Troubling NYT article on Salmon

Sea lice and emamectin benzoate? This article has me thinking twice about my Salmon intake...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/opinion/09grescoe.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Yuk... I think I'll cry "uncle," too, until the industry cleans up its act.

[Robin Garr]

Aw, crap! I thought I was doing my part by avoiding farmed Atlantic salmon. :p

Well, DUH!

Those who have been patronizing the commercial salmon fishery and who thought they were getting anything other than the most egregiously processed food product have been practicing the highest art of self-deception.

Welcome to the real world.

Wake up and smell the fish. And boy, does it stink to high heaven.

I'm sorry, but I have no sympathy for those who have supported wild fishing and the decimation of the populations of wild sea life. You are getting what was coming to you.

-Paul W.

The big news here has been the closing of salmon season this year for everyone. No commercial fishing, no sport fishing. It really has collapsed in the Sacramento-San Joaquin.

Sea lice and emamectin benzoate? This article has me thinking twice about my Salmon intake...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/opinion/09grescoe.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Most salmon consumers here (Pacific NW) will eat fresh, locally caught or Alaska salmon. No chemicals and certainly not farmed raised. As far as the sea lice. When you catch them locally, and they are just entering the rivers to go upstream to spawn, they all have sea lice which shows that they are just arriving from salt water(fresh). When rinsing and cleaning the catch the sea lice go away. Having them attached does not deter anyone from consuming them. Here we catch pink, silver, some sockeye and chinook. If we catch chum salmon, known as dogfish, those are oily and therefore good for the smoker as are the pink.

This whole thing is very disturbing to me. I have not eaten any salmon in about two years now.

In several of the Bay Area seafood restaurants where I was chef salmon was always one of the biggest sellers. In San Francisco, Walnut Creek and Sausalito I sold literally tons of salmon - local, Northern California salmon. The average fish I would fillet weighed in at about 20 pounds. They got smaller over time.

I filleted, grilled, poached, sauteed and baked thousands.

I also watched one of my favorite foods disappear - abalone. I could still buy it fresh in the 70s and 80s. The last time I saw a real, fresh, wild abalone was around 1986.

Of my three favorite West Coast seafoods two are now dead in the water so to speak. I am just waiting for the third shoe to fall - and for petrale sole to go away,too.