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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Some environmentalists grasp at straws to shoot down alternatives that enable expanding consumption in sustainable ways, because what many really want is to promote asceticism. New generations of contained aquaculture have gotten Seafood Watch’s recommendation, correcting pollution and pest problems with open aquaculture methods. Contained aquaculture offers a real way forward for sustainable seafood. But salmon raised that way is still white without the additive. That doesn’t actually have any impact on the healthiness or taste of the fish. (My wife is a sixth generation Oregonian, where salmon is serious business, and prefers the taste of farmed Norwegian Atlantic to wild caught sockeye.)

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Ah come on it's not just asceticism. Anchovies, sardines, herring, mackerel and other small fish populations are currently being decimated, and 99% of the catch goes to producing... farmed meat, including salmon. Even if they've solved pollution & disease, if you're putting in 2lbs of unsustainably caught wild fish and getting out 1lb of farmed fish, you don't have a sustainable model.

It's kind of tragically ironic- those small fish are incredibly healthy food & quite inexpensive.

Mackerel in particular is far superior to salmon in my opinion, but few seem to even give it a chance. There seems to be a widespread public bias against canned fish in general, and small canned fish in particular (larger canned fish such as tuna or salmon seem to be more accepted.)

If anybody hasn't tried canned mackerel, I strongly recommend it. A can of mackerel and some crackers makes a super convenient and tasty lunch.

I bought a can of mackerel the other day at the suggestion of another HN poster. It was amazing, and I bought a whole case of 12 on Amazon. I don’t know why it tastes so good but I’m happy I tried it!

I think we read the same comment. I picked up a can when I was out grocery shopping yesterday, too, realizing I had always passedtl canned mackarel up for who knows what reason. It's good, I'll be adding it to my lunch rotation for sure.

I don't know anything about canned mackerel, I'll give it a try the next time I'm at the grocery store. But as far as sushi goes, mackerel is one of my least favorite. I can't quite say way. I eat plenty of "fishy" fish but that one is fishy in a unique way.

My favorite Japanese restaurants in Beijing (I've never been to Japan) weren't sushi places, they were sort of barbecue places. A small roasted mackerel was often one of the best things on the menu. I'm making myself nostalgic just thinking about it...

Farmed Norwegian Salmon is one of the most toxic fish out there.... Unless something has changed in the last two years, I'd steer clear of that stuff....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYYf8cLUV5E

This is interesting to me, but I don't have an hour to watch this doc. Is there a link to a study or related news article?

The problem with scare media like that is that it does nothing to put the risk in context. What is the actual danger from eating fish with high levels of PCBs? The EPA guidance is based on a 1 in 100,000 increase in cancer risk over 70 years, based on extrapolating from animal testing to humans. There is no real scientific evidence that eating fish with elevated PCBs actually results in a measurable increase in cancer risk: https://seafood.oregonstate.edu/sites/agscid7/files/snic/pcb....

To put that into perspective, moving from New York to Chicago will increase your risk of being murdered in a single year by 15 in 100,000, and your 70-year risk of being murdered by 1 in 100. Smoking and then quitting raises your lifetime risk of lung cancer by 3-5 in 100.

As a stubborn new Yorker who occasionally considers moving before thinking better of it I approve

> The problem with scare media like that is that it does nothing to put the risk in context. What is the actual danger from eating fish with high levels of PCBs

The problem with not watching the documentary you choose to comment on is that you'll end up strawmanning the video you didn't watch or responding with a red herring.

If you had watched the documentary, you would have known that the issue goes far, far beyond PCBs.

I’m aware of the other problems with open aquaculture. But OP referred to the “toxic” nature of the fish. What’s “toxic” besides the PCBs? Farmed salmon is lower in mercury, or example.

(Also, you’re right, I didn’t watch the videos. As a rule, I don’t watch informational content in video form, because it’s a stupid way to present information. They’re geared to obfuscating and emotionalizing topics in ways that are harder to do in written documents with citations and footnotes.)

> But OP referred to the “toxic” nature of the fish. What’s “toxic” besides the PCBs?

If you had watched the documentary you commented on, you would know. Insecticides, dioxins, various neurotoxins, heavy metals, and various toxic waste chemicals from oil production and industry.

> Farmed salmon is lower in mercury, or example.

If you had watched the documentary you commented on, you would know that this is not necessarily true, and not at all true for the regions that the video covered.

I have personally switched to a diet 100% composed of the flesh of the beyond beast. And I’ve never felt better!

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyes wgah'nagl fhtagn

> That doesn’t actually have any impact on the healthiness or taste of the fish.

Maybe not per se, but farmed salmon is vastly less healthy and the artificial coloring makes it much more difficult to tell the difference.

> Maybe not per se, but farmed salmon is vastly less healthy

Is there any study showing that? Thanks

Why don't the farmed salmon producers just not dye the salmon flesh if it's just some pointless asceticism?

Color is an important part of what makes food appetizing. If all good was grey eating would be less enjoyable

If anything, food coloring is underused. A pinch of turmeric, while not particularly flavorful, can really liven up a dish by giving it some color

Gray is a color as good as any other.

Since when is turmeric not flavourful though?

People seem to have no trouble paying top dollar for halibut, which is also white.

I think you might be confusing the word asceticism with aestheticism.

Wait, is the colour difference just due to lack of exercise?

Salmon is a whitefish. The pink/red color of their (wild caught) flesh is due to their diet at sea. Specifically, shrimp eat algae which has a pigment that gives their shells and flesh a pinkish color and Salmon eat shrimp.

Sorry, this was just a joke at the expense of the op. The op who asked the question obviously didn't read the article as the fact that farmed salmon is dyed was literally the first line. The second is why it was pink in nature.

Ascetism, aestheticism, athleticism..

Ouch... Whoosh!

I did not notice that the former was invoked by the comment I was responding too, but I did assume it was the latter.

Simple: Aesthetics are just about the only input we have when comparing similar items at the store. If you see a bright red, salmon-colored piece of salmon next to a grey one, the price difference would probably have to be significant to overcome that disparity.

Same thing with produce – there’s no good reason to dip anything in wax, but all else being more or less equal, people will almost always pick the shiny apple over the dull one.

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