Trout Can Suffocate for 25 Agonizing Minutes—and Nine Other Reasons to Never Eat Them

Fish may not look like us, but we’re similar in all the ways that matter most. Trout and other fish have long-term memories, complex social lives, and desires like us. Some fish even use tools, communicate with unique sounds and scents, and can recognize patterns that help them navigate through the water. But when torn from their aquatic home or farmed for food, these social, intelligent fish suffer an agonizing, slow death. Here’s why you should leave trout—and all fish—off your plate:

10 Reasons to Never Eat Trout

1. Trout Are Great Communicators

Trout use chemical cues to warn each other about predators, signal stress, and even coordinate mating. Young trout learn how to survive by closely watching adults and mimicking their behavior, just like human children do.

2. They Are Experts in Navigation

Steelhead trout—rainbow trout who migrate to the ocean—travel hundreds of miles to reach feeding grounds, then return to the exact stream where they were born years later. They use the sun, magnetic fields, and scent to find their way—it’s like they have a built-in GPS!

3. Trout Can Teach Us a Lot About Adaptability

Before heading to the ocean, young steelhead trout undergo smoltification, which changes their gills, kidneys, skin, and hormone levels to survive in salt water. When they return to their birthplace to reproduce, steelheads shift back to freshwater mode—talk about going with the flow!

4. Trout Have Homes and Neighbors

Trout don’t drift through rivers aimlessly—they defend individual territories and return to their home turf. They even seem to recognize familiar fish and react differently to strangers.

5. Trout Can Live for Many Years—But Are Often Killed as Babies

In rivers, rainbow trout often live to be between 6 and 11 years old, and steelhead trout often live at least 4 to 6 years, making the arduous journey from ocean to river to spawn multiple times. When raised on fish factory farms, workers often kill trout when they’re just eight months old, barely more than babies.

6. Humans Are Destroying Their Home

Due to destructive human activities like logging, pollution, and other industries causing the climate catastrophe, the cold, clean, oxygen-rich water trout need to survive is being destroyed. Fish factory farming makes things worse by introducing disease, parasites, and waste into waterways.

7. Trout Farms Are Factory Farms

Trout raised for food often spend their lives in filthy, overcrowded tanks and suffer from stress, injury, and disease outbreaks. According to the Norwegian government, trout and salmon farms in Norway alone produce roughly the same amount of sewage as all of New York City.

8. Trout’s Flesh Is Polluted With Toxins

Trout can accumulate mercury, synthetic chemicals, and pesticides in their flesh if they’re raised on fish farms or caught in polluted waterways. If you eat trout or other fish flesh, you’re ingesting these toxins that can cause long-term damage to your brain, liver, and nervous system. In one study, scientists found that people who eat only two servings of fish a month have difficulty recalling information they learned 30 minutes earlier. The culprit is