NYT: Stores Say Wild Salmon, but Tests Say Farm Bred

Salmon Gone Wild, or Just Sold That Way?

Tests performed for The New York Times in March on salmon sold as wild by eight New York City stores, going for as much as $29 a pound, showed that the fish at six of the eight were farm raised. Farmed salmon, available year round, sells for $5 to $12 a pound in the city.

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Only the sample bought at Eli's Manhattan on the Upper East Side ($22.99 a pound) tested wild. Salmon tested farmed at six stores: Dean & DeLuca in SoHo ($16.95); Grace's Marketplace ($28.99) and Leonard's ($19.95) on the Upper East Side; M. Slavin & Sons wholesale market at the Fulton Fish Market ($4.50 a pound for whole fish) and its Brooklyn retail store ($5.99); and Wild Edibles at the Grand Central Market ($20.99).

my personal favorite:

At M. Slavin & Sons in Brooklyn, the store manager, Phil Cohen, said: "Our salmon is from Canada. All wild salmon in Canada is farm raised."

I wonder if this is the same with the big franchises like Trader Joes and whole foods who on the labels only sell "wild caught salmon".

I love the qoute from Phil Cohen btw... its like hes from the movie dumb and dumber!

Am I the only one who is burned out on salmon? For the past 10-15 years I have "enjoyed" it several times a month - grilled, smoked, stuffed, sauced, etc. But lately, my taste buds just don't seem to get the same old thrill from farm-raised, wild, wild-farm raised, or farm-raised wild.

Cold-smoked salmon, however, is still something I love to make and eat.

Bill/SFNM

They were saying that these folks were selling it as Fresh wild. The Whole Foods near me sells it (right now anyway) as Previously Frozen. The point was that there just couldn't be that much Fresh Wild at this time of year. The Whole Foods near me does have lots of the Fresh stuff (whether mislabeled or not, I don't know) during the season. Including REALLY expensive Copper River.

Is that worth the price, anyway? Should I try it, the Copper River?

Bill/SFNM wrote:Am I the only one who is burned out on salmon? For the past 10-15 years I have "enjoyed" it several times a month - grilled, smoked, stuffed, sauced, etc. But lately, my taste buds just don't seem to get the same old thrill from farm-raised, wild, wild-farm raised, or farm-raised wild.

Cold-smoked salmon, however, is still something I love to make and eat.

Bill/SFNM

Bill/SFNM,

Some years ago, I remember that lox specifically and salmon in general were "sometimes" foods: not rare, but relatively costly, and so not common. The genius of the market has answered the need for salmon, and so now it's readily available everywhere. That's a good thing, but, like you, it doesn't thrill me as it once did, and I don't think I would ever order it in a restaurant (we have it at home a few times every month and, you know, the stuff we get from Costco ain't bad...and based on gleam's post, it could be comparable to what they sell at Dean & DeLucca for three times the price).

Hammond

The Copper River salmon is really, really good. My cousin, who used to work at a well-known fish restaurant in Chicago, used to grab us a couple of pounds each year when it was in season so we could grill it ourselves. I love salmon, but the Copper River is, IMHO, the best I have tried. My family knows I am likely to grab the lion's share of the portion when we get our hands on it.

i saw this today as well...being in the fish biz, this struck me as an interesting article. some musings:

i am not sure how they "tested" for wild fish. MOST salmon, even the wild fish, are hatched in hatcheries. this means that it is 100% certain that genetically "farmed" fish are found in the wild more often than genetically "wild" fish. The annual stocking of "wild" salmon into the wilds of the pacific northwest is one of the reasons the salmon fishery exists. if they are simply testing against known and approved "Farmed" strains of salmon, it is little wonder that they found so many to be farmed.

next, all atlantic salmon is farm raised, NONE is wild caught. this is because the atlantic salmon (salmo salar) is protected on the endangered species act (1973).

finally, it could be that the retailers or wholesalers are unscrupulous. it is very easy for a wholesaler to ship wild fish as farmed and vise-versa because there is very little difference in the product. the markup is better selling inexpensive farmed salmon as wild. it is impossible to judge whether a salmon is farmed or wild once it comes to market, especially if it has been filleted.

one last word:
the "copper river" fish is very good, but there are 5 species of salmon in that river, some better than others. any really fresh king/chinook or sockeye/red salmon is going to be very good, regardless of where it comes from. some are better than others, but the copper river is decidedly average in it's fish quality. in fact, the fish catching practices on that river are inferior to some of the lesser known areas, and therefor result in a fish of lesser quality. look for reefnet fish or fish trap/wier caught fish for the highest quality salmon, the gillnets that most sockeye are caught with do a lot of damage to the fish.


Erik
www.sushigaijin.com
www.dirksfish.com
www.volorestaurant.com

SushiGaijin wrote:i am not sure how they "tested" for wild fish

They checked for concentrations of pigments in the flesh. Farmed fish have additives in their feed to similate the color wild fish get from crustaceans in their diet. A range of experts confirmed the Times' method and results. The analysis found one salmon purchased at WFM was probably a farmed one that had escaped and had lived in the wild for a time.

hmmm, i am not sure i understand how the pigment levels can determine the origin of the fish, heres why:

in farms, salmon are fed feed with either astaxanthan or canthaxanthan added to it. this serves the purpose of coloring the flesh, although the salmon do not do well without it in their diet. the chemicals used are nature-identical, although they are produced in a lab. Both wild and farmed are colored by the same chemical, but it needs to be supplemented in captivity because the fish meal that the salmon eat does not contain high enough levels. an interesting aside, astaxanthin and canthaxanthin are very powerful antioxidents and are VERY good for you. you can find them available in tablet form at many health food stores. here's proof http://www.lifesvigor.com/prod/16851/

the same two nature-identical additives are used to keep egg yolks yellow, and are supplemented to chickens as a matter of course. the poulty industry gets to dodge the bullet because they have a large political lobby, but the fish industry is disjointed and uncoordinated.

