It’s the feasting time of the year – food is a central focus at this time of year. Unfortunately, the bounty spread before us in November and December soon morphs into the booty spread behind us in January.  In reading about how to maintain a healthy weight, it’s hard to avoid the term “high quality protein” these days. There is no higher value protein than wild, Alaskan salmon.

At AU we’re all about the challenge, fun, and beauty of fishing in Southeast Alaska. We also know that the fish our customers bring home helps them live a healthier life. The benefits of salmon to heart health, joint lubrication, mood improvement, and even protection for some types of cancer are well documented. Alaskan salmon is one of the highest value proteins on the planet.

And when you go looking for salmon in the market, bear in mind most is neither Alaskan or wild. Currently, 90% of the salmon sold in U.S. fish markets comes from aquaculture. Farmed salmon don’t have the same health benefits as wild and often come with much higher levels of environmental toxins. Figuring out just how good or how bad farmed fish is for your health and how bad they are for the environment is a bottomless Internet rabbit hole. On the other hand, the healthful qualities of Alaskan salmon and the sustainability of the harvest are indisputable.

How do you get a supply of wild Alaskan salmon? A fishing trip with AU gives you a chance to see the fish caught, processed perfectly, and put in your box. A trip to the fish market is a bit dicier. Here’s a quote from the New York Times:  “Tests performed for The New York Times in March (2005) on salmon sold as wild by eight New York City stores, going for as much as $29 a pound, showed that the fish at six of the eight were farm raised. Farmed salmon, available year round, sells for $5 to $12 a pound in the city.”

Be leery of conflicting messages like this one.

In fact, if you want to be sure you’re eating Alaskan salmon, halibut, rockfish, or lingcod, a close eye on what lawyers call” the chain of custody” might be your only guarantee. Mislabeling of fish is rampant nationwide. A study by the conservation group Oceana found that over 1/3 of the fish sold in U.S. stores are mislabeled. Your store-bought halibut dinner could actually be farmed catfish or blueline tilefish. You could buy what you think is cod only to dine on tilapia.

We’ll be running a series of blog posts on the healthful benefits of Alaskan seafood. We can’t think of a better way to enjoy those benefits than starting with a fishing trip to the salt water wilderness of Southeast Alaska and fishing with AU. Think about it, talk it over with your family and friends this holiday season. The catch you bring home will be very healthful and, as an old Babylonian proverb states:  The gods do not deduct from man’s allotted span the hours spent in fishing.