Q: Is there any difference between farm raised fish and wild caught? Specifically taste and/or nutritional value differences?

A: Though all fish differ, and one could write a book about wild versus farmed fish, it might be easiest to use salmon as an example. Wild salmon is much more flavorful than farmed, and has a silky, flaky texture and a rich, mouth-filling taste. The color tends to be a deeper red, due to its natural diet of crustaceans, and the fat is marbled throughout the fish.

On the downside, wild salmon is expensive and the price fluctuates according to available supply. Wild salmon has a season, usually from May to September, depending on the variety, and can be hard to come by -- if not frozen -- the rest of the time.

Farmed salmon is milder tasting and generally not quite as firm as wild. The color is a paler pink because their food contains natural dyes in order to color the flesh. It would also seem that farmed salmon is higher in PCBs and other toxins than wild is, though not high enough to trigger FDA disapproval. It also almost always costs substantially less than wild salmon, and is available year-round.

The general recommendation is, to buy wild salmon in season if you can get it, and farmed salmon the rest of the time.

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