THE RAW FACTS ON RISKS IN YOUR FOOD

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Freshwater salmon” farming is now trending on Chinese social media after CCTV-2 reported that over one-third of the salmon on the Chinese market comes from the QinghaiTibet Plateau.

“The Longyangxia Reservoir in Gonghe County, Qinghai Province has the largest salmon farm at the highest altitude in China,” CCTV Economy (@ᄕ๫֎

recently posted on Weibo.

“But hatching the spawn/fry that traveled across oceans to the reservoir at an altitude of 2,600 meters was once a tricky problem.

“Now, the salmon are growing better and better on the plateau, and one-third of the salmon in the Chinese market come from this farm.”

Immediately, Weibo users started to discuss the parasite problems in “freshwater salmon.” (Technically no freshwater salmon, but in China people call it freshwater salmon because it looks like the real salmon.)

Unlike ocean salmon, freshwater fish cannot be eaten raw.

User @難௔ൣ௽ reblogged the post and wrote: “This means over one-third of the salmon in the Chinese market are actually freshwater fish.

“The most important problem is that the parasites in freshwater fish can complete their life cycle in the human body. There’s a severe supervision loophole.

“But instead it’s promoted as an achievement, thanks to CCTV Economy. I think I won’t touch any salmon sashimi in my lifetime.”

It was picked up by thousands of users, but the blogger later deleted the post. However, concern spread quickly and soon people started calling “freshwater salmon” “fake salmon,” “poisonous salmon” and labelled it a health hazard.

The “freshwater salmon” farmed in Qinghai is actually rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) from the family of Salmonidae, the same as salmon (Salmo salar). But in China, both are known as sanwenyu.

The flesh of rainbow trout is very similar to salmon — bright orange with thin white strips of fat. And the taste of the raw fish is also similar.

Huang Bing, a professor at the Shanghai Veterinary Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences who specializes in parasitology, says that the freshwater fish farmed in lakes are indeed carrying parasites.

“In freshwater fish, some of the parasites may be infectious to humans, while some are only infecting aquatic creatures,” Huang said.