Is Wild-Caught Really Better? Your Guide to Intelligent Fish Buying With Jeff More

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Welcome to the Virgin Diet lifestyle show with your host, celebrity nutrition and fitness expert and New York Times best selling author, JJ Virgin.

What's the deal with farm raised fish? Should you eat it? Should you not? Well, in today's show we you're going to hear the answer straight from the source. That's right. I have the fish guru in the house, Jeff Moore from wildthingsseafood.com Jeff?

Thank you, JJ.

All right, so that's what we're talking about today. We're going to talk about wild versus farm raised. Because you know what, there are some times and we were chatting about this where farm raised is fine. But the challenge is how do you know?

How do you know?

Jeff, what should we do?

Well, I think that there is some concern with the consumer and the first thing I want confusion with the consumer. Confusion with the consumer. Yeah, that's for sure that all fish are not created equal and that's the same whether it's wild or it's farmed. And so there are certain farm raised fish that are accepted and they're becoming more mainstream. I think it's really important to look at the way that it was raised and you, the consumer's not going to sit there in the grocery store and go, I want to know how this was raised.

I'll even find out. It's not like there's someone there that's going to be answering, there's not a fish person there to answer the question, saying what the fish was fed and how the fish was taken care of, all those kinds of things.

And therein lies a problem with the seafood industry, I believe, not making it simple to make those choices. But there are certain brands of farm raised fish and certain origins of farm raised fish that are going to give you a better quality product, more healthful piece of seafood. And those are seafood items like Australis barramundi. Australis barramundi is this fish right here. It's a white fish that was originally caught and raised in Darwin, Australia, a sustenance fish. It's also the Aborigines call it the love fish and there's a great story behind that too. But this is an awesome fish and that is half the calories of a farmed raised salmon and just as much if not more Omega 3 in that product. And the Australis actually was just by the Monterey Bay Aquarium which has a seafood watch. They watch for responsible and natural and sustainable catching and raising of seafood. They always said we will never ever have a pen raised or a farm raised fish out of Asia on our green list, which means go for it. No problem. They just awarded them the green list on Australis baramundus.

So let's hear why. Because you know, here's, here's I'm going to play consumer, okay. Confused consumer, right? Okay. So the confused consumer has heard that farm raised fish has been fed the wrong non indigenous food like GMO soy, which is bizarre and makes no sense like a fish would not be eating soy, has been kept in close captivity, has been fed, you know, has to use antibiotics and then hormones and done all sorts of wrong things to it so that you've got first of all, you know, last thing you want is more antibiotics in it, right? Antibiotics in it, hormones in it and then the wrong feed. So you're changing the fatty acid profile and then they do things like color it to make it have the right color. So these are the things we hear, right? And then what's the reality? And then how the heck would I know now that I know this word.

This fish a Australis barramundi. Australis is the brand so you can look for Australis barramundi the better fish.com, which is a great website.

So why, why is this okay? What makes this fish on the okay list to eat? What are they doing that's different than say, you know, some of these fisheries where they're farm raising and doing not, not so good things.

Well, I think that you've, you've mentioned a lot of them. You know, they're adding, you know, the not so good things are adding antibiotics. We just call it pharmacy at some point where, you know, there's salmon that's raised out of Chile that is used to be cheaper to raise the salmon in Chile, but because they have been irresponsibly farming and self policing themselves, they've almost decimated their industry. But now there's a point where they've got to add so much pharmacy to keep the sea lice off because of the proximity of the fish to each other and all that weird stuff. And they've got different things where there's early mortality with that salmon, that they're really trying to keep it alive, that it actually costs just as much to raise salmon in Chile as it does to raise it naturally in Scotland or Norway. And so I guess the first thing is let's look at some origins. If all fish are not created equal, let's look at where they're created and say your safer choices are going to be fish farm raised like salmon out of Norway or out of Scotland or even the Faroe Islands. Canada does have some responsible fishing as well. As far as farmed goes, you can look, like I said, at Australis Barramundi or even in the tilapia world where there's a whole strain of like weirdness.

Way bad on the tilapia.

