GMO Salmon - A Different Slant

If death and sterility are side-effects of GMO foods, it ain't working very well. Replacements are still being created at a faster rate than deaths.

Also haven't heard of any Atlantic and Pacific salmon crosses being any concern. No physical barrier prevents the coho from leaving the Great Lakes. Sounds like a non-concern to me.

Martin

Poor people are known to eat salmon-patties, made from canned salmon, which is not too expensive (relatively speaking).

Been there, done that.

As for different perspectives,

My own perspective comes from living on a mile+ of this creek ...



I should be able to catch trout here but none exist. I have seen it flow yellow, green and purple. I have seen this field under 2 feet of foam ..



The branches feeding it are conducive to rodents as I found no less than seven dams to tear out just yesterday ....







My opinion is that, while potential problems of the future are truly worth a noble consideration, known issues are the ones that need current attention. There is a chunk of stuff currently being dumped and fretting over future possibilities may very well allow the demise of the assumed environment used to sustain the projected issues.

Even the, potentially, escaped GMO salmon may not be able to subsist in a contaminated waterway.

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Going hungry ain't much of a plan

but they do cross with wild plants and your garden plants that is what all the law suits are about.

I would be more willing for GMO animals than plants
we can control what the animals breed to maybe
we cant control the plants.
maybe not.

Some good points being made.

1. I agree that GMO corn is already labeled per se'; if you are eating anything not labeled as organic corn its GMO. I guess since GMO corn is so pervasive it would just make more sense to label non-GMO corn products...it makes sense from a marketing stand point to me to do that and then charge a premium for the privilege of eating non-GMO corn.

2. Salmon is labeled already, some through state initiatives like Alaska Wild Caught, the Nova Scotia and Scottish labeling initiatives etc. and farm raised salmon is required to be labeled as such. Again its basic marketing, look at the premium you pay for Copper River Sockeye; it goes for $20.00 plus per pound and as much of a salmon snob as I am I cant tell the difference between Copper River and the Taku river Sockeye my wife and I used to catch...but man those Copper River fish are marketed to the hilt!

3. Most of the canned salmon that is readily available in my area is relatively cheap but its Pink salmon which to me is a waste fish not worthy of eating which I guess kind of makes Texican's point. I currently have a freezer full of Taku and Kenai river Sockeye, Coho and Chinook from this years catch along with about 50 cans of smoked salmon of the same species. We pay good money for having this and I cant see us ever changing over to farmed or GMO salmon but as Plowjockey stated, if its cheap and you are poor you are going to be more likely to use products that some of us can afford to avoid.

4. Martin, I have to disagree with you about Atlantic and Pacific crosses not being a concern. Some Atlantic salmon escaped from a fish farm facility a few years ago and a couple have now been caught in SE Alaska and British Columbia. This is a huge concern to Marine Biologists in regard to breeding and diseases as they are different geneses of the same species and have slightly different life cycles. You do have a point about the salmon in the great lakes though I believe that is more like a stocked farm pond in that they stock salmon every year and have created an artificial environment that allows the salmon to thrive. I grew up on lake Michigan and there were few salmon in those days but now they have Atlantic, Coho, Chinook and Steelhead I believe and they do seem to be co-habitating together. You have gotten me curious about this and I will have to explore this further.

5. Lots of people dont like salmon and I think the biggest reason is that they have only had farmed Atlantic salmon which is mushy, tasteless and dyed red (I am not joking). The difference between wild Pacific salmon or wild Atlantic salmon (virtually unavailable in the US) and farmed salmon is like the difference between a pink tasteless tomato you get in a store and the rich red tasty tomatoes you can grow yourself.

6. A follow on to that article talks about GMO salmon being just the first in a wave of things that will include GMO cows that are disease resistant and produce non allergenic milk, GMO swine that can process phosphorous more efficiently (I dont understand what that means) and have less toxic waste and GMO goats that have some beneficial milk properties. But one thing they pointed out was that consumers dont want it, retailers arent anxious to stock something so controversial and no one is really sure how these creations would impact existing producers.

Would farmed GMO salmon expose more folks to affordable salmon? If it did would that negatively impact the wild salmon fishery and its producers or bring a bigger market as people who previously hadnt thought of salmon explore greater possibilities?

I appreciate everyones input as its a subject of much interest to me personally. Today, in addition to the Prime Ribs we are having, we are snacking on a slab of Copper River smoked sockeye sent to us by our oldest son and daughter in law that was smoked in Cordova Alaska by the Copper River Seafoods (www.CopperRiverSeafoods.com).

Merry Christmas

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www.salmonslayer-simplelife.blogspot.com

Huh!?! I never said that people have a right to know about one but not the other being GMO. All GMO products should be labeled as such just like allergens must be labeled, ingredients must be labeled and nutrients must be labeled.

I have no clue as to where you're going with the gun angle. You're apparently completely miss-understanding me. Go back and reread.

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I'm sorry, highlands. I did not mean to infer that you have EVER said that people do not have a right to know what is in their food. I was trying to say that the discussion was going on the slant about labeling, rather than what is good/bad about GMO anything. I did not intend to imply that you were against said labeling.

Again, my apologies.

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Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

LOL
Show me the part of the Constitution about "food labeling rights".
Otherwise your comment is just plain silly

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ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Besides that anything that is not what people call Organic. Can be considered to have some gmo products in it. So no labeling is necessary as that would be just a added expense and redundancy warning anyway. Buy Organic and get no gmo in your foods simple as that.

