Chicken of the Sea Pink Salmon is Perfect in Light of West Coast Salmon Shortage

Though we've recently been hearing dire news about the shortage of wild "West Coast" salmon, there's presently no comparable shortage of wild Alaskan pink salmon. The latter - when canned - still constitutes a relatively low-cost source of (arguably) high quality dietary protein, not to mention other nutrients. Though canned salmon might not seem a "sophisticated" menu item, I've more or less loved this stuff ever since I was a kid.

Well, actually, when I was kid in the 1960s, it was often the red (rather than the pink) salmon that I especially relished. But nowadays the red variety costs so much more that I've learned to settle for this "next-best" pink alternative, whose milder flavor is still sufficiently good to gratify and rekindle memories of an unpretentious, middle-class childhood. (I'm now well advanced into an unpretentious, middle-class, middle-age stage of life.)

These days I eat a lot of soy burgers (plus various dried beans and raw nuts) but relatively little "animal" protein. Nevertheless, I'm not (quite) 100% vegetarian, much less vegan. And about once weekly I enjoy some Alaskan salmon, even if it's merely the relatively cheap, canned variety.

Is consumption of Alaskan salmon healthy? In recent years I've heard both good and bad things. On the one hand, it's laden with heart-healthy "omega-3" fatty acids; on the other hand, I've heard that salmon--especially the farm-raised variety--might be dangerously tainted with various unhealthy substances. This prompted me always to note whether the salmon I buy is labeled "wild caught". If I don't see those words, that's the first clue that it might be farm-raised.

Additionally, I found it somewhat reassuring to read the following statement (via a web page at chickenofthesea.com):

"All Chicken of the Sea salmon is wild-caught in the waters of the Pacific. None of our canned and pouched salmon, which include traditional red salmon, traditional pink salmon and boneless & skinless pink salmon, are farm-raised."