| Salmon dye must be labeled { May 2 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.canada.com/vancouver/news/story.asp?id=DC27E568-268A-4DED-868A-2AA2EC623409http://www.canada.com/vancouver/news/story.asp?id=DC27E568-268A-4DED-868A-2AA2EC623409
Salmon dye must be on labels: Greens Charlie Anderson The Province
Friday, May 02, 2003
Canada should follow the U.S. lead and force salmon farmers to inform consumers when they're using dye to enhance fish colour, says a B.C. environmentalist.
"The salmon-farming industry and the establishments that sell it do not label it as farmed and they colour it to make it look like wild," said Jennifer Lash of the Sointula-based Living Oceans Society. "To me, that means they're misleading the public."
The U.S. recently passed a law requiring farmed salmon to be labelled as such and where it was produced.
"I think the [Canadian Food Inspection Agency] should have a regulation or a law in place that says this needs to be advertised," said Lash, noting the U.S. is "leaps and bounds ahead of us as far as being responsible for the consumer."
Several U.S. supermarket chains are scrambling to meet the new federal labelling laws. Albertsons, Safeway and Kroger Co. agreed this week to begin labelling their farmed salmon as containing canthaxanthin and astaxanthin, dyes used to give the flesh its distinctive pink hue.
Wild salmon pick up the pigment by eating krill.
The firms' move follows a lawsuit filed against them last week in Seattle by eight consumers who charged them with deception and unfair business practices. The suit did not allege the dyes posed any medical threat, although it alluded to a series of environmental issues posed by salmon farming, including the use of antibiotics, pollution and threats to wild salmon.
Mary-Ellen Walling of the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association said "the pigment . . . used in the feed formulation is also used in some chicken feed for brighter egg yolks."
"It develops carotenoid and it's not just for the pigmentation: It's important for proper fish development because carotenoids are important antioxidants."
canderson@png.canwest.com
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