Can you get Mad Cow Disease from eating farm-raised fish?

Good grief Charlie Brown!

As more and more people discover the benefits of the healthy omega-3 fatty acids in fish and try to add fish to their diet, they may find that they are at a small (and theoretical) risk of “Mad Cow” disease from eating farm-raised fish.

The June 2009 issue of Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease had an article from the University of Louisville looking at the possible risk of developing “Mad Cow” disease or Creutzfeldt Jakob disease in people that eat farm-raised fish that had been fed fish food that contains infected cow parts. 

The risk of developing Creutzfeldt Jakob disease may be negligible or nonexistent, but it may be one reason to pick the wild salmon over the farm-raised salmon on your next trip to the seafood department.
While I think the risk is small, especially with other issues such as mercury content in larger fish, the risk of developing “Mad Cow” disease could be an evolving concern. 

One more reason to look closely at the type of fish that we eat – farm-raised salmon should be labeled either as “farm raised” or “color-added”. Fish caught in the wild is also usually labelled as such. Farm-raised salmon is also sometimes called “Atlantic” salmon, which I personally think is a marketing ploy to confuse the geographically-challenged fish shopper.

I’m sure more than one slightly-confused attempting-to-shop-healthy shopper thought ” ‘Alaskan’ or ‘Atlantic’ – heck they both begin with the letter ‘A’ and this ‘Atlantic’ one is on sale…”