Maggie's Farm

As the daughter of a fish farming pioneer, what I learned about fish farms keeps me from ever wanting to eat farmed fish. My father left the industry because of his increasing concerns over the impact of fish farming upon wild stocks, and the unhealthiness of the end product relative to the wild fish. Like me, he was sentimental, and couldn't bear to eat creatures he had raised from spawn, even when testing healthier diets out on them.

The primary issue is what the farmed fish are fed. See this link (just one of many, not necessarily the best): http://www.farmedanddangerous.org/salmon-farming-problems/environmental-impacts/fish-feed/


Of course, I love delicious fish dinners. I can sometimes tell the difference between wild and farmed, not always. More important, regardless of taste tests, the farmed fish is not as good for you as wild stock. The hunters on this site know that venison not only tastes better but IS better for you than chicken or pork raised in cages and fed antibiotics and byproducts all their lives. Fish are no different.

Obviously, even farmed fish would help a bunch of starving people in remote Third World villages where people never get meat or poultry. Antibiotic laced protein is better than none. At some point we will all end up eating byproducts. Soylent Green....

But fish farms are usually built these days by large corporations to export from rather than to improve the diets of the local people. It seems that fish farming primarily benefits luxury loving Westerners like all of us, rather than the millions in the Third World who truly need the extra protein. It's like the obscenity of using a food (corn) for fuel in rich countries when people are going hungry in poorer countries.

If you have a choice (and most of us readers DO) eat the wild species that are still available. Or, failing that, grow your own fish and keep them in large tanks, without antibiotics, fed with things you don't find personally disgusting. That's the way to produce healthy fish. You get what you pay for.

Sorry to rant, but have been observing fish grow since the help would dangle us kids over the crayfish tank and threaten to drop us in if we didn't persuade our dad to give them a new TV.....