[Mrs Buffy]

Hi all the moms out there who feed fish to your babies,

When they say 'Organic', I thought it means farmed fish which has not been fed with drugs and growth hormones etc...How about mercury, does it mean they are free of mercury contamination also?

I sometimes see both organic & wild salmon in Citysuper & Great, is 'Wild' any better/worse than 'Organic' ones?

Other than salmon, any other suggesetion on what kind of fish is good for babies?

Thanks for your help.

[joannek]

i would assume that if it's organic, it meets the "organic standard" wherever the fish is from. which is quite strict standard in europe. this summer, i read an article in canada that talks about organic fish. it says that in Europe there are organic farmed fish, which are very safe because of the standards the governments give them, whereas there isn't any organic fish in n. america cos the gov't haven't set any standards yet. so wild means they eat anything in the wild & in the wild water, but organic means water, feed & everything is controlled. so if you have a choice, organic is better than wild.

[pinemarten]

Organic does not always mean free of contaminants! Wild salmon is actually much lower in PCB. Have a look at this article:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/Toxi...nic-salmon.cfm - Organic isn't always best label for salmon

[joannek]

pinemarten, thanks for the article.

as mentioned in the article, there are european strict standards in organic fish, but not the ones from USA. the ones we can get in citysuper are from Europe, so i guess it's safe. so just make sure we don't buy any salmon from USA. but in any case i think the ones sold in hong kong are usually from norway or scotland.

[Sleuth]

That article does not say that organic has less PCB than farmed/wild. It just states that organic (in Europe) has standards, but does not mention a PCB standard. It does state that there is no evidence indicating that organic is less contaminated than farmed, but it isn't really clear as to whether that is a US or global lack of evidence.

The US does have PCB standards, but stay away from US farmed salmon; also grill or broil it to minimize fat:
http://www.healthcastle.com/farmed-salmon-cancer.shtml

Point in this one is that all foods have PCBs and your PCB intake depends on your diet, so eliminating or minimizing salmon might not really help:
http://www.salmonoftheamericas.com/topic_pcbs_food.html

Wild salmon less PCB than farmed salmon:
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,59836,00.html

And finally, US and Canadian "wild" is healthier than Scots/Irish wild and healthier than Scots/Irish farmed (no mention of organic):
http://www.ewg.org/reports/farmedPCBs/part2.php

[Mrs Buffy]

Thanks for your your input.

On top of salmon, what other kind of fish, do you feed your babies?

[joannek]

i give mine organic barramundi, cod, snapper (actually anything that citysuper or great has in organic) in fillet, no skin, no bones.

[shahirakk]

I go for the same stuff ? I have to admit I try to go for wild over organic salmon cos I think it tastes better! Also, I have found australian / tasmanian fish to be the freshest of the imported stuff. What do you all think??