Who the hell is Dr. Joseph Mercola and why is he giving some pretty uneducated personal opinion on “what you need to know about farmed fish“?
Well, it turns out the self prescribed ‘good doctor’ is promoting Alaskan seafood by attacking the competition. He not only recommends to his faithful to eat Alaskan salmon, but he goes so far as to provide a brand name – Vital Choice Seafood.
His diatribe follows the typical formula of attack. Let’s take a few of his statements about farm-raised fish and see how Alaska ranched salmon (ranched salmon from Alaska are the main source of salmon for Vital Choice) stack up;
- “it takes 1.9 kg of wild fish to produce 1 kg of farm-raised fish”
The truth – due to new diets in feed, it now takes about 1 .2 kg of wild fish to produce farmed fish. Alaska ranched salmon eat wild fish too and the conversion ratio is far less efficient than farming.
- “higher levels of PCB’s and mercury to be higher in farm-raised fish than wild fish”
The truth – PCB and mercury levels are so low in both wild and farmed salmon that it’s almost undetectable. But, if you really want to know, the highest levels of PCBs have been found in wild Sockeye salmon from Alaska’s Copper River (Ewald et al. 1998). Levels of mercury are the lowest in farmed salmon.
- “farm-raised fish is pumped full of antibiotics, hormones and even chemicals to change their colour”
Wrong, wrong and…wrong. Hey doc, you kinda suck! Antibiotics are only used on farm-raised fish when a fish is sick (a guy who prescribes drugs for a living should know this). Hormones are not used and the ‘colour’ that he refers to is the red pigment that colours a salmon’s flesh. This pigmentation process is the same for wild and farmed salmon – carotenoid pigments are in their feed source and salmon simply retain the red colour (kinda like if we ate a ton of carrots then we’d turn orange).
Dear Dr. Mercola; I guess your uneducated opinion is protected by the disclaimer on your website that says “these statements have not been evaluated…”.
Idiot.
1 response so far ↓
antibiotictruths // December 5, 2008 at 2:11 pm |
Good for you!
Mercola is the perfect example of the fear industry that now prospers in this country by putting “M.D.” after somebody’s name, or the word “Physician” in the organization name, instantly legitimizing utterly silly, even dangerous, nonsense.
How much extra did you just pay for that package of “hormone-free” chicken? (Guess what: NOBODY uses hormones to grow chickens in the U.S. They’ve been illegal for decades!) How much extra did you shell out for that “antibiotic-free” pork? (Surprise: Antibiotic-free chicken and pork are MORE likely to be contaminated with bacteria that might cause food poisoning.)
Thank goodness there’s still somebody interested in truth.
http://antibiotictruths.wordpress.com