Here's an interesting opinion column about salmon, including Idaho's infamous Chenoweth.
A little green around the gills etc.
By Alex Roth
June 1, 2003
In a now-famous public display of ignorance, former Idaho Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth mused that salmon can't be endangered because she buys them at the supermarket. While few citizens are as out of touch as Chenoweth, many of us have been deceived by purveyors of farmed salmon, who dye their fish pink to make it look wild.
Wild salmon derive their color from the krill they eat in the ocean. Because of their artificial diet, farmed salmon are normally a dull gray.
A lawsuit filed last month seeks justice for consumers who unwittingly purchased the artificially colored fish. And days after the lawsuit was filed, Albertson's, Safeway and Kroger began labeling all their farmed salmon as artificially colored. That's a good start. But why settle, after years of deceptively dyed salmon, for a mere label?
Since 1995, FDA regulations have required labeling of dyed salmon, and so have some states, but these rules haven't been much obeyed or enforced.
Salmon farmers know that a deep salmon tint inexorably calls forth visions of wild Coho struggling nobly up pristine mountain streams past hungry grizzlies' open mouths. What better way to arouse consumers?
So here's an idea for a punishment that fits the crime: Why not require that farm-raised fish be dyed a preternatural, Day-Glo green, like mint ice cream or the beer at an Irish pub on St. Patrick's Day?
Just as the pink meat conjures up its images of leaping, wild salmon, green flesh will conjure up images of fish being fed antibiotics to stave off crowding-induced diseases. It will make people think of the possibility that these farmed salmon might cross-breed with native stock, diluting the gene pool.
Shoppers will visualize rows of enormous nylon nets lined up in coastal waters, packed with tens of thousands of salmon bred from Atlantic stock, producing enough fish excrement to make a cattle feedlot proud. They will see the potential for farmed fish to hog the habitat of their native cousins, whose numbers in some areas are already at record lows, beset as they are by logging, development and dams in their watersheds.
Green fish will inspire images of sea lice that often infect penned fish and are suspected of spreading to the wild. It will make people think of the traditional fishers whose livelihoods are threatened by this unbeatably cheap substitute.
People will be able to imagine the retinal damage that might result from eating too much dyed fish, a possibility that recently inspired the European Union to reduce its maximum permitted pink dye concentration far below the American limit. All this and more will be communicated instantly and wordlessly.
No longer will we be oblivious to the true origin of these fish. No longer will we unwittingly threaten the survival of the Northwest's totem animal - wild salmon - as we scarf down fake pink salmon steaks at $2.98 a pound.
The message would be so clear that almost anyone in the supermarket could explain it to our community's most clueless shoppers. "No, Congresswoman Chenoweth, the fish aren't naturally green."
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion/article/0,1299,DRMN_38_1998747,00.html
Oak
A little green around the gills etc.
By Alex Roth
June 1, 2003
In a now-famous public display of ignorance, former Idaho Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth mused that salmon can't be endangered because she buys them at the supermarket. While few citizens are as out of touch as Chenoweth, many of us have been deceived by purveyors of farmed salmon, who dye their fish pink to make it look wild.
Wild salmon derive their color from the krill they eat in the ocean. Because of their artificial diet, farmed salmon are normally a dull gray.
A lawsuit filed last month seeks justice for consumers who unwittingly purchased the artificially colored fish. And days after the lawsuit was filed, Albertson's, Safeway and Kroger began labeling all their farmed salmon as artificially colored. That's a good start. But why settle, after years of deceptively dyed salmon, for a mere label?
Since 1995, FDA regulations have required labeling of dyed salmon, and so have some states, but these rules haven't been much obeyed or enforced.
Salmon farmers know that a deep salmon tint inexorably calls forth visions of wild Coho struggling nobly up pristine mountain streams past hungry grizzlies' open mouths. What better way to arouse consumers?
So here's an idea for a punishment that fits the crime: Why not require that farm-raised fish be dyed a preternatural, Day-Glo green, like mint ice cream or the beer at an Irish pub on St. Patrick's Day?
Just as the pink meat conjures up its images of leaping, wild salmon, green flesh will conjure up images of fish being fed antibiotics to stave off crowding-induced diseases. It will make people think of the possibility that these farmed salmon might cross-breed with native stock, diluting the gene pool.
Shoppers will visualize rows of enormous nylon nets lined up in coastal waters, packed with tens of thousands of salmon bred from Atlantic stock, producing enough fish excrement to make a cattle feedlot proud. They will see the potential for farmed fish to hog the habitat of their native cousins, whose numbers in some areas are already at record lows, beset as they are by logging, development and dams in their watersheds.
Green fish will inspire images of sea lice that often infect penned fish and are suspected of spreading to the wild. It will make people think of the traditional fishers whose livelihoods are threatened by this unbeatably cheap substitute.
People will be able to imagine the retinal damage that might result from eating too much dyed fish, a possibility that recently inspired the European Union to reduce its maximum permitted pink dye concentration far below the American limit. All this and more will be communicated instantly and wordlessly.
No longer will we be oblivious to the true origin of these fish. No longer will we unwittingly threaten the survival of the Northwest's totem animal - wild salmon - as we scarf down fake pink salmon steaks at $2.98 a pound.
The message would be so clear that almost anyone in the supermarket could explain it to our community's most clueless shoppers. "No, Congresswoman Chenoweth, the fish aren't naturally green."
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion/article/0,1299,DRMN_38_1998747,00.html
Oak