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Oh my, dishes yet to wash and dry

See My Pictures at
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As i read this story the other day i was wondering about the crazy way humans like to repeat stupid mistakes...messing around with gene swapping sounds like a good idea but....remember that old margerine commercial..."it's not nice to fool mother nature" and hey isn't it true that most of the GMO corn and soy is just a splice to make it roundup ready, and that means we're eating what exactly? and to who's benefit? if it were labeled and consumers had the ability to choose i don't think it would last in Oregon, i know i wouldn't buy it. Hey Merry Chirstmas!

Okay, I have a question for the "Organic label" folks:

What if a consumer doesn't CARE about chemical fertilizers?
What if a consumer doesn't CARE about chemical pesticides?
What if a consumer doesn't CARE about chemical herbicides?

What if the ONLY thing a consumer CARES about is GMO? What if they are FINE with non-GMO corn raised in a modern, commercial manner?

See, this is the problem with saying "Just buy organic". You are telling people, "Go pay for the full option package even though all you want is the dang sunroof."

You are against people labeling products as "Contains GMOs", or even as a marketing bump, "Does not contain GMO", and instead want folks to be forced to buy products whose costs reflect a full range of methods that they may not even care about.

"Okay, on this car, I'd like a sunroof."

"Nope, you can't have a sunroof unless you get the full option package. That's $2,000 for the 6-way, adjustable seat, $1,000 for the upgraded stereo, $1,500 for the leather interior, and $500 for the tachometer."

"But I don't WANT all that stuff! I just want a sunroof!"

"Sorry, but if we let people have just the sunroof, then no one will buy our standard package cars, and we will be out of business. "

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Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

I won't eat it. I splurge rarely on Copper River salmon, but I won't eat any farmed fish; so GMO fish is out of the question.

I went on a girl's retreat a few years ago in Missouri, where we stumbled on a beautiful state park. We stopped for a potty break and found a picturesque stream where folks were casting for rainbow trout. It was the prettiest place I've seen in a long time, and while there were quite a few fishermen, everybody seemed to be catching fish.

We followed the road to an old stone mill where we could look in the windows and get a view of the past. But to the left was a broad water and cement expanse, where for a few coins you could buy some fish pellets, made primarily from GMO corn, and feed the fish in their fish factory. They were all sizes, from fingerlings to nice catches. At intervals, the fish were released into the picturesque stream.

Where's the sportsmanship in that??? It seemed to me to be like fishing in a barrel. And how are these really "wild caught" when they haven't had a wild diet?

I have lost my taste for fish.

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That's because we've exceeded the capacity of that type of fish to reproduce fast enough to keep up with fishing pressure. We exceeded cold water fishes capacity to keep up with our demand many decades ago. I remember fishing in MT in the early 60's. We could legally catch and keep branch fulls of trout because there was so little fishing pressure. Now those same streams are catch and release only and even that my have to be curtailed in the future because a percentage of fish caught and released die.

Now we are seeing the same thing with coolwater fish species. Our population has already reached a point that only severe restrictions on coolwater fishing allows their populations to remain fairly stable.

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"Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?" Hobbs
"I'm not sure that man needs the help." Calvin

If there are enough people WILLING TO PAY THE COST of segregating and labelling, somebody will provide it. I could do it myself if the price was right and the market dependable. The fact that nobody seems that interested in providing it reinforces what I see, which is that folks who want GMO labelled want to pay the same price as everyone else for a product that should command a premium somewhere between organic and everything else.

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The internet - fueling paranoia and misinformation since 1873.

By the size of slabs in the packages in the store, I couldn't eat that much in one sitting anyway, and I remember with not too much fondness the school lunches way long time ago on Fridays, with the salmon patties(mixed with crackers and eggs, then baked) that had the crunchy round backbones intact----SO, I'll likely not eat salmon of any kind, GMO, or caught from a Chinese trawler.........

I prefer bluegill caught by myself, or North Atlantic ocean perch, sparingly, that the local American Legion fries up....c'mon Lent!

geo

LOL around here Blue Gill is usually Tilapia~

I would rather they Farm Salmon than ranch it!

Then you are seriously missing out on good eats! Salmon patties from your school lunches? Thats like comparing a no name salisbury steak TV dinner to a Filet Mignon and saying you dont like steak because the TV dinner tasted bad.

And to burst another myth, there is no wild caught salmon sold in this country that comes from Chinese so please lets not perpetuate another urban myth. I have way too many friends who are struggling to hang on in the ups and downs of the current Alaska commercial salmon fishery.

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www.salmonslayer-simplelife.blogspot.com

There may be other barriers to selling labeled GMO free food. When some beef producers tried to sell beef that was individually tested for mad cow into Japan the big processors got government to make it illegal. It looks like it was overturned but I think there were other cases.

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2...ty-testing-fo/

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"Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?" Hobbs
"I'm not sure that man needs the help." Calvin

Well, not from Chinese fishermen per se, but this article was very interesting. http://www.alaskaseafood.org/fishing...y11/china.html

"Exports of salmon (mostly wild) out of China increased from 65,400 MT in 2007 to 90,400 in 2010. Exports jumped 23 percent in 2010, which is a direct result of a larger volume of imported salmon hitting China in 2009. Europe and the U.S. are the biggest markets for re-processed salmon, each imported over 40,000 MT of finished product. The vast majority of this salmon is in the form of frozen fillets. In Japan, roe and other preserved product forms accounts for the majority of salmon imported from China"

(From the same article....I'm sure you already know this,,,,)

geo