Why eat organic fish?

The recent health scare concerning farmed salmon has raised consumer interest in organic fish. Alarming levels of cancer-forming dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were found in farmed Scottish salmon, the result of the high levels of industrial pollution that took place throughout most of the twentieth century. These continue to contaminate the world’s food chains today: fish-meal used in non-organic farming contains extremely high levels of PCBs.

Organic fish must be fed with the strictly organic trimmings of fish caught for human consumption, not with industrial fish-meal. In addition, the practice of using artificial chemical dyes to enhance appearance (a common practice in conventional fish farming) is prohibited. The use of growth hormones is forbidden, as is the routine administration of antibiotics. Stocking densities are about half that of conventional fish farms; not only does this improve living conditions, but it helps to prevent the ‘mass escapes’, in which tens of thousands of farmed fish have allegedly driven native fish populations out of their natural habitats.

However, environmental concerns and the dramatically lower levels of PCBs and dioxins are not the only reasons to eat organic fish. Many food writers and critics deem both the taste and texture of organic fish to be far superior. The Kinvara brand of organic smoked salmon, which is reared near Clare Island off the west coast of Ireland (and available in As Nature Intended), was described by Organic Matters as “pure heaven”, and was recently voted the best quality smoked salmon by BBC Good Food Magazine.