Vital Choices Newsletter

Each tiny, 300 mg softgel capsule of Vital Choice Vitamin D3 in Wild Sockeye Salmon Oil provides a generous 2,000 International Units (IU) of vitamin D3.

D3 is the preferred, natural form of this amazing vitamin, and ours is certified pure and potent by NSF

Better yet, our D3 comes in a base of whole, unrefined, certified-pure, sockeye salmon oil, certified sustainable by the MSC

Each Vitamin D3 softgel contains 45mg of omega-3s, but health authorities recommend 500mg of omega-3s per day, so it doesn't replace fish oil.

A 3,000mg daily serving of our Sockeye Salmon Oil provides 460mg, so if you also take one Vitamin D3 in Salmon Oil softgel per day, that would bring your supplemental omega-3 intake to a perfect 505mg!

Omega-3 Wild Salmon Oil ... Whole & Pure

Our "whole food" Omega-3 Salmon Oil supplements contain only unrefined oil from wild Alaska Sockeye Salmon: a fish whose renowned purity is reflected in the pristine contents of our naturally colorful capsules.

Unlike standard fish oils, our naturally pure Sockeye Salmon Oil does not need to be chemically refined: a process that can damage omega-3s. Instead, our oil's purity and potency are certified by NSF.

As a result, our whole, unrefined Sockeye Salmon Oil retains all of the omega-3s (EPA & DHA), vitamin D, phospholipids, and fatty acids natural to whole Sockeye Salmon.

The rich orange hue of our Salmon Oil comes from its natural complement of astaxanthin: the super-potent antioxidant pigment that gives Sockeye their distinctive color and protects our Salmon Oil's abundant omega-3s from oxidation.

In addition, ours was the first Salmon Oil supplement certified as sustainably sourced by the Marine Stewardship Council.

We encapsulate our Salmon Oil in pure fish gelatin, and offer special varieties for special needs:

• Smaller Softgels (500 mg)
• Liquid Salmon Oil for children and folks who may have trouble swallowing our 1,000 mg softgels
• Lemon-Flavored Salmon Oil for folks who experience bounce-back.

Vital Choice Salmon Oil (top left) vs. two standard fish oils

Vital Choice and Vital Green

Environmental
Stewardship Program

Vital Green™ is our pioneering environmental program that does 4 things:

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

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

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

4) Offers an online, clickable e-Catalog to save trees and energy.

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

Consumer Mag Finds BPA in Many Canned Foods
Consumer Reports finds traces of BPA in Vital Choice tuna, but admits BPA isn't used in our kind of cans; New EPA study eases some BPA fears
by Craig Weatherby and Randy Hartnell

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After striving to replace all of our fish cans with BPA-free alternatives, we were dismayed to see a press release today from Consumer Reports magazine.

Consumer Reports claims that their tests of three sample cans detected traces of the common packaging chemical in our canned Albacore Tuna.

Bisphenol-A or BPA is a chemical used to make the epoxy resins that line most food cans ... and very few companies have even tried to use packaging free of BPA, with Vital Choice being among the very first.

Our policy is to err on the side of caution, which is why we offer only low-mercury seafood, despite compelling research showing that fears about mercury in ocean fish have been greatly exaggerated and based on very weak evidence.

Key Points

Consumer Reports found traces of BPA in most canned goods tested for its December, 2009 issue.
Our canned albacore tuna showed traces of BPA, even though our suppliers affirm that our current cans are BPA-free ... we will test the linings to confirm those pledges.
Consumer Reports admits that the tuna they tested came from Vital Choice cans with linings that do NOT normally contain BPA.
We are probing the reasons for this odd test outcome, and await information from Consumer Reports concerning the lot number(s) of the cans they tested … their findings would make sense if the tuna came from older cans sold before the BPA-free switch.
Chemists we've consulted say our tuna could have been exposed to traces of BPA at various points in the canning process because BPA is widely used in such facilities.

So when research published in 2007 indicated that BPA might pose greater health risks than previously believed, we acted quickly to start the lengthy process of switching to BPA-free cans.

And we immediately began insisting our canned fish suppliers switch to cans with BPA-free linings. Since the fall of 2008, we’ve been assured by our suppliers that the cans they used for our products no longer contained any BPA.

What Consumer Reports' tests showed

Consumer Reports say that their tests found an average of 20 parts per billion (ppb) of BPA in Vital Choice tuna after testing three cans.

We are very surprised by the test result, because we demanded BPA-free cans from our suppliers more than a year ago ... and these reputable companies pledged that they had switched our cans as requested.

Consumer Reports’ finding is odd, as they admitted in their press release: “… tests of the inside of the [Vital Choice tuna] cans found that the liners were not epoxy-based, suggesting BPA was not used …” (CR 2009)

Dr. Urvashi Rangan, director of technical policy at Consumers Union (publisher of Consumer Reports), told The Los Angeles Times that the BPA may have leached into Vital Choice tuna cans at the factory where they were made, or may have come from environmental sources – seawater or the fish itself. (As far as we can determine, BPA is not found in ocean fish or seawater at levels high enough to account for Consumer Reports' test results.)

