Is Smoked Salmon Healthy?

So, is Smoked Salmon Healthy? We share a lot about the health benefits of Omega 3’s here and many people ask about the health profile of smoked salmon. Let me share the benefits of smoked salmon and just how healthy it is.

Healthy Smoked Salmon on a Picnic

Is it just me, or is there something about taking your meal outside that always seems to make the food taste better? It seems even the most basic meal can seem “special” if you just walk it outdoors. Smoked salmon from Vital Choice is one of our favorites to picnic with. Take our homemade cauliflower hummus with chopped vegetables and a jar of our favorite strawberry lemonade.

Wild smoked salmon is a staple food in our house. It’s the perfect fast-food for making quick sandwiches or adding to a dinner salad. It’s a great picnic food too!

If you haven’t read the Clean Cuisine book, we primary recommend a plant-forward diet. We truly believe that obtaining high quality omega-3’s found in seafood is an important part of eating an anti-inflammatory diet. Seafood can provide the best anti-inflammatory omega-3’s that are not found in plan foods.

Many readers here at Clean Cuisine ask “Is smoked salmon healthy?” This is a good question because if you are familiar with how delicate omega-3 fats are you might think that high-heat smoking would potentially destroy the omega-3 fats, or worse, cause them to oxidize, which would promote free radical damage in your body. But this is not the case…

Wild “Hot-Smoked” Salmon is Actually the Healthiest Choice

Omega-3 fats are heat-sensitive and the super potent anti-inflammatory fats are stable when fish is smoked. A 2009 study published online on PubMed shows salmon subjected to high heat temperatures while smoking the fish it produced oils with fewer products of oxidation than their unprocessed counterparts.

The longer the fish is smoked and the higher the temperature it was smoked at the better the omega-3 fats were preserved. The smoking process also boosted the antioxidant profile of the extracted fish oil! Antioxidant capacity in smoked salmon can increase when the fish is heated above 75 degrees C.

Vitamin studies supported the antioxidant results, with smoke-processed oils displaying higher levels of alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E) than raw fish oils.

Note: The study we are referencing from PubMed DOES NOT mean heating your fish oil supplements would be a good idea though. What it means is simply that one of the world’s oldest food preservation techniques is a healthy method for preparing fish!

Is ALL Smoked Salmon Healthy?

No is the short answer.

It is super important to choose wild smoked salmon over farmed salmon. Not only is farmed salmon inferior to wild in taste, but it is inferior in nutrition too. Especially relevant is the omega-3 and omega-6 fat profile in wild salmon verse farmed salmon. Wild salmon is much richer in anti-inflammatory omega-3 fats and has much less pro-inflammatory omega-6 fat than what is found in farmed salmon. Wild salmon is also richer in antioxidants and vitamin D.

Our Favorite Wild Smoked Salmon

For smoked wild salmon, Vital Choice is our favorite brand. And try taking your smoked wild salmon to the beach! I promise you won’t be disappointed.