The World Peace Diet: Eating For Spiritual Health And Social Harmony

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operations. 10 In the U.S., the percentages are somewhat higher, with
approximately forty percent of shrimp, crab, and other shellfish, ninety
percent of salmon, and sixty-five percent of freshwater fish consumed
here coming from aquaculture operations. 11 Trout, catfish, tilapia, and
other freshwater fish are forced to live in horrendously overcrowded
concrete troughs. I talked with an investigator who visited a fish farm
in Illinois, housed inside an enormous metal shed. When she went in,
the air was so putrid she could barely breathe. The huge shallow pond
inside was completely black and at first she couldn’t see any fish. Then
she realized the water was utterly full of fish, severely crowded together,
and the blackness of the water was due to the concentration of their
feces. I’ve seen abysmally overcrowded fish confined to feces-blackened
water in outdoor fish farms in southern California and contemplated
the miserable lives of these creatures, crammed inescapably in their own
excrement, and then mercilessly slaughtered. People order this at local
restaurants, ironically believing they’re getting their healthy omega-3s
or the fish that is recommended for their blood type.
Obviously, fish farmed in commercial aquaculture operations accumulate
toxins from the water through gill breathing, and large amounts
of antibiotics are routinely used, not only to unnaturally spur growth
but also to control the disease that is an ever-present threat in such
unhygienic conditions. The fish feed also contains high levels of contaminants,
because besides grains it often contains feces, offal, and other byproducts
of the livestock industry, as well as fish and fish by-products
not fit for human or pet consumption.
Saltwater fish farming also involves inhumane and unhealthy overcrowding
of the fish, usually in offshore pens. These operations cause
an enormous amount of water pollution, forcing thousands of fish to
live in highly concentrated areas, with feces, antibiotics, pesticides, and
toxic chemicals—such as the pigments that turn farmed salmon flesh
from dull gray to appetizing pink—all flowing right into the surrounding
ocean waters. 12 Scotland’s caged salmon, for example, create an
amount of untreated waste equivalent to that from eight million people,
far more than Scotland’s human population. 13 These fish farming operations
have an ironically devastating effect on ocean fisheries because