Our wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon offers special appeal to those—like many of us here at Vital Choice—who like their wild salmon firm and flavorful.

These sustainably harvested fish are a super-healthy source of protein, rich in long-chain omega-3 essential fatty acids, and potent natural antioxidants.

And sockeye is a nearly unrivalled food source of bone-saving, cancer-curbing vitamin D, with a whopping 1,100 IU per 6-oz serving, or nearly triple the US RDA.

Our flash-frozen portions come vacuum-sealed for superior quality and convenience.

Certified Kosher by EarthK.

Environmental
Stewardship Program

Vital Green™ is our pioneering environmental program, designed to do 3 things:

1) Fight global warming by offsetting the impacts of shipping.

2) Enable recycling of foam shipping cubes via our innovative FREE program.

3) Support seafood sustainability and promote a green partnership with our customers.

To learn more, and get instructions for recycling foam shipping cubes from Vital Choice, visit our Vital Green™ page.

If you haven't tried our Wild Red Sockeye Salmon you're in for a treat, because it tastes much fresher than standard supermarket brands.

The rich, red color of the meat and oil is unlike any you're likely to have had before.

Our minimal processing methods ensure that you'll get the maximum amount of nutrients naturally abundant in Sockeye Salmon.

These include omega-3s, vitamin D, and astaxanthin: the super-potent carotene-class antioxidant that gives the oil brimming in every can of Wild Red its bright orange-red color. (The liquid in standard canned Salmon is pallid and watery by comparison.)
 

Choose Skinless-Boneless Wild Red, or Traditional Style with skin and soft edible bones for extra flavor and ample calcium.

Both kinds are available with salt (less than is added to most brands) or without added salt ... and several varieties come in EZ-Open pull-tab tops.

“You are providing a wonderful health-giving service to the planet with your business. And it is a pleasure to bring this information to my audience. It is also a pleasure to snap open these little cans of salmon and have an instant healthy meal!”

-- Christiane Northrup, M.D.

People often ask us how they can be sure about the fish they buy, and we always say, “know your source”.

Of course, that’s pretty hard to do when you’re dealing with restaurants and supermarkets.

Some may simply want to boost thin profit margins, while others may be victims of fraud perpetrated by their wholesale suppliers.

Back in 2004, we tipped The New York Times to our discovery that some of the farmed Salmon sold at the Fulton wholesale market were deliberately mislabeled “Wild Salmon”.

(For more on that episode, see “Buyer Beware: Vital Choice Discovers 'Wild' Salmon Scam”.)

Some wholesalers take advantage of the distinct price difference between farmed and wild Salmon – and non-experts’ difficulty telling wild Salmon from farmed fish – to gouge inexpert, unsuspecting retailers and their (understandably) clueless customers.

Fish-Fraud: The Recent Record  You’ll find more coverage of seafood fraud and misrepresentation in these Vital Choices articles: “Consumer Watchdog Finds “Wild” Salmon Scam Remains Routine” “Consumer Group Calls Omega-3 Fraud Common” “Salmon Fraud Persists; Quality of Farmed Salmon Feed Falls Further” “Faux Freshness and the Color of Fraud: Deceptive Additives in Shellfish and Tuna”

Last week, The New York Times reported the results of DNA tests performed on fish obtained at four restaurants and 10 grocery stores in Manhattan.

The investigation was a science project by Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss: two teenage Nancy Drews studying at the Trinity School in Manhattan.

Ms. Stoeckle’s father, Mark, is a scientist expert in “DNA bar coding”: a technique that simplifies the process of identifying species.

They sent 60 samples of seafood to the University of Guelph in Ontario, where graduate student Eugene Wong performed the genetic analysis.

As the Times reported, “Three hundred dollars’ worth of meals later, the young researchers had their data back from Guelph: 2 of the 4 restaurants and 6 of the 10 grocery stores had sold mislabeled fish.”

In fact, one in four of the testable fish samples were mislabeled.

The frauds included the following (Schwartz J 2008):

• Cheap, farm-raised Mozambican tilapia sold as costly white tuna sushi.
• Cheap smelt roe sold as costly flying fish roe sushi.
• Cheap white fish – and endangered Acadian redfish – sold as rare, costly red snapper in supermarkets.

As the Times said, “The sample size is too small to serve as an indictment of all New York fishmongers and restaurateurs, but the results are unlikely to be a mere statistical fluke.” (Schwartz J 2008)

Indeed, red snapper is one of the most common targets of fraud, so depending upon the range of species tested ...

Last week, I received a message from customer Richard Fuller, who’d written to ask about the potential impact of the gold and copper mine (Pebble Mine) that a large Canadian consortium proposes to site at the headwaters of Bristol Bay.

(See our accompanying article, “Salmon-Risking Gold Mine Goes to Alaskan Voters”.)

