As if it’s not hard enough to watch what you eat these days. It turns out that the healthy salmon filet, rich in omega-3 fatty acids, has a downside, too. Ok, the salmon itself does not have a downside, but how it’s raised does. Most farm-raised salmon is not safe to eat more than once a month. It turns out farm-raised salmon are containimnated with many industrial chemicals, including PCBs, dioxins, and mercury. All are so contaminated that if you eat them once a month or more, your chance of cancer increases 1 in 100,000. So what to do? Eating wild salmon is one option. Unfortunately, it’s a lot more expensive: $15/pound vs. $6/pound for farm raised. You also have to watch the source of the wild salmon. Chinook from Alaska is just as contaminated as some farmed species. Of course, the increase in cancer is small enough you may not care. In fact, if you drink diet soda, I’d be more worried about that. And salmon is probably still better for you than processed foods, and even red meat (since red meat may increase the risk of colon cancer). I don’t eat salmon that often, so I’ll just buy the good stuff. It’s not gonna bankrupt me. But for someone who has decided to eat salmon multiple times per week, you may want to think about adding a little fish variety to your menu.