Farmed salmon production leads to an overall loss of essential dietary nutrients | Hacker News Reader

Farmed salmon production leads to an overall loss of essential dietary nutrients

cam.ac.uk

30 pointsBreadmaker36 comments

So this study seems to be about maximizing the nutrients from sea catches to consumption, suggesting we should eat what we feed the salmon instead of the farmed salmon themselves, but anchovies, herring, and mackerel aren’t on most people’s menu often.

This study is not about whether farmed or wild caught fish are better for you.

> anchovies, herring, and mackerel aren’t on most people’s menu often.

y'all are missing out!

Gotta save the anchovies for robot oil.

> we should eat what we feed the salmon

I seem to recall there are some nutrients we need to ingest because we cannot efficiently produce them ourselves. B12 comes to mind, checking Wikipedia:

>> Vitamin B12 is [...] for humans the only vitamin that must be sourced from animal-derived foods or supplements. [...] Foods containing vitamin B12 include meat, clams, liver, fish, poultry, eggs, and dairy products. Many breakfast cereals are fortified with the vitamin.

>> It is synthesized by some bacteria in the gut microbiota in humans and other animals, but it has long been thought that humans cannot absorb this as it is made in the colon, downstream from the small intestine, where the absorption of most nutrients occurs.

(FTR I've noticed this is sometimes perceived, or used, as an argument against veganism but I do not mean it that way at all. I fully support such a diet while getting B12 from the source with the lowest possible animal and/or climate impact.)

> anchovies, herring, and mackerel aren’t on most people’s menu often

Is it a Dutch thing then? Anchovies are quite common on pizza I think; herring eating is traditional <https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haringhappen>; and my mom would prepare fresh mackerel regularly (but I cannot be bothered to be honest so I also buy that in a tin). With most population centres being in the vicinity of coastlines, surely eating fish is common around the world?

> anchovies, herring, and mackerel aren’t on most people’s menu often.

Less popular than salmon, perhaps, but hardly unusual. They are all more common tinned, pickled or cured or similar than raw in the UK.

Oily fish have very short shelf life if they're not cooked or otherwise preserved. You do sometimes see them sold raw in the UK, but chances are they'll already be past their best by the time you buy them.

I am happy to buy them (or fish in general) frozen. I will prefer fresh if I buy from a fishmonger, but with supermarket fish and seafood its not worth it.

Grilled mackerel like they do in Japan is honestly better than salmon in every way.

Original article title: Fish fed to farmed salmon should be part of our diet, too, study suggests

Original paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-024-00932-z https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-024-00932-z

Original paper title: Wild fish consumption can balance nutrient retention in farmed fish

I would be curious how this compares to land-based meat production where we use 2-40x of food input to meat output. But nobody suggests reorganizing the economy to eat grass.

There are plenty of people that are advocating for moving away from eating cows, though? They don't necessarily say to eat grass, but it is a common complaint that so much farming goes to live stock.

A better comparison would be to eat gazelle instead of lion and they would be correct. Feeder fish are still fish, which we are capable of digesting just as well.

We are not capable of extracting the same nutrients from grass as cows, or even gorillas.

True, I was a bit extreme. Maybe I should say we’re not creating policies encouraging eating corn instead of chickens, when both are digestible by humans.

Truth is that cows are fed mostly with soy, which is great for us.

<But nobody suggests reorganizing the economy to eat grass.

actually there are some trying that ;-) The Plant Protein Factory

https://universitetslararen.se/2023/02/17/har-gors-framtiden...

The title put on here is very misleading, the actual title from the article is “Fish fed to farmed salmon should be part of our diet, too, study suggests”.

Farmed are also dramatically lower in parasites. If you buy wild salmon, make sure to cook it well done. Or that it was frozen.

I think you have that the wrong way round:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/farmed-sa...

I will try and read that article later when I can bypass paywall, but googling in the past showed 70 to 90 percent of wild salmon have parasites. Personal experience aligned with this.

I have no doubts farmed can introduce new parasites. But our supply chains have far cleaner animals than people realize. Is a large part of why rarer steaks are safer today.

Edit: I should add it is largely safe to assume farmed has been frozen before you get it as a consumer?

I've heard a lot of people say farmed salmon tastes different than wild caught. For me, I've never really noticed a difference aside from maybe the coloring. I've never been able to eat anchovies/mackerel/herring as recommended by the article, any tips?

Get anchovies in oil rather than brine, they are much more palatable. They might be in a cold case because often they aren't packaged in a can.

I make a fresh Caesar dressing with anchovies that's quite good

A few whole anchovies on Caesar salad is good too.

For sure, I usually do both, a couple in the dressing and a couple on top

Farmed salmon tastes even less like fish than wild caught salmon, and it tastes a bit more … bland, maybe a little like breadcrumbs. Depending on your area and where you’ve had salmon, you might never have had wild salmon. Also there are how many different varieties of salmon? Quite a few, it’s sort of like asking how does fish taste, we all have a mental reference but what exact fish does that reference correlate to? Probably a mixed experience

I enjoy anchovies, mackerel and herring but you will most commonly find those types of fish dried and loaded with salt. Probably nutritious but I wouldn’t call them healthy.

Tips for eating ? Oil and bread if you’re into that

Wild salmon in general feels drier and tougher in texture when I cook at home. But I’m a self-admitted horrible cook so YMMV.

I had some amazing wild salmon at restaurants.

Fried mackerel patties can be pretty tasty. Lots of recipes on the web with different seasoning... find one that sounds good and give it a shot.

The worst is that you're out a can of mackerel (which is relatively cheap as seafood goes).

Fresh cleaned whole mackerel.

Place in a covered tray over some water, cover the fish with sliced onion and stuff a piece of lemon in the cavity. Cook in oven at around 180 degrees C for 10 - 20 mins.

You'll end up with a delicious steamed fish, with really creamy flesh that just falls off the bone. The only niggle is that the skin can be a bit awkward to remove, I find a sharp knife scraped edgewise helps there.

Brought to you by Trawlers of the World, Inc.

In case you're not (fully) joking

> The research was funded by the Scottish Government’s Rural and Environmental Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS)

With the authors listed as working for University of Cambridge, University of Stirling, University of Aberdeen, and Lancaster University

Weird it is almost as if a single organism doesn't exist in isolation from its ecosystem! Quick, someone write a paper.

The comparison wasn’t farmed vs wild salmon. It was a comparison between the nutrients in the farmed salmon and those in the fish used to feed those salmon. Basically, there’s inefficiency in nutrient retention. Also not shocking, but not about the fish being in or out of their native ecosystem.

How is this not about fish being in their native ecosystem? There are an infinity of variables we are unaware of. There are no doubt microorganisms in the natural ecosystem that the farmed salmon don't have now which help them retain nutrients.

Anyway, my point in being snarky is OF COURSE

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