The Regal Springs tilapia is actually, they call it spring water polished tilapia. And they are one of the most responsible and natural raisers of tilapia in the world. And all of the big producers and reprocessors of fish that like to bread and do those big things, the multi billion dollar company, they go to Regal Springs because they know it's the cleanest fish they have. Now the other thing is we're not talking about wild right now. Wild is something that that is also has its own challenges. And so when you're looking at fish from Alaska, that it's a single frozen fish product of Alaska. It's a domestic seafood, different origins. So we're talking about, we already talked about the farm raised out of Norway. We can talk about the Gulf of Mexico as some as a place for wild seafood. Alaska is always going to be a safe choice.

Okay, so wild Alaskan seafood is good.

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Awesome.

And then in sustainable Norway and Scottish are. Scotland are good.

Those are good. As far as sustainable, natural, responsible. And there's actually an outfit or an operation called the Aquaculture Stewardship Council that is addressing all of the concerns the consumer has. So is it raised in natural environment without antibiotics? Is it safe for the environment? Are they. As far as socially, are they using and paying qualified employees to dress and treat and process this seafood? All of those things at the Aquaculture Stewardship Council are being addressed. And so I think all of the seafood industry needs to really do a better job coming together and really identifying what good quality seafood is. And really take away the confusion that you said.

We like to say a confused mind just says no. So you get to a point, you go, okay, I'll eat wild salmon, because I know that's okay, but it sounds like we've been missing a whole host of other fish. Now, one that you brought up, you started talking about the risks in Chile. What about Chilean sea bass?

No. Now Chilean sea bass. Now Chilean sea bass just for. For what we're talking about here, Chilean sea bass is actually not a sea. It's not Chilean sea bass. It's Patagonian toothfish. And so there's Patagonian toothfish that you catch off the coast of Chile, and then there's Antarctic toothfish that you catch off the coast of South Africa. Patagonian toothfish or Chilean sea bass used to be, you know, overfished. Like, enormously pirated fish. Like they were saying over half of the fish was pirated. How do you pirate a fish where you literally. Other origins or ships that are flagged out of the origin would come in and catch the Fish and then wouldn't have a quota for that area and then would leave and catch that fish. And so literally entire navies or naval ships would go and protect these origins for these countries. And so it was really a pirated fish. And so the chefs got together, they put together a program called Take a pass on Chilean sea bass was a big deal. What's happened is it's evolved. When we have this awareness and this responsibility and this commitment, now there is sustainable Chilean sea bass.

So, okay, so this is selfishly what I wanted to know, because I love Chilean sea bass. So I'm sitting here going, please say it's okay. Please say it's okay. So in terms of a healthy and responsible fish, then Chilean sea bass always okay. Sometimes. Okay. Like, can we, you know. You know, wild salmon. If it says wild salmon's okay, right? If it's Alaskan wild salmon, if it's.

If it's product of usa. If it. If the origin is product of usa. And that's. That's kind of a confusing thing too. You catch it in Alaska and you send it over to China to be processed. Okay, really? So if, in fact. If, in fact, it is sent over to China to be processed, unless that product has been materially changed, meaning they've added breading or some kind of sauce or anything like that, that product has to be called product of China now. So now it comes back over. So let's look at the process of that fish. It's caught, it's frozen. It's sent over frozen, headed, and gutted. They go and they thaw it out. They now will process that fish, turn it into fillets or portions, but they'll also have moisture that they add to that product. Okay. And so it can still be, you know, like wild salmon, but all of a sudden, product of China. I'm not saying all fish in China is bad. As a matter of fact, some of the cleanest, nicest, most controlled processing plants I've ever seen are in China. I'm just saying that nothing beats this. Alaska wild Alaska day boat salmon caught one hook. One fish, you know, stays here, comes down to us. It is literally caught in, processed, and frozen the same day. So that's gonna be one hook, one fish mean one hook. One fish means. Means we're bringing it in.

Jeff, I have, like, one hook, one fish. Does that mean I only got one hook to get the fish?

What?

To me, yeah. You know, there's a rule of thumb here in the seafood industry, and we say the lower the tech, the catch Method, meaning, you know, you're not using big nets, you're not using all these fancy long lines and things, the better the quality of the fish. And so when we can take this back to, as I used to say, like the old man in the sea, we got one line going down, they're catching this fish, and they're literally handling this fish one at a time instead of fish that's caught in a net that's smashed all against each other, going through all kinds of distress while they're in this thing. And it's a stress, stress hormone.

