farming has environmental consequences.
Farmed Atlantic salmon have escaped net
cages to compete with wild salmon for food
and habitat. Farmed Atlantic fish have been
found in 78 rivers and streams in B.C.
Ironically, nine million wild Atlantic salmon
eggs and smolts were planted in these same
rivers but didn’t survive. Efforts to control
escaping fish have seen results. Some 9,200
fish were reported escaped in B.C. in 2002,
down from hundreds of thousands in years
past.
Sea lice remain a problem, a pest that
thrives in the close quarter net cages. But
perhaps the worse problem is salmon feces,
which build up under the nets along with un-
eaten food. In response to this concern,
many salmon farms have been moved from
calm, shallow inlets to deeper areas with
stronger currents to spread the feces over a
wider area, eliminating buildup and subse-
quent damage to any one specific seabed.
The fish farming industry is lucrative
and creates jobs. In B.C., 85 percent of the
60,000 metric tons of farmed Atlantic
salmon in 2002 were exported, resulting in
$391 million in sales and 4,700 jobs. Wild
salmon exports brought in a mere $129 mil-
lion.
Most Eugene-area grocery stores carry
farmed Atlantic salmon but many specialty
meat and fish sellers do not. Fisherman’s
Market on 7th Avenue does carry it. The two
local Wild Oats stores do not, as they follow
organic-oriented policies set forth by their
corporate office in Bolder, Colo. Newman’s
Fish Company on Willamette also does not
stock the fish, but instead offer a wild
Chinook that costs a bit more.
“The people who shop with us and ap-
preciate the wild salmon make an effort to
not only afford it but seek it out,” said
Newman’s Courtney Dones.
ew
“ A Fierce Brightness:
Twenty-Five Years of Women’s Poetry ”
University of Oregon Bookstore
Thursday, May 15 • 7 p.m. • Free
Janice Gould, Donna Henderson, and Ingrid Wendt
will share their works from this anniversary collection
of “Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women.”
UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
BOOKSTORE
895 East 13th Avenue, Eugene • visit www.uobookstore.com
MAY 8, 2003 11