Farmed salmon contain unwanted substances

Re: “Farms will keep salmon affordable,” letter, Nov. 10.

While it is true “fish farming” reduces the cost of salmon for our tables, I cannot fathom anyone ingesting those fish if they knew what they were eating.

To find that salmon is “rich in protein and other nutrients” might be true, but that same flesh is also rich in growth hormones and antibiotics that our bodies do not need; in fact, those foreign substances are harmful to our health.

First and foremost, I am not against the industrial rearing of fish in pens; ocean open-net pens are my only concern. However, I would never eat an open- or closed-pen reared fish due to the need for artificial nourishment of the salmon to make the “farms” viable. If the fish were given their normal diet and no chemical substances, the farms would fail very quickly since the length of the rearing cycle would be too long and food costs would be astronomical.

Note that farming is actually a soft term for animal husbandry; on the other hand, “fish farming” is nothing more than feedlot rearing with unnatural feed, hormones and antibiotics for the purpose of quickly increasing the yield of the animals for slaughter.

The issue at hand is identical to the value of organically grass-reared beef compared to feedlot cattle riddled with human-harmful substances.

Bruce Morrison Colwood