How to Be a Conscious Eater

29

FARMED FISH: YAY OR NAY?

Y

ou can think of a typical fish farm much like a cattle

feedlot: Too many creatures crammed into too little

space and fed too much sub-optimal feed, making them

too sick and fat. Tens of thousands of rapidly growing fish

swarming amid net pens or ponds. Ergo, fish farmers relying

on the usual Band-Aid solutions—antibiotics, pesticides, and

other chemicals—which round out the CAFO (confined animal

feeding operation) analogy by similarly contributing to antibi-

otic resistance and environmental degradation. But instead of

in factory farms on land, it all transpires under water.

MORE REASONS NOT TO EAT FARMED FISH:

Fish out of water. It’s harder to maintain a hard border, so to speak,

when you’re housing living things in a body of water. Imagine

large cages made of netting, floating offshore. Inevitably, fish

escape, at least in the case of farmed salmon, which is a par-

ticularly problematic type of fish farming. This can result in

the spread of disease as well as fish acting as invasive species

in these waters where they don’t belong. They can even mate

with wild fish, which can mess with the genetics of the wild

population.

Less healthy fish. When fish are confined, they’re less active. The

result is fish who are fatter than their wild cousins, who get tons

of exercise and live off small fish and krill (little crustaceans).

For us, this means farmed salmon develop up to three times

the saturated fat of wild salmon (much like the comparison

for grass-fed beef). This high saturated fat content is caused by

Stuff That comes from animals 113

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