Are there PFAS “forever chemicals” in our fish?

There has been some scary news stories recently about PFAS chemicals in fish. We were getting concerned, especially after a wave of questions from our customers that we couldn’t answer.

So we teamed up with the University of Guelph and our friends at Cole-Munro Foods to test a bunch of farmed fish.

The knowledge of PFAS chemicals is so new that the government has not published limits or guidelines. And the University of Guelph had only just finished setting up their equipment and validating their testing protocols.

PFAS refer to a huge group of human-made chemicals that make products repel water, stains and heat. They’re nicknamed “forever chemicals” because they take thousands of years to break down. This year, a study led by the American Chemical Society, which included folks from Environment and Climate Change Canada, found high levels can be raining down onto and into the Great Lakes.

But drum roll please.. not in our fish!

The lab at the Guelph Food Innovation Centre could not detect any of the main PFAS chemicals (PFOS, PFOA, PFNA & pFHxS). And the testing was very precise — the EU government has been the first to publish PFAS limits for fish, and we made sure our testing measured far below those limits.

We also got several different samples tested so that we could be confident in the results. We tried fish from different farms, eating different feeds, and processed different ways. And every sample came back undetectable. 

One of the many amazing things we celebrate about fish farming is that we get to control everything — what they eat and where they go. That means we can ensure they are not exposed to contaminants, which means you are not exposed to them either!