But then again, now we go back to this. Okay, so how do you know if you're getting a stressed fish? Cause it could still be a wild fish that's now caught. And you know, one of the things that's sort of interesting is called xenohormesis. And it has to do with if you are eating an animal that was stressed and the stress hormones are up, you were getting those stress hormones. It's not enough that we're stressed, you know, like already stressed. Now we're getting stressed from the stress hormones in the fish we're eating. So, I mean, like, how would you know if you're getting one of those poor fish in the net that's got all stressed out or you got like this one hook, one fish, happy fish.

I think that you, you know, who you're buying your seafood from is important. If in fact somebody is marketing or selling this as a day boat salmon, a hook and line caught day boat salmon, then you know that that fish has been caught without all of those problems. There's certain seafood that are caught, and I understand the xeno, whatever you just said, but there's certain fish like tuna and swordfish and mahi mahi. They're actually called scramboid fish.

Okay, see, you're using big words now too.

You're just looking at it now.

You feel like you need to one up me.

But as those temperatures rise, as they're being caught and they're being stressed, their level of histamine rises. And so where you get that level of what they call scromboid poisoning, it is one of the most misdiagnosed things out there. You know, somebody gets sick at a restaurant, they immediately go, what'd you have? Tuna scramble poisoning? They don't know if it was the salad bar. They don't know if anything, what it was. They just immediately go there. But there is, they are really working on the control and the catch method. And when you're dealing with Responsible fisheries and responsible sellers of seafood, whether that be Whole Foods or Wild Things Seafood, or even your friends up at Vital Choices, you know, when they're dealing with responsible raising, catching, and handling of seafood, you really can't go wrong. If you're going into a grocery store, just any grocery store, and expecting to get whatever, that's probably not your best choice.

Okay. So I think what I want to make sure is that we didn't just confuse you and scare you away from fish, that we now gave you some really easy action steps so you can start eating more fish. Because if I can think of one great thing that you can do for your diet here. I love supplements, but supplements should supplement a diet. So the first place you're going to get those omega 3s that are so amazing for your brain and your bones and your skin and reducing inflammation, that first place should be from fish. Plus fish is really gut healing and it's delicious. We're going to talk in another show about how simple it is to make great seafood. So the body, bottom line is just like anything else we've been talking about over these shows is you got to know where things come from. And once you get that down, sounds a little confusing, but we're going to give you the names now so it'll be easy for you to know what to look for. And again, we've already thrown out Wild Things Seafood, and also you threw out another. Oh, and at Whole Whole Foods.

Whole Foods, they do a great job. Absolutely.

You know, so you've got those resources. Can you just throw out a couple more resources so people can, can go, all right, I'm armed now with the information, so I know what I should be able to go and find because now all of a sudden, you don't always have to stick. I've literally been sticking with either getting things through you or Vital Choice or Whole Foods and then going wild on the salmon and halibut. Limiting myself to that. And it sounds like I don't have to. So give us the key takeaways of what we can know to be armed to go to the grocery store and get the right stuff or just to go to your website easier and get the right stuff.

Yeah, I think that, that, you know, that is definitely, you know, Whole Foods is a great place to buy wild things. Is a great place to buy wild things. Seafood.com vitalchoices.com Great place to buy seafood. But when you're looking in the store, look for Australis barramundi, look for regal spring sloppy. That's if you're looking and wanting some some farm raised or it's okay for farm raised fish, which those two are. But at the end of the day you're still going to be safest with a product of USA Wild Caught seafood.

Okay, there you go. Wild Caught Seafood. And the other easy thing to do. I've got my extra freezer stocked full of stuff. So I mean grab the stuff. Especially if you see a sale on any of this stuff, stock up and throw it in your freezer. Then you've got it made, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Simple thing to do. Now if you'd like a free transcript of today's show, all you need to do is text 588 and enter farm one. That's farm in the number one. Take a space, then your first name space and your email address. Again, that number is 58885 and you enter Farm1Space, your first name space and your email address. You know, in the Virgin Diet I have you swap seven foods for three weeks to uncover your hidden food intolerance so that you can finally lose the weight and feel better fast. Why wait? Start that three weeks today.

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