Ready to prepare a tasty salmon fillet? You may be wondering where exactly your fish comes from and whether it’s the tastiest nutritious and sustainable option available at the grocery store. The two main types of salmon available are farmed and wild-caught. As the names suggest the main difference between farmed and wild salmon is the environment the fish lives in. Farmed salmon live on farms where they are raised for food. Wild salmon live and reproduce in the wild where they are part of the natural ecosystem.
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The Scientific Difference Between Cooking Wild and Farmed Salmon
The environment affects the salmon’s body which changes the nutritional value. Wild salmon tends to have more nutrients than farmed salmon although the exact nutritional value can change due to environmental variables including pollutants and the salmon’s diet. You can use both varieties interchangeably in recipes but the flavor will be slightly different with wild salmon having a richer flavor than farmed salmon.
Farmed salmon live in confined spaces and have limited or no access to the type of rich habitat that wild salmon live in. They cannot migrate which is a natural behavior for many salmon species. Instead farmed salmon spend their lives in enclosed areas or tanks that can become overcrowded and difficult to navigate. Even the largest tanks or hatcheries cannot match the diversity that wild salmon encounter in streams rivers and the open ocean. Farmed salmon also do not have access to the food they would find in the wild at least not in the quantities necessary to maintain an entire farm population. Because of this producers feed farmed salmon a supplemental diet of fish food. This affects their body composition and ultimately the nutritional value of the salmon you consume. They tend to be fattier than wild-caught salmon and may also be injected with red dye to give them a pinker appearance.
Farmed salmon can be easier to find and more affordable for many grocery store shoppers. The creation of salmon farms has also made this healthy fish available in places and quantities that would otherwise be difficult to transport. Farmed salmon can also be a more environmentally friendly option for sustainable protein than other types of meat production.
