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Summer is here and you know what that means: pool parties, BBQ cookouts, and lots of sunblock! Grilled fish is a healthy alternative for your next cookout menu. Eating fish three times a week has been linked to better brainpower, lowered risks of some cancers, and a number of other health benefits too long to name. But what's the big fuss about farm raised fish or wild caught? Besides the taste (which, I can TOTALLY tell the difference) there are quite a few things to consider.

Farmed: PROS

Farmed fish are raised on land, usually in pools or tanks, but they can also be raised in offshore fish farms—areas of ocean that are netted off to keep the stock fish from escaping. The major plus of farmed fish is that they allow for a high yield of fish without the risk of over-harvesting and depleting wild populations.

Farmed fish are also usually considerably less expensive.

Farmed: CONS

Thousands of fish are crammed into pens, which leads to the growth of diseases and parasites that require antibiotics and pesticides. With offshore farms, nitrogen and phosphorous from feed and waste lead to algae blooms that can contaminate surrounding water. On land-based farms, heavy rains and floods can cause nitrogen to run off into nearby waterways, although many land-based systems use recirculated water that has been treated to remove high levels of the chemicals. Also, food fed to farmed fish is partially composed of wild-caught fish that may be contaminated with chemicals such as PCBs and cancer-causing dioxin. 

Wild Caught: PROS

Aside from chemicals like PCBs and dioxin, wild fish are free of all the problems listed above.

Wild Caught: CONS: Over-harvesting is a serious threat to many species of our favorite fish, such as blue-fin tuna. Thanks to technology and improved gear, ocean fisherman have increased their catch 400 percent in the last 50 years, leading to the virtual collapse of some species, such as New England cod. In addition to that, the techniques used by ocean fisherman lead to the destruction of other ocean ecosystems and to unintended by-catch (other sea creatures caught and killed in the fishing process).  Wild caught fish is pricier.


So what's the answer? Should you eat wild or farmed raised fish? It's not as simple as to choose one or the other for all seafood. Some fish-farming operations are better and more responsibly managed than others, and the same can be true for wild fisheries. HOW fish are caught is another thing to consider.

LOOK FOR THE LABEL! To find the most Eco-friendly fish,  look for the Marine Stewardship Council label, which is applied to responsibly managed wild fisheries.


In my opinion, consuming food from nature is always the best option. We like our vegetables without pesticides and genetic modification right? Well I like my fish to come from the ocean where they originate. You can really tell a difference between farm raised and wild caught fish!

I was born in Rhode Island and lived there for the first half of my childhood. I remember eating some of the BEST fresh caught crab. Crab all day. Crab salad, crab sandwiches... I was pretty spoiled with the fresh REAL crab meat. When I moved to Arizona, I didn't have the luxury of eating fresh coastal fish anymore so I'd lost the acquired taste for it. From the age of 6 to 21 I could not STAND fish. The smell, taste, look.... all of it just grossed me out. Odd for someone born in a coastal state, right? In 2009 I went on vacation in Hawaii. I promised my husband I'd try some fish, if I didn't like it then I wouldn't have to eat it, but I at least had to be open to trying. So I did. We went to a local fish market. The guy behind the counter told us what was available, and when it was caught (THAT MORNING)! Talk about fresh! So I sat at the table, ready to take my first bite... I was dreading it. If I remember correctly it was Opakapaka (red snapper) and IT.WAS.BLISS. I couldn't get enough! From then on, I ate fish the remainder of the trip. The thing was... it was fresh. Came right out of the ocean. Clean water, natural habitat food, and no pesticides or hormones.

When play time was over and had to return to reality we went to the fish counter at grocery store and tried to find something that resembled the most amazing fish we had been eating in Hawaii. No luck. We only found smelly, foggy-eyed fishies that you could just tell had been dead for a while. Whole Foods had wild caught fish on display so we tried that. It was good, (nothing like Hawaiian fish, but what is?) but still wasn't the best we'd had. I found that eating the frozen wild caught fish tasted the best. In Arizona, we have no surrounding oceans (obviously) to deliver us fresh caught fish, in a reasonable about of time from catching. So I believe that if they are flash frozen when caught and THEN delivered to use, we have a better chance of not eating decaying, smelly fish. That's just my two cents.

One fish that is a MAJOR staple in my home is canned tuna. Not Bumble Bee or Chicken of the Sea... I'm talking about the GOOD stuff! Wild Caught, Pole caught, Low mercury, packed in it's own juices and oils, no additives.. get the picture? Our favorites are American Tuna and Wild Planet. We get Wild Planet Skip Jack Tuna. The flavor is unmatched.

Try it and let me know what you think! Do you have a favorite fish recipe? Post it in the comments below!