I've been meaning to start adding Salmon to my diet but I've always gotten hung up on the Wild vs. Farm debate. What kind of salmon do you guys eat? I know Wild Alaskan Salmon is supposedly the best thing to eat, but it can be really expensive. I've heard that the Omega-3 fats that are the main reason to incorporate salmon into your diet aren't the same in farm raised salmon due to their diet.

What freaks me out is that they have to add Red Food Coloring to the farm raised salmon because the feed that they give them isn't even close to what they'd add in nature. I would think that gray spinach or a gray bannana would be a sign that the food isn't healthy. I guess the Salmon industry agrees so they add red food coloring.

Anyway, I'd love to hear that I'm being paranoid and that if I can't afford Wild Alaskan Salmon, Farm Salmon is still pretty damn good. But in either case, I'll take the truth.

edit: Also, where do you guys buy salmon for quality and cost? I've seen online stores like VitalChoice.com, FreshSeaFood.com, and even eBay sellers selling it. How they keep it frozen while shipping it to you, I have no idea.

I think your being overly paranoid. I buy my salmon from the supermarket or I get it from the tin.....I shop by price and never give it another thought. If you're also taking fish oil tabs then I wouldn't worry too much...if your concern is omega-3's.

Farm salmon is still pretty damn good. I'd put the extra money towards food clothes, shelter, gas etc... IMO

You probably eat tons of tuna from the can anyway which is way worse than farm raised slamon in terms of mercury content.

But Wild Alaskan Salmon is far far superior to farm raised. No contest in terms of nutrient value and taste.

Spend the money on good, high quality foods there is no better place for it than in your body. The less processed the better. Go all free ranged and organic for your meats and veggies.

all fish has mercury to some degree or another....chunk light is just fine. Mercury estimates are, well,l just estimates afterall. Some tins will have more, some will have less, some will have none. I eat ~120g/day of tuna roughly.

Sure Wild Alaskan is better....no contest.... but you can't buy the best of the best all the time (unless you budget to do so or are well off) so if the question is which is better farm or wild....then wild.

Is farm still pretty good?....yup!

Is farm salmon better than burger king? Well I know which one I'll take.

My input comes more from a culinary vs. nutritional perspective, but I'd say that wild is definitely superior from a flavor standpoint. The fat content is generally higher which, aside from any nutritional bonuses from more Omega-3, simply means it's tastier.

On the downside, depending on where you are in the country and where you shop, it can be hard to get wild salmon that isn't previously frozen. Anytime you freeze food, particularly meat, you damage the muscle tissue which results in a lower quality texture than with fresh product. Then again if you're buying a lot at once and freezing it then this is irrelevant.

Mercury is always a concern with fish, as it's in pretty much all of them, but levels are significantly higher in certain ones. Salmon overall is very low on the scale. Fresh tuna, swordfish, shark, various types of trout, and in general larger size fish are usually the ones you want to avoid, as they have eaten smaller fish and live longer and thus accumulated a larger store of mercury.

I advise shopping at a good specialty seafood market (which are usually easy to find if you live in a semi-coastal area) or any good higher end grocery store. Natural food stores are particularly good if you are concerned with the presence of additional chemicals in the fish, such as preservatives, hormones, etc.

As much as I prefer the wild salmon, I usually get fresh farm raised Atlantic salmon. It's noticably more affordable, still very good, and the lower fat content isn't as much of an issue for me as I eat salmon more for the high quality protein than for Omega 3 (I supplement for my EFA's).

Also, if it's available in your area I highly recommend picking up some Wild Copper River King Salmon when it's in season, which is usually around late spring, I think. Where I work we only have it for about 2 weeks out of the year, and it's quite expensive (about $28/lb.) but it's ridiculously good. It's a beautiful deep read, the fillets are huge, and it tastes like the fish ate nothing but butter its entire life.

Mmmm, now I want some salmon. Damn.

Fish farming is also taxing on the environment. There are problems with destruction of natural resources, pollution from the food and concentrated fish feces, oxygen depletion of the water leading to harmful algae growth, etc.

Would there be enough fish to feed everyone if fish farming wasn't available? I don't know, it seems like either choice is wrought with it's own problems (farming vs. overfishing) but at least you can make your own decision as to what choice you feel most comfortable making.

FYI: There is no such thing in any form whatsoever as "organic" salmon. Farm raised is higher in nutrients but contains articifical dyes to make the color more pink and wild salmon are much more prone to having issues that reduce their nutrient content based on where they are fed and what they feed on and how often they feed.

This is some really good Salmon I've tried as an alternative to tuna. The canned is even good.

Wild Alaskan Salmon (http://www.mercola.com/forms/salmon.htm)