Salmon Is Perfect Hair Food

Cooked Salmon From Whole Foods Market

Salmon is a popular food.  It's also considered by many hair experts to be the perfect hair food.  Why?  Classified as an oily fish, salmon is considered to be hair healthy due to the fish's high protein, high omega-3 fatty acids, and high vitamin D content.  All of these ingredients are key for healthy scalps and strands.

Salmon is also a source of cholesterol, with a range of 23–214 mg/100 g depending on the species.  According to reports in the journal Science, however, farmed salmon may contain high levels of dioxins. PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl) levels may be up to eight times higher in farmed salmon than in wild salmon, but still well below levels considered dangerous.

The human body can't produce fatty acids, which are required to grow healthy hair.  In fact, Omega-3s are part of the cell membranes in the skin of the scalp.  The natural Omega-3 oils help produce necessary hydration for the scalp and tresses.  About 3% of the hair shaft is make up of these fatty acid.

High Levels Of Dioxins?

According to reports in the journal Science, farmed salmon may contain high levels of dioxins. PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl) levels may be up to eight times higher in farmed salmon than in wild salmon, but still well below levels considered dangerous.

According to a 2006 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the benefits of eating farmed salmon still outweigh any risks imposed by potential contaminants.  The type of Oomega-3 present may not be a factor for other important health functions.

Bottom line, whether you eat farmed or fresh Salmon.  The potential issues of dioxins or PCB are probably not an issue for the average person and the benefits the fish provide to your hair will far outweight other issues.

The vast majority of Atlantic salmon available on the world market are farmed (almost 99%), whereas the majority of Pacific salmon are wild-caught (greater than 80%). Canned salmon in the US is usually wild Pacific catch, though some farmed salmon is available in canned form.

Raw Salmon May Contain Marine Parasites

Salmon flesh is generally orange to red, although white-fleshed wild salmon occurs. The natural color of salmon results from carotenoid pigments, largely astaxanthin, but also canthaxanthin, in the flesh.  Wild salmon get these carotenoids from eating krill and other tiny shellfish.

Smoked salmon is another popular preparation method, and can either be hot or cold smoked.  Lox can refer either to cold-smoked salmon or to salmon cured in a brine solution (also called gravlax). Traditional canned salmon includes some skin (which is harmless) and bone (which adds calcium). Skinless and boneless canned salmon is also available.

Raw salmon flesh may contain Anisakis nematodes, marine parasites that cause anisakiasis. Before the availability of regrigeration, the Japanese did not consume raw salmon. Salmon and salmon roe  have only recently come into use in making sashimi (raw fish) and sushi.

Definition of Salmon

The term "salmon" derives from the Latin salmo, which in turn may have originated from salire, meaning "to leap".  The nine commercially important species of salmon occur in two genera. The genus Salmo contains the Atlantic salmon, found in the north Atlantic.

Eosalmo driftwoodensis, the oldest known salmon in the fossil record, helps scientists figure how the different species of salmon diverged from a common ancestor. The British Columbia salmon fossil provides evidence that the divergence between Pacific and Atlantic salmon had not yet occurred 40 million years ago. Both the fossil record and analysis of mitochondrial DNA suggest the divergence occurred by 10 to 20 million years ago. This independent evidence from DNA analysis and the fossil record reject the glacial theory of salmon divergence.

The genus Oncorhynchus contains eight species which occur naturally only in the north Pacific. Chinook salmon have been introduced in New Zealand. As a group, these are known as Pacific salmon.

Types of Salmon

There are also a number of other species whose common names refer to them as being salmon. Of those listed below, the Danube salmon or huchen is a large freshwater salmonid related to the salmon above, but others are marine fishes of the non-related perciform-order:

Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) reproduces in northern rivers on both coasts of the Atlantic Ocean.

Landlocked salmon (Salmo salar m. sebago) live in a number of lakes in eastern North America and in Northern Europe, for instance in lakes Onega, Ladoga, Saimaa, Vänern and Winnipesaukee. They are not a different species from the Atlantic salmon, but have independently evolved a non-migratory life cycle, which they maintain even when they could access the ocean.

Masu salmon or cherry salmon (Oncorhynchus masou) is found only in the western Pacific Ocean in Japan, Korea and Russia. A land-locked subspecies known as the Taiwanese salmon or Formosan salmon (Oncorhynchus masou formosanus) is found in central Taiwan's Chi Chia Wan Stream.

Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) is also known in the US as king salmon or blackmouth salmon, and as spring salmon in British Columbia. Chinook are the largest of all Pacific salmon, frequently exceeding 30 lb (14 kg). The name Tyee is used in British Columbia to refer to Chinook over 30 pounds, and in Columbia River watershed, especially large Chinook were once referred to as June hogs. Chinook salmon are known to range as far north as the Mackenzie River and Kugluktuk in the central Canadian arctic,[42] and as far south as the Central California Coast.

Chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) is known as dog, keta, or calico salmon in some parts of the US. This species has the widest geographic range of the Pacific species: south to the Sacramento River in California in the eastern Pacific and the island of Kyūshū in the Sea of Japan in the western Pacific; north to the Mackenzie River in Canada in the east and to the Lena River in Siberia in the west.

Coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) is also known in the US as silver salmon. This species is found throughout the coastal waters of Alaska and British Columbia and as far south as Central California (Monterey Bay). It is also now known to occur, albeit infrequently, in the Mackenzie River.

Pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha), known as humpies in southeast and southwest Alaska, are found from northern California and Korea, throughout the northern Pacific, and from the Mackenzie River in Canada to the Lena River in Siberia, usually in shorter coastal streams. It is the smallest of the Pacific species, with an average weight of 3.5 to 4.0 lb (1.6 to 1.8 kg).

Sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) is also known in the US as red salmon. This lake-rearing species is found south as far as the Klamath River in California in the eastern Pacific and northern Hokkaidō island in Japan in the western Pacific and as far north as Bathurst Inlet in the Canadian Arctic in the east and the Anadyr River in Siberia in the west. Although most adult Pacific salmon feed on small fish, shrimp and squid; sockeye feed on plankton they filter through gill rakers. Kokanee salmon is a land-locked form of sockeye salmon.

The Danube salmon or huchen (Hucho hucho), is the largest permanent fresh water salmonid species.