Why Buy Alaskan Salmon from Great Alaska Seafood

Why Buy Alaskan Salmon from Great Alaska Seafood? 

Process - Our Wild Alaskan Salmon are carefully hand bled, gutted, slush iced, and hand filleted within hours after harvesting. Slush icing is a very important step in the processing chain, as it is much colder than ice alone and brings the internal temperature of the fish to a very cold chilled temperature. Slush icing also prevents the fish from bruising, which is common when fish is just simply put on ice. Additionally, slush icing helps remove the blood from the fish. After processing, the salmon is then immediately flash frozen and shipped Fedex to your doorstep.   

The Alaskan Salmon Fishing industry is one of the largest and most sustainable wild salmon fisheries in the world. Hand bleeding is a time consuming process that isn't common in the salmon industry because of the additional time and effort it takes to do; however, the results in the quality of the meat are apparent. An advantage to doing smaller volumes of fish enables you to product the highest quality Alaskan salmon available. Hand bled fish removes the blood from fishes flesh. This is typically done by cutting or pulling the gill plate on either side of the fish. The cartenoid pigments in salmon, which give wild salmon their natural red colored meat, are transferred from the flesh to the meat. This is why when salmon are at the end of their lifes the meat is a pale white color and the skin is a dark red color. Additionally in females, the cartenoids are tranferred to the eggs.                                                                                                 

Quality- Each salmon is processed with a gold star standard and attention to detail. To preserve the highest standards in the industry and lock in the freshness of each fish, we hand bleed, slush ice, and hand fillet them within hours after being caught. Our gold star standard shines from fresh seafood shipped from dockside to doorstep. Each step of our processing is handled carefully shipping salmon from our docks to your doorstep. This commitment to our gold star standard in quality shines through the consistency of our products.  Fresh Seafood shipped from dockside to doorstep. Whether you choose our Troll Caught Salmon, Copper River Salmon or Wild Kalgin Island Salmon®, you can't go wrong. Simply put, there is no substitute for Wild Alaskan Salmon from Great Alaska Seafood.                                                                                                        

Benefits to eating Wild over farmed raised salmon:   Dha comes from salmon, which is a beneficial source of nutrition for the human brain. Essentially, Omega 3's are good for you and Omega 6's aren't. Although farm raised salmon can have higher levels of fats than Wild Salmon, farm raised salmon do not have the same health benefits. Because the farm raised salmon are fed pellets full of things that aren't good for you like vegetable oil and grains, essentially any of the beneficial Omega 3's in farmed salmon are outweighed by the negative effects of Omega 6's, which come from their man fed diets. In fact, it can take up to 3 times as much fish feed to make up the weight in a farmed salmon.

DHA comes from phytoplankton which wild salmon get in the open ocean and farmed salmon don't. A wild salmon's diet is composed of wild seafood like plankton, shrimp, small baitfish, krill, and other small crustaceans; all foods that are good for you to eat as well. Salmon eat this food in order to grow and put fat reserves away for their long journey up the rivers where they were born to the place that they were hatched from eggs. Farm salmon essentially swim in small cages, just getting fat, almost lathargic like, until they are harvested. The pigment color of the meat in salmon is from a carotenoid called astaxanthin. Naturally occuring astaxanthin (like in wild seafood) has numerous health benefits aiding in the prevention of diseases, aging, and inflammation. Farmed salmon are typically given a synthetic version of astaxanthin to dye the color of the flesh; otherwise, a farmed salmon meat would be a brown color without being dyed.                      

Tell me more about this Copper River Salmon I've heard so much about. It's not surprising why Copper River Salmon have  been touted as the "Rolls Royce of Salmon" with a flavor that is second to none.  Besides being simply delicious, Copper River Salmon are full of Omega 3 fatty acids which is what gives them their defined flavor profile. Considered by many as the most premium wild salmon available, Copper River Salmon are famous/ known for this fat content which is needed for them to swim almost 300 miles up the copper river.                   

What makes some wild salmon have more fat than others?       Wild Salmon fat content is typically dictated by the length of the river the salmon must swim up; the longer the river, the more fat reserves the salmon must have to make their way up it. What makes the Copper River so special is that it is both a long river and extremely fast moving one. The Copper River flows at an average of 7 miles an hours, which is about 6 times faster than the speed at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Due to this turbulent current, Copper River Salmon must have even higher fat reserves to travel up it than they would a normal flowing one. The Copper Rivers faster current speeds can be attributed to its almost 3/4 mile vertical elevation (3,600 ft) drop through the Wrangell and Chugach Mountain Ranges.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Is there really such a thing as a White Salmon? White King Salmon are unmistakable in appearance and flavor. Considered as one of the finest delicacies of wild seafood, white kings shave a buttery taste, light salmon flavor, and delicate texture. White King Salmon, also known as ivory king salmon, have a translucent  coloration to the meat ranging from a snow white to a marbled orange sherbert.  Ivories are line caught, troll king salmon. This means each fish is sushi grade and are given special attention.                

Why are Troll Caught King Salmon so special? Troll caught salmon have the best opportunity to be premium quality because they are caught one at a time. White King Salmon are a troll caught king salmon. A very small percentage of the Alaskan King Salmon catch are troll caught. An even smaller percentage of the troll king salmon are whites, which will account  for 1-5 % of the annual king salmon caught depending on the year.  Ivory King salmon are caught by commerical trollers; these boats catch much less volume then the traditional net-caught fishing method for salmon. Trollers fish in the open ocean at slow speeds with baited lines. When the salmon are caught, they are individually gilled, gutted and iced. Each white king salmon's temperature is regulated making is sushi grade.                                                                                                                 

Additionally, troll caught king salmon are caught during a different life cycle stage in the open ocean, while they are still growing and aggresively feeding. Most of these fish will likewise have a blue chromish tint to its scales. Net caught king salmon are typically at the end of their life cycle stages, being caught near the shore, within miles of the mouths of rivers where they were born. Net caught salmon can have a higher oil content than troll caught salmon. This can be  because they are at the end of their life, some have stopped eating and have higher fat reserves, in preparation for the journey home up the rivers.                                                    

What makes a white king Salmon's meat white?  Much like the exact details on how wild salmon navigate, after travelling 1,000's of miles in the open ocean, back to the precise locations upon the rivers of their birth, scientists are still unclear about the exact reasons why white king salmon have the white pigment to their flesh. Years ago, white king salmon's flesh was believed to be based off of the white salmon having a different diet than the red king salmon. After further research indicated that both white and red king salmon eat similar diets of shrimp, krill, crab, and small baitfish, that theory is less commonly believed. It is now more commonly believed that the white king salmon have a genetic trait for them to have an inability to process pigments in their food and that enables them to be white salmon.  Both white and red king salmon have been both found to have the same nutritional value and Omega 3 content. Whatever the reason may be, know that white king salmon are a rare treat, difficult to find, caught with great care, and an alaskan delicacy incomparable to any other fish.    

Tell me about Wild Kalgin Island Salmon®? Each season - for a limited time - schools of mint-bright salmon arrive in the cold, clear waters off Kalgin Island. Many of these fish are destined for rivers on the kenai peninsula with the most popular river being known as the Kenai River. The Kenai River has produced the 97 lb world record king salmon as well as other line class records. The kenai river also has been known to have a higher than average sized sockeye, silver and king salmon that swim up it. With a flavor second to none, loaded with healthy Omega-3 oils, these wild salmon are a rare gourmet prize. Premium Grade "Bone-Free" Fillets We take our sockeye, silver and king salmon, hand fillet, leave the skin on and remove most of the bones to produce the highest quality possible.