What is one of the top 5 worst foods you can eat? FARMED FISH. Farmed fish are much like factory farms; the fish swim in crowded, filthy conditions, in their feces and suffocating. Injecting them with needles, vaccinating, and cutting off their fins to identify them, or thrown away alive like trash to suffocate. All the while, being doused with antibiotics and toxic chemicals thrown into their pens.
We kill a staggering 50-70 billion fish worldwide every year. These pens are not only toxic to fish but spread into our waterways and damage our eco-systems. Please see video below, from undercover footage obtained by, Compassion Over Killing.
Farmed fish, Salmon being the world’s most popular farmed fish species, are fed diets of corn or soy, and fish such as anchovies and herring, which are being overfished and depleting food for and contributing to the decline of whales, dolphins, seals, salmon, bass, tuna and other critical sea life that our oceans depend on for a healthy eco-system. Source: Oceana
According to Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, their RV Martin Sheen ship supports independent and university-based scientists whom are studying viruses stemming from these toxic aquatic farms, with pathogens and viruses spilling into our oceans and directly decimating the wild salmon populations. Their article: “Salmon Farms are a breeding ground causing the proliferation and transmission of different pathogens, viruses, (PRV) and sea lice to wild salmon.
Open net pen salmon farms use the constant flow of marine waters as a “free” resource to fill and flush their salmon pens, meaning that pathogens produced in these dense farms flow freely into the surrounding marine habitat. This enables pathogens and disease to spread incessantly from farmed to wild fish. Read more: https://seashepherd.org/virus-hunter-science/ Note: Captain Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is vegan and all his crews and ships are vegan too, because of Marine Conservation, animals, and environment.
Heath consequences from eating fish go beyond, the Environmental Working Group estimates that 800,000 people in the U.S. face and excess lifetime cancer risk from eating farmed salmon.
What exactly is put into these fish farms as far as toxic pesticides, please watch this critical eye-opening video to find out:
WHAT ABOUT WILD FISH?
Before becoming vegan, I was Vegetarian, Pescatarian, then vegan. My boyfriend at the time convinced me that wild caught was sustainable, and it was line caught. For some reason, being 90% vegetarian, pescatarian -it just didn’t click for me the pain that fish endure. Later in life, I was also raising children when vegan wasn’t really a thing. You know how you’re fed all the bs about getting your PROTEIN, and OMEGAS from fish?! Then after becoming vegan and blogging, I learned just how toxic and unsustainable eating fish is and decimates our oceans. As Captain Paul Watson says, “When our oceans die, we die.” The oceans are the life-force of our planet and many don’t realize that connection. #overfishing #depletesoceanlife
The Friendly Activist has a stellar video here below, that explains it so clearly- how the oceans are everything to life.
DO FISH FEEL PAIN?
According to Braithwate and other fish biologists around the world, they have produced evidence, that just like mammals and birds, fish also experience conscious pain. “More and more people are willing to accept the facts.” Brathwaite says. “Fish do feel pain.
Fish are sensitive, intelligent animals. Many use tools and even recognize themselves in mirrors. Their pain sensors are remarkably similar to ours. In fact, our ability to feel pain is likely derived from on of our fishlike ancestors. As fish scientist Becca Franks has concluded, “The science on fish sentience is clear: “FISH HAVE THE CAPACITY TO SUFFER AND FEEL PAIN.”
WILD FISH
Eating wild fish? It’s not a safe bet, you’re still going to get high levels of lead, mercury and the DDE that are found in their blood. Even low concentrations of lead can cause mental retardation and physical disability in children. High levels lead to coma, convulsions and death. Fish accumulate high levels of PCBs or polychlorinated biphenyls.
Researchers from the University of Illinois found that fish eaters with high-levels of PCB’s in their blood have difficulty recalling information they learned 30 minutes earlier. Fish-eaters with high levels of lead, Mercury and DDE in their blood. Even low concentrations of lead can cause mental retardation and physical disability in children. Higher levels can lead to coma, convulsions, and death.
People who eat fish also ingest PCBs. As big fish eat little fish, PCBs become more concentrated in their flesh. Fish-eaters who ingest these dangerous chemicals suffer from increased cancer risk and may experience decreased mental functioning and damaged sexual health.
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are synthetic chemicals that were once used in hydraulic fluids and oils and electrical capacitors and transformers. These toxins were banned in the United States in 1979 for use in all but completely enclosed areas, but heavy past usage has resulted in environmental contamination worldwide, especially in fish. PCBs are dangerous because they act like hormones, wreaking havoc on the nervous system and contributing to a variety of illnesses, including cancer, infertility, and other sexual problems.
Researchers at the University of Illinois found that fish-eaters with high levels of PCBs in their blood have difficulty recalling information that they learned just 30 minutes earlier. For example, one bottle-nose dolphin had PCB levels of 2,000 parts per million (ppm)—40 times the amount required for hazardous waste disposal. Source: https://www.peta.org/living/food/toxins-fish/?
Eating fish is not appealing in any which way.
VEGAN OMEGAS VS. FISH OIL
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Would love to hear from you below. Please leave comments of how this changed you from eating fish and fish oils. Thank you.