Salmon became a Pacific Northwest diet mainstay in the Archaic period, around 7000 B.C. A recipe book for meat and fish published in A.D. 1658, "The Compleat Cook," lists fresh salmon prepared in vinegar and white wine. Along with lemon and lime juice, these acidic soaks cut salmon's natural oiliness and add vitamin C to this omega-3 fatty-acid and B-vitamin-packed fish. Rumors about farm-raised salmon have made consumers wary, increasing pressure on wild-caught populations.
History
Salmon, elk and deer replaced mammoth meat as a primary protein source in America's Pacific Northwest around 7000 B.C. Whole, fresh-caught salmon was a delicacy in Europe in the Middle Ages, served on the "meatless" days dictated by the church. The protein and vitamin A it provided balanced the carbohydrates in most winter and "fasting day" foods.
Features
A 100 g, or 3.5-oz., serving of bottom sirloin tri-tip roast beef almost 6 g more protein than salmon, and roast chicken breast has almost 10 g more, but they both have 1 1/2 times the cholesterol of salmon. A 100-g serving of fresh salmon has almost twice the calcium of the chicken breast and 10 g more calcium than beef, according to the USDA Nutrient Database. Roast chicken has 4.3 g more niacin than salmon, while fresh salmon has 1 1/2 g more niacin than beef. Salmon has 1/3 less sodium than chicken and 6 g less than beef. Salmon has four times as much folate as beef and nearly eight times as much as chicken. Salmon's 453 IU of vitamin A is 4 1/2 times as much as chicken and 56 times as much as beef.
Benefits
For anyone unable to eat or drink dairy products, the calcium level in salmon is good for to bone health. Salmon's niacin content helps convert complex carbohydrates to energy. Niacin also boosts the production of HDL or "good" cholesterol. Salmon's high vitamin A content helps the body produce white blood cells, maintains body linings and mucus membranes and controls cell growth.
Misconceptions
Many people believe that salmon farmers feed chemicals to their salmon to make them pink like their wild-caught counterparts. In reality, salmon farmers feed an essential form of vitamin A called astaxanthin to their fish because they do not have access to krill, the microscopic shrimp that gives wild salmon its light-pink to dark-red color. Astaxanthin comes from yellow and orange fruits and vegetables. Like all other forms of vitamin A, it is essential to cell growth, visual clarity, bone health, skin integrity and mucus membrane maintenance.
Warning
The belief that farm-raised salmon are not as nutritious or healthy as wild-caught salmon continues to put tremendous pressure on the wild salmon population. Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat stated in his 1994 book, "A History of Food," that wild-caught North Atlantic salmon were considered extirpated, which is a localized form of species extinction, throughout France and England. The loss of this wild source of omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin A lead commercial fisheries to establish North Atlantic salmon farms as far away as Australia.
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