How much do you want to bet that your salmon filet was dyed to that shade of pink? If the salmon was farm-raised, you can bet your Dining Dollars that it had to be dyed, or else buyers would have taken one look at the pale pink flesh of farmed salmon and looked elsewhere.
Aquaculture is the process of growing fish, shellfish or other aquatic organisms in contained environments - essentially, cattle-ranching with fish. Salmon, tilapia, oysters, trout, cobia and snapper are all commonly farmed and commonly eaten fish. As if you didn't have enough to worry about, aquaculture is a controversial production system that affects both the environment and your body.
Aquaculture has two huge environmental benefits: If people switch from eating endangered species to eating farmed fish (e.g. anything from orange roughy to tilapia) the consumer demand strain on endangered fish is weakened. Moreover, if a farmer is growing an endangered or declining species of fish, drawing from farmed fish populations dramatically reduces the strain on endangered wild populations.
Unfortunately, that's about where the benefits end. Most practices of aquaculture lead to water pollution, disease proliferation, contamination of wild populations and more. Like any farm-raised animal, farmed fish - especially salmon, trout and snapper - eat and produce feces. These natural processes result in a lot of waste.
In freshwater and inshore saltwater farms, drainage of the farms is exceptionally difficult, because it depends on water currents. As a result, either the surrounding water is quickly contaminated, or all the waste is swept away to nearby coves and estuaries. Eventually, nitrates build up, causing eutrophication (the process of excess nutrients effecting excessive plant growth). Essentially, algae overgrowth occurs because the waste from the aquaculture system is not properly flushed.
Furthermore, any farm environment where animals live in an overcrowded space their entire lives is a breeding ground for disease. Consequently, fish farmers dump antibiotics into the feed, which may lead to antibiotic resistance in humans that consume those fish. Not to mention, entire populations could be wiped out by a single parasite in a farmed and netted environment; if a single sick fish were to escape through a hole in the net into the wild, it could contaminate wild populations of fish as well.
Finally, especially in the case of salmon, farmed fish just don't look like their wild counterparts. Carotenoids, substances found in marine organisms like krill, give salmon its natural pink hue. Fish feed, however, does not contain natural carotenoids; farmers dye the salmon pinker before selling it. Farmed fish can also be up to five times the size of wild fish; this is a result both of steroids in fish feed as well as the lack of exercise farmed fish get.
Granted, it all depends on the system implemented to farm the fish. Tilapia, for example, are omnivorous fish who are often raised in rice paddies, feeding on the vegetation and nutrients from the symbiotic environment. Most shellfish farms, too, function well throughout the world; these systems require little maintenance to raise filter-feeders.
There are healthy sustainable alternatives, and here at Tufts, our Dining Services are making the move to sustainable aquaculture practices. Once a week, each dining hall (Thursdays at Dewick and Wednesdays at Carmichael) offers a fresh sustainable fish of the day. Fish like Coho and King salmon, sea bass, Albacore tuna and tilapia represent TUDS' move toward sustainable fishing. All these species are safe to eat, containing low levels of heavy metal concentrations, and are caught at sustainable rates.
On March 28 and 29, the dining halls will be hosting an Under the Sea Dinner to promote awareness of sustainable seafood. TUDS is open to going completely sustainable, as long as education among the students continues. So watch what you eat, and go to www.puresalmon.org for more information.
Caitlin M. Wood is a freshman who has not yet declared a major.
