What fish to eat?

Usually in a thread I offer information rather then ask for information but today I'm feeling lazy

As part of my new years diet plan I think I will eat more fish. As it is the only meat I eat is fish or poultry, if it fly's or swims I eat it but if it walks on four legs probably not.

I have been thinking recently about the junk farmers feed their animals and the conditions they are kept in and come to the conclusion that fish is probably the cleanest meat you can eat (obviously not farmed fish!).

What I want to know is a list of fish that cannot be farmed, there must be some fish types that are impractical to farm and those are the ones I want to eat...any ideas?

reply to post by LUXUS


It might be easier to compile a list of fish that we know are farmed and then work it out by the omissions?

Here's a start;
Sea Bass
Salmon
Turbot
Halibut
Lobster (yes I know but there is a programme to breed and release)
Tuna (see the giant floating cages they are kept in and fed until market forces dictate getting them to market)
Most freshwater fish
Catfish
Tilapia

The last 2 I found on Wikipaedia, it has an extensive list of farmed fishies...search 'list of most farmed fish'

I try not to buy farmed fish, but when it comes to frozen fish you need to look carefully at the label, on another post I commented on this...see Piscatorially Portentious? On Food and Cooking Forum.
Buying fish tonight from a supermarket for my tea, will let you know what happens!

reply to post by LUXUS


I do not know of any fish that it would be totally impossible to farm, but I can recommend smoked mackerel as a tasty fish. I particularly enjoy it on a bed of pilau rice. The nice thing about smoked mackerel, is that you can eat it cold or hot, and it is damned filling.

I believe that cold water fish are the best because they have more of the healthy fatty acids.

So, wild cold water fish species would be on the top of my list.

Oily fish like Mackerel,herrings and tuna should only be eaten tops three times a week.
As an ex fishmonger I say try as many as you can get hold of.
Hake is my fave white fish and mackerel is a great fish to cook, Salmon and trout in my view are overrated but don't forget shellfish and stuff like squid and octopus.

reply to post by boymonkey74


Lake Erie Yellow Perch and Walleye are some of the tastiest freshwater fish that their is.

And as the Monkey boy stated, the oily fishes are good.

I had actually thought that mackerel/kippers were not farmed, is that correct?

I like trout but that is farmed and I don't know what junk they are feeding them or what their living conditions are.

Just searched herring is one of the most abundant fish in the sea, therefore no need to farm I would think!

reply to post by LUXUS


Well, you can always grab a fishing pole and go get them yourself. It can be relaxing, even if you catch one. And if you do catch some...you know where it came from.

But you do have to gut and clean it.

reply to post by LUXUS


As a typical ATSer, when I first saw your thread title, I immediately thought of Fukushima & how many are now avoiding the Pacific Ocean varieties of fish for supposed safety reasons.... I guess it depends on your locale & whether you are looking for fresh or salt-water varieties.

Our family mostly survives on vegetables, fruit (80% raw food diets), some dairy, & whole grains with a little added organic locally raised chicken & some Atlantic fish. We do take very high grade Omega-3 supplements a few times a week.

My question to you, LUXUS, & anyone reading this thread, is how can we be more certain (nothing is for sure, of course) that ocean caught is better quality than farm-raised? Does anyone have any credible studies/sources for further contemplation & discussion?

As an island boy ( I live in the Florida Keys) I do my own fishing, twice or thrice a week. The fish I like best to eat are snappers, yellowtail, mangrove ( the most abundant ), mutton, lane etc. Groupers are great tasting as well, alas they are off season now. As far I know, and I may be wrong, they do not farm yellowtail and mangrove snappers.
Mahi-mahi (dolphin), tuna, swordfish, kingfish, cobia etc are all exquisite eating, but I haven't caught them that often. Some, like kingfish, are best eaten smoked.
On another note, I'd eat fish any day of the week, farmed or not ( thankfully I do not have to make that choice) rather than eat red meat.
Bon apetit

reply to post by TDawgRex


Well I live in the city and I wouldn't eat anything out of a pond here. If I were to drive out, petrol cost plus fishing license etc....that would be one very expensive fish

Fukushima changes everything.