anyway, i would still be wary of testing pigment levels, since both wild and farmed salmon contain naturally varying amounts of pigment. King salmon in particular are found with flesh that ranges in color from paper-white to nearly fire hydrant red. this is a natural variation based upon the fishes diet. sockeye salmon (a wild fish) contain extremely high levels of pigment, one reason why it is so good for you. coho, pink, or chum salmon have very low levels, which is why they lack the characteristic red color of the other two wild salmons.

the article states that ONE anonymous expert considers the tests to be "a method that is accepted," but it strikes me as odd that you can tell the difference between the same chemical in a fishes' flesh regardless of origin.. is it possible to tell the difference between vitamin A from a carrot and vitamin A from a pill, if it is the exact same form of vitamin A and it has already been absorbed and placed? perhaps, but it doesnt sit well with me.

also the NYT is the same paper who posted the EWG/PEW study of farm raised salmon, which seemed to indicate that farmed fish had higher levels of PCB contamination than wild fish...a study that has been replicated several times and has NEVER come back with the same results...in fact, every time it is replicated the farmed fish comes back cleaner than the wild fish...PEW/EWG has had it out for farmed fish ever since the industry survived their legal onslaught in the mid nineties, and are notorious for cooking results.

based on my experience i would be very surprised if there is any way to tell the difference without a genetic profile...even then, knowing that most salmon start their lives on farms (hatcheries), i would not be surprised if most "wild" fish test as farmed.

Erik.

Bill and David,

I agree with you guys. I remember when salmon steaks first became readily available and I couldn't get enough of them, then I totally burned out. Every once in a while I'd pick up some steaks or filets from a high quality purveyor, but only if I had a recipe that really knocked my socks off.

Then last year the husband went salmon fishing up in the Pacific Northwest. The fish was handled impeccably and we elected to have some fileted and some dry smoked. Man, was it awesome! We have treated it like gold and it will be a sad day when the last of it is gone. I'm sure it will be a long time before I can buy salmon from a store again especially when there is this whole "live or farm-raised" issue looming.

The wild vs. farmed salmon issue is indeed contentious.

SushiGaijin wrote:the article states that ONE anonymous expert considers the tests to be "a method that is accepted," but it strikes me as odd that you can tell the difference between the same chemical in a fishes' flesh regardless of origin.. is it possible to tell the difference between vitamin A from a carrot and vitamin A from a pill, if it is the exact same form of vitamin A and it has already been absorbed and placed? perhaps, but it doesnt sit well with me.

<snip>

based on my experience i would be very surprised if there is any way to tell the difference without a genetic profile...even then, knowing that most salmon start their lives on farms (hatcheries), i would not be surprised if most "wild" fish test as farmed.

It is indeed possible, depending on how the analysis is conducted, to determine the difference between (for example) vit. A from a carrot and from a pill. The traces of 'other' chemical compounds that coincide would provide a chemical signature for the source. Some chemical manufacturing processes even chemically 'tag' production runs so that specific batches can be identified by batch/plant etc.
Conversely, even genetic profiling may fail to discern between wild and farm raised, unless special markers are introduced, or the speciation is simply different.

As far as the taste issue is related to coloring, I believe that the color addition (which is now declared in stores) necessary for farm raised fish also accompanies the other additives (antibiotics, etc.) and thus (possibly) different taste profiles (real or percieved).

Insert David Hammond's LTH tagline here.

There are also economic/cost issues involved, since wild fish are more expensive. Deliberate mis-labelling would be a malpractice.

Then again there was the move to count hatchery raised fish as wild by the government. Here's an article in the Washington Times.

hey,

thanks for the info!

indeed retailing farmed fish as wild fish is nothing more than fraud.

however, i am not sure i buy that the wild fish tested were really farmed...it seems awefully suspicious that 90% of the samples came back as farmed, i suspect an error in reporting.

hatchery fish (most of the wild salmon population are hatched on fish farms) are supplemented astaxanthin before they are released, because the fish need it to thrive...it is possible that these hatchery raised fish are testing as farmed, despite being as wild as wild salmon gets. rainbow trout are the same way, functionaly extinct without stocking. amazing that we have messed up everything so bad that these fish wouldnt exist without us breeding more...

as far as taste goes, there is probably quite a bit of percieved taste difference based on farm/wild lines, but in all honesty the farm raised kings and wild kings taste identical. without the origin tag clipped to the gill, most people would be very hard pressed to know the difference at the store or on the table, even if they are next to each other. antibiotic/chemical additives are not allowed to be found in salmon for human consumption, and contrary to popular belief are used very sparingly in aquaculture. i find that www.salmonoftheamericas.com does a pretty good job of laying out the opposition side, since it seems like all i ever hear about in the media is how bad farmed salmon is.

aquaculture salmon are found in named varieties just like plants, so some genetic marking is possible. the speciation isnt different, but they do differ from naturally evolved fish.

one interesting thing, salmon farming ison of the most efficient farms in the world, based upon food conversion ratios (FCRs), overall polution and environmental impact, and contamination level. it blows the doors off of any land farming, and is eclipsed only by other aquaculture. a standard salmon FCR is 1:1, while beef is usually between 10 and 20:1. contamination based upon average annual intake is among the lowest source of PCB and PBDEs, with milk, beef and dairy being the lions share.

Erik.