Bristol Bay hosts the largest Sockeye Salmon run in the world. I fished for Salmon commercially in Bristol Bay for many years, as did Vital Choice COO Dave Hamburg and our shipping manager (and my brother) Terry Hartnell.

Here is Mr. Fuller’s thoughtful letter, followed by my response:
____________________________________________

Randy,

The New York Times ran a rather scary article on mining around Bristol Bay, Alaska and heavy metal pollution risks of rivers Sockeye salmon depend on.

I'd be grateful if you'd comment on issues raised in the article. 

For example, does mining degrade the quality of the Sockeye available to Vital Choice?

You might wish to a post comment in your newsletter especially if Measure 4, which is an attempt to protect those rivers, is defeated.

Thanks for being there,

Richard Fuller

____________________________________________________
 

My response

Hi Richard,

Alaskans who catch wild Sockeye Salmon for a living are engaged in a bitter war with Alaskans eager to take jobs at a proposed gold and copper mine.

The problem is that the proposed Pebble Mine could pollute major Sockeye spawning streams and rivers, which give birth to this extraordinarily delicious and healthful food.

Pollution in these waterways could destroy the Bristol Bay Salmon run, which is the world’s largest.

Both sides agree that the Salmon streams flowing into Bristol Bay must remain pristine to protect this irreplaceable resource.

Mine proponents pledge to protect the Sockeye streams, despite the dismal record of the hard-rock mining industry worldwide.

 

More on Pebble Mine We’ve been reporting on the Pebble Mine controversy since 2005, starting with our inititial overview in “Proposed Mine Threatens Bristol Bay Region and Alaska’s Wild Salmon”. To see our past coverage on this and other extractive-industry threats to the Bristol Bay Sockeye run, search for “bristol” in our newsletter archive.     To learn more about the fight over Pebble Mine, read the article that ran last week in The New York Times (“Vote in Alaska Puts Question: Gold or Fish?”), and watch the accompanying video. We support the Alaskan ballot initiative intended to protect the vital Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon run. You may want to consider supporting organizations fighting the Pebble Mine, such as these two: Alaskans for Clean Water Renewable Resources Coalition

Last week, Vital Choice co-founder Randy Hartnell replied to a customer who’d written to ask about the ballot initiative described below … and the potential impact of the proposed Pebble Mine on Vital Choice Sockeye Salmon. Click here to read his letter, and Randy's reply.

Alaskans set to vote on Salmon-protection initiative

The latest battle in the Pebble Mine war is over a ballot initiative to increase protections for the Bristol Bay Salmon run.

The ballot initiative – which will be voted on by Alaskans tomorrow, August 26 – is intended to prevent mines from releasing pollutants into Salmon streams.

Some Alaska officials say that the terms of the initiative simply echo existing legal protections for water quality and Salmon runs.

But initiative supporters disagree, and are gearing up to ensure that should the initiative pass, the implementing regulations written by state agencies will reflect the supporters’ intent.

The war chest amassed by mine supporters to fight the initiative is twice that of mine opponents, and the vote could go either way.

Alaska's recurring dilemma: Dig gold or harvest Salmon?

Well-heeled international mining interests want North America's biggest deposits of gold and copper, found upstream ...

The concept of “super foods” was popularized by bestsellers like The Perricone Prescription by Nicholas V. Perricone, M.D., SuperFoods HealthStyle by Stephen G. Pratt, M.D., and The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth, by Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., CNS.

And the term “super food” was quickly adopted by marketers of products ranging from pomegranate juice to wheat grass.

There may a bit of overstatement in the concept, since a healthful diet can encompass many more foods than the "super foods" often mentioned, and because we have much left to learn about foods and their health effects.

But there’s little doubt that the ingredients in today’s salad are pretty super … especially the wild Sockeye Salmon. The amount called for in this recipe (15 oz) provides a whopping 1,296 mg of omega-3s and about 400 IU of vitamin D per salad serving.

Wild Alaskan Salmon Superfoods Salad 

Serves 4

15 oz* Wild Red™ Alaskan Sockeye Salmon

4 oz broccoli, broken into florets

5 oz baby spinach

1 red pepper, deseeded and sliced

1 avocado, peeled, pitted and sliced

12 cherry tomatoes, halved

16 oz can mixed beans, rinsed and drained

2 oz organic raw nuts (almond, walnut and/or cashews)

*Four 3.75 oz cans, or two 7.5 oz cans. You can use our traditional-style Wild Red™ (with edible skin and bones) or our skinless-boneless Wild Red™.

Dressing

1 small garlic clove, crushed

4 Tbsp organic extra virgin olive oil

3 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp mustard (Dijon or whole grain)

Sea salt and organic black pepper

• Drain the Salmon, reserving the liquid. Break the salmon into large chunks, and ...