After 20 years of warnings that farmed salmon contain harmful amounts of environmental toxins, the Norwegian Environmental Protection Association finally receives support for its view from EFSA, the EU's food safety body.
23 November 2018 will forever stand as an important milestone in NMF's history. Then EFSA released a report showing that it is far more harmful for consumers to eat fatty fish such as farmed salmon and farmed trout than what the Directorate of Health in Norway has been recommending all along, and which NMF has been saying for years is wrong. If one follows the dietary advice from the Norwegian Directorate of Health, one can ingest as many as 7 times more environmental toxins by eating farmed salmon than what EFSA recommends.
A person weighing 70 kilos has, after a salmon meal of 185 grams, reached the maximum value of environmental toxins she can tolerate, if she is not to have a greater risk of incurring health damage later in life, according to the report. But then she cannot eat anything else for the rest of the week that may contain environmental toxins, such as other seafood, dairy products or meat. The report further states that a child weighing 35 kilograms can only eat 90 grams of fatty fish a week, if the child is not to risk having problems having children as an adult.
NMF demands that the dietary advice from the Norwegian Directorate of Health must now be rewritten in line with EFSA's recommendations.
Link to media reports: Report on environmental toxins: May have consequences for Norwegian dietary advice
Link to EFSA's report: Dioxins and related PCBs: tolerable intake level updated