Which fish is Healthy?

"Randy and Michelle" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

After hearing that farm raised salmon causes cancer, I am
now looking for some other fish which is considered
healthy. I was also eating farm raised catfish but I am
now suspicious of all farm raised fish. It is hard to

find

Quoted message said:

atlantic salmon here so what is healthy? Halibut? Grouper?
Scrod? Talapia?

Thanks Randy

The conclusion that farmed salmon are a cancer risk is not
supported by the evidence. Yes, they had higher contaminant
burdens than did some wild-caught salmon with which they
were compared, but overall, the increased risk was something
on the order of one extra case in 100,000 person-years of
exposure. There is much more cancer risk from drinking
water, via halogenated organics.

In fact, the pollutant burden in both wild and farmed salmon
has been falling steadily for at least twenty years. People
who were eating that salmon twenty years ago are healthier
than those who did not do so. I'm an environmental
toxicologist, and I personally do not have the slightest
concern in eating farmed salmon. The health benefits far,
far exceed the risks. The only benefit in switching to other
foods would be not knowing how contaminated they might be;
other foods have not received similar scrutiny.

Lar

"Larry Hoover" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

The conclusion that farmed salmon are a cancer risk is not
supported by

the

Quoted message said:

evidence.

The evidence is that those farmed salmon and all other
farmed fish are feed with flour produced from the waste of
chickens, cows, fish etc. thanos.

"thanos" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

"Larry Hoover" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

The conclusion that farmed salmon are a cancer risk is
not supported by

the

Quoted message said:

evidence.

Quoted message said:

The evidence is that those farmed salmon and all other
farmed fish are

feed

Quoted message said:

with flour produced from the waste of chickens, cows, fish
etc. thanos.

I do not believe that animal byproducts are commonly fed
to fish, though I guess they'll have to do something with
that stuff now that they aren't permitted to feed it to
cows any longer. If chicken and cow by-products are toxic,
I guess that means that poultry and beef are too? Fish
meal is certainly a component of feed for farmed fish, but
don't forget, the fish from which the meal is produced are
wild caught.

The simple fact remains that food that has not been
scrutinized for contaminants is not necessarily any better
than a food that has been assessed. If you check the first
link (given below), you'll see that all food is
contaminated.

Here's what I posted on January 11, to the same topic:

"I've worked in environmental toxicology for years, and one
of the most important aspects to interpreting data as
reported in this study is to consider the context in which
they are collected. For example, dietary exposure to PCBs
and dioxins is continuously falling (in general terms), and
has been falling for at least two decades. It is revealing
to find that eggs and grain in 1982 (Britain) had similar
levels of PCBs and dioxins as do fish today, and that
historically, daily intake via different foods was quite
similar between e.g. meat, fish, milk, eggs, and grain. See:
foodstandards.gov.ukfsis38 2003Open ↗
.pdf, and refer to the tables at the end of the article. The
British government seems to be a tad more diligent in
analyzing and publishing data than are North American
administrations. For more, see:
foodstandards.gov.uksurveillanceOpen ↗

In the risk/benefit analysis of consumption of farmed fish,
e.g. salmon, one must consider not only the risk of toxicant
transfer, but also the health benefits accruing from e.g.
omega-3 fatty acids. I haven't read the Science report as of
yet, and most articles in the lay press are completely
devoid of actual data, but one review I read today suggested
that the mean PCB concentration was 36 ppb. If I am not
mistaken, the FDA upper limit is 2,000 ppb. The reviewer I
just referred to applied the carcinogenesis risk estimate to
the salmon in question, and derived an increase in cancer
incidence of 1 case per 100,000 consumers over 70 years. I
cannot independently verify that conclusion, without seeing
the data, but if accurate, that is hardly worth getting in a
tizzy about. Eating fish once a week is going to save a lot
more lives via circulatory health than are lost to cancer, I
have no doubt.

The fairly recent focus on promoting fish consumption has
come from things like cohort dietary analyses correlated
with health outcomes, and comparisons of regional dietary
trends with disease incidence. You can be certain that the
people upon which those data depend were not eating pure and
uncontaminated fish. Quite the contrary, fish consumed two
decades ago were more likely to be highly contaminated than
are fish of today. And yet, we attribute health benefits to
a history of eating those contaminated fish. Let's not
forget, this isn't a new problem. It's actually a problem
that is fading away. I may well be a jaded old environmental
toxicologist, but I eat farmed fish, without the slightest
concern. Trust me, there are less publicized things that
ought to worry you more."