From the day we started Vital Choice, it has been our mission to provide the healthiest, purest foods for our customers, employees, friends, and family members, including our own children, grandchildren, and parents.

We were among the first companies to tackle the issue of BPA head-on, and we’ve worked hard (and gone to great expense) to eliminate it from our packaging. We were sure we had.

So we are as shocked as our customers at the test results reported by Consumers Union, and we will not rest until we have discovered the cause of this issue and rectified it.

Fortunately, the BPA concentrations Consumer Reports say they found in our tuna are less than half the 50 ppb level currently deemed safe for daily consumption by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA 1993).

We don't regret our pioneering move to switch to cans made without BPA, even though a new EPA study indicates that some of the recently heightened fears about BPA may be exaggerated (Ryan BC et al. 2009).

The concerns over BPA: New EPA study undermines estrogen-mimic fears

Tests in animals suggest possible health risks from BPA intake at levels that commonly occur in people who eat lots of products packaged with BPA-containing plastics, with recent studies seeming to find possible risks at intake levels lower than previously thought.

However, various health authorities have come to widely divergent conclusions with regard to the potential dangers of BPA.

Japan banned BPA 10 years ago, but last year, the European Union Food Safety Authority reaffirmed its earlier decisions that BPA is safe for food packaging (including foods consumed by pregnant women and babies) when used under current regulations, and the U.S. and Canadian positions are close to the Europeans' stance (EFSA 2009; EPA 1993).

And as NPR reported on October 30, the results of recently published research by U.S. EPA scientists ease fears that BPA might mimic the effects of estrogen in the bodies of young, growing people (see “BPA Safer Than Contraceptives In Rat Study”).

A fact checking group called the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS), based at George Mason University, has issued a detailed critique of key statements made in the Consumer Reports article ...

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Threat to Salmon from Farm-Spawned Sea Lice Grows
Norwegian agency cites increasing failure of drugs to control sea lice; News holds dire implications for wild Pacific salmon that migrate past fish farms in British Columbia
by Craig Weatherby

Juvenile sockeye afflicted with many sea lice

We’ve reported many times on the fight to save wild salmon from the swarms of sea lice generated by industrial salmon farms in British Columbia.

British Columbia (B.C.) is home to some of the biggest wild salmon runs in the world, and last summer, returns of sockeye salmon to the Fraser River dropped by an alarming 90 percent.

Strong circumstantial evidence ties this disaster to the dozens of salmon farms sited near the path of the young salmon fry when they left the river ... never to return.

Swarms of sea lice from salmon farms sited near migratory rivers are proven to do great harm to young salmon “fry” as they leave their birth rivers.

How to help

We urge you to sign petitions to the Canadian provincial authorities, which are found here and here.

If you do so, and are an American citizen or resident, please be sure to note that fact at the top of the letter.

Most of the salmon grown at B.C. fish farms is sold to the U.S., so Americans have considerable clout in this fight.

To learn more, see “Salmon Defenders Rally”. To read all our reports on the problems surrounding offshore industrial fish farming, search our newsletter archive for “farm”.

And look below for a video tour of British Columbian waters, showing researchers looking for (and finding) loads of sea lice sucking the life out of juvenile wild salmon.

While Alaska does not allow salmon farming, many of the wild salmon caught in Alaskan waters spawn in British Columbian rivers.

These include the Fraser River, home of a huge sockeye run, which empties into the Strait of Georgia just south of the city of Vancouver, and north of our Bellingham, Washington home base.

Norwegian agency raises sea lice alarm

A new report from Norway’s fish health watchdog says that sea lice on Norwegian salmon farms are increasingly resistant to the drugs used to control them.

And likely as a consequence, the numbers of sea lice inside the ocean-anchored net cages are also increasing sharply.

In a stunning development, the numbers of sea lice reported by salmon farm operators in September, 2009 were three times higher than the numbers found in September of 2008.

The new report includes data from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, which found that the sales of toxins for treatment of sea lice infestations increased considerably from 2007 to 2008.

As the agency said, the increases were “… more than expected in light of the increased biomass salmon produced … Resistance against pyrethroids and emamectine is also observed in several areas and unsuccessful treatment courses which had to be repeated with other agents have contributed to the increased sales.”

Emamectine benzoate is the drug used most often on B.C. farms, even though it kills shellfish and other creatures in ...