If you're going to buy fish, take a Geiger counter with you; it has been reported that the Pacific Ocean sardine count has crashed and with it, the ecosystem of the entire ocean possibly. (Kill the algae floating in the top three inches of the ocean, and you kill not only the very beginnings of the food chain for almost everyone on the planet, but the oxygen production we all depend upon). For some strange reason, no one in 'authority' is willing to surmise why the starfish are melting, the seal population is looking starved and bleeding and for much, much more on this see enenews.com. The government and academia admit to being 'befuddled' as to the cause but Fuku would seem to be a likely candidate to any thinking person. In fact, the denial of knowledge about this problem brings back memories of NIST's refusal to check for explosives on 9-11 because they, personally, didn't hear any loud noises...and ignored the testimony of the hundreds who had.

While farmed salmon used to be considered inferior to wild salmon and a carrier of diseases, it may now come into its own as a food source just out of default. While the rainwater used to fill the ponds may be contaminated with intermittent amounts of radiation, it may possibly be less than what's currently being dumped without restriction on Japan's end.

Aquaponics (the combination of plant and fish culture in a closed system) holds not only a solution but a small scale sustainable food source and family income producing system that may in the end be our only choice.

I would encourage anyone who is looking for a job, especially a green and sustainable job, to learn more about aquaponics; you could grow your fish and vegetable food supply in your own backyard and the excess could be a money-maker contributing to local food security, and at least you would know where it came from. An awful lot of frozen fish now in US markets is from the disgustingly polluted waters of China where the fish are fed with human manure and industrial waste and the water is a chemical dumping ground.

sardines all gone

reply to post by BurningSpearess



Well farmed fish has more fat around the belly because it gets less exercise being crammed in a fish pool with the other fish, also its food is exclusively pellet/powders the farmer dumps in the water. I figure that water if tested would probably be classed polluted due to all the fish urinating and swimming in their own urine plus rotting fish pellets, used to keep a fish tank and know how smelly they can get! Considering the ocean is huge I bet that water is still better even considering pollution.

reply to post by LUXUS


It doesn't have to be fed pellet food (which is just dried dead 'junk' fish from god knows whereplus GMO corn and wheat, an unnatural diet for fish); you can set up a program of composted worms for their food along with a separate supply of duckweed which produces a balanced diet. If the ponds are not over populated in order to push profits, the water won't be filthy.

I've kept aquariums my entire life; probably filtered and stocked, they stay clean.

reply to post by signalfire


I don't know, I kept aquariums for a fair while too (had one fish that refused to die!) and at one point I had three filters going at once I got so sick of cleaning it, used everything including bacterial cultures that were supposed to eat the dirt, tried sucker fish nothing worked really. I notice in my local pet shop that they have to continuously add fresh water to their tanks, if they cant keep their tanks clean then who can. Everyone I know that have kept fish say the same thing.

In these fish farms I bet they have to add antibiotics, anti fungal, anti pesticides to the water to stop the spread of disease in those crammed conditions.

In my country with thousands of lakes we don´t have many fish farms only few which farms rainbow trouts.

Most popular fishes from the lakes are
Perch ( popular in fish pies with rye crust )
Pike
Walleye
Burbot ( much used in fish soups )

I'd say Copper River Red Salmon ... but I'm biased

I'll never knowingly eat "farmed" or "Atlantic" salmon. To me, it doesn't even LOOK like salmon. They pump those fish up with all kinds of chemicals and dyes *shivers*. I'll take my chances with the radiation.

If you don't like "fishy" fish, I'd suggest halibut. It's not exactly cheap though. I make a mean halibut olympia!

reply to post by MystikMushroom


Your probably safe for now but not for too long:

"19.03.2013 // Halibut farming started in the beginning of the 1980s, but difficulties with fry production gave the industry a difficult start. Today there is small but growing commercial production of halibut in Norway.In 2011, Norwegian farmers produced 2,767 tonnes of halibut.

It is only in recent years that sufficient knowledge concerning the technology and biology associated with halibut farming has been acquired to render profitable production possible."
www.fisheries.no...

reply to post by LUXUS


I'll just go out with a buddy in his boat and catch me a few.