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Vital Recipes from MyFoodMyHealth.com

Basmati Rice with Mussels, Raisins, and Walnuts
by Rosalinda Paez

Mussels are easy to cook, and the cooking broth becomes part of the flavorful sauce in this delicious recipe from Rosalinda Paez and our friends at MyFoodMyHealth.com. (Photo: Lori Eanes Photography)

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Click the image above, and then enter the Promo Code

"vital choice" to save 15%

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To sign up and save 15% off your subscription, visit them online at MyFoodMyHealth and enter the Promo Code: vital choice.

Basmati Rice with Mussels, Raisins, and Walnuts

By Rosalinda Paez

4 servings

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

9 cups water, divided

Sea salt

1 cup white basmati rice

2 pounds mussels, debearded* and rinsed

1 organic bay leaf

2 lemons, quartered

5 black peppercorns

2 tablespoons organic extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup chopped shallots

2 garlic cloves, pressed or minced

1/2 cup tomato paste

1/2 cup raisins

1/3 cup chopped organic walnuts

*Vital Choice mussels come de-bearded.

Instructions

Bring 8 cups of the water with 1 teaspoon of salt to a boil in a large pot. Add the basmati rice and cook uncovered on high heat for 10 minutes. Drain the rice well, return the rice to the same pot, and cover to keep warm.
Meanwhile, add the mussels to a medium skillet with 1 cup water, the bay leaf, the lemons, and the whole peppercorns. Cook covered for 5-7 minutes on medium-high heat, until all shells are open. Discard any mussels that do not open, and transfer all the open ones to a bowl. Strain the cooking broth and reserve. Squeeze the cooked lemons into the broth.
Heat the olive oil in a medium skillet. Add the shallots and sauté over medium-low heat for 5 minutes, then add the garlic and sauté for 30 seconds. Add the reserved broth, the tomato paste, the raisins, and ½ teaspoon salt. Stir until the tomato paste dissolves. Simmer rapidly, uncovered, for about 10 minutes to reduce and concentrate the sauce. Divide the rice and mussels onto plates, pour the sauce over the mussels, and sprinkle with the walnuts.

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Diabetes-Fish Study Raises Doubts
Population study finds no diabetes-prevention effect from fishy diets; Authors note that omega-3s dampen risk factors for diabetes and cardiovascular risks linked to diabetes
by Craig Weatherby

A recent epidemiological study by Harvard researchers found a slightly higher rate of type 2 (adult) diabetes among people who reported eating more fish than average.

They examined ties between fish and omega-3 fatty acid intake and the development of diabetes among 152,700 women enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study and 42,504 men enrolled in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study.

As they wrote, “… we observed a modest but significant positive relation between fish and omega-3 fatty acid consumption and incidence of T2DM [type 2 diabetes mellitus] after adjustment for established risk factors … and dietary predictors of T2DM ...” (Kaushik M et al. 2009)

Naturally, this news resulted in several letters from concerned readers, and we thought it important to publish a response.

We’ve covered research that reveals similarities between the influences that omega-3s from fish have on genetic switches in our cells and those exerted by leading diabetes drugs.

Specifically, omega-3s and certain diabetes drugs both influence genetic “transcription factors” for peroxisome proliferator-activator receptors (PPARs).

For more on that, see “Drug May Help Prevent Diabetes but Omega-3s Offer Comparable Effects” and “Drug Cops Fumble in Diabetes Fiasco:Omega-3s Seen as Credible Natural Contenders”.

And the authors of the new study agreed with that assessment:

“Omega-3 fats (also known as n–3 fatty acids), particularly long-chain omega-3 fats from seafood sources, alter the expression of peroxisome proliferator-activator receptor [PPAR] genes, which are involved in signaling nutrition status, and of the production of inflammatory cytokines, which are associated with T2DM [type 2 diabetes mellitus]. These findings suggest that omega-3 fatty acids could lower the risk of T2DM.” (Kaushik M et al. 2009)

In fact, the association this study found – between eating more fish than average and having a slightly higher risk of diabetes – makes little sense in light of what’s known about the cell-level effects of omega-3s.

As the authors themselves noted, “… numerous studies have demonstrated beneficial effects of fish and omega-3 fatty acids on multiple risk factors associated with diabetes, and on heart disease -- the major sequelae [subsequent effects] of diabetes”.

They also admitted that people with healthier lifestyles generally eat more fish and undergo more medical tests than average … which could explain the link they observed between fish intake and ...

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Our Community Connections

Vital Choice contributes a portion of its net profits to the Weil Foundation, Raincoast Research Society, the Live Strong Foundation, The Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and other causes devoted to improving the health and well being of people and the planet that sustains us.

Published by Vital Choice Seafood
Copyright © 2009 Vital Choice Seafood, Inc.. All rights reserved.
Information in this newsletter is not meant to substitute for the advice provided by medical professionals, nor is it intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease. Copyright is held by Vital Choice Seafood, to which all rights are reserved. Other than personal, non-commercial use or forwarding, no material in this newsletter may be copied, distributed, or published without the express permission of Vital Choice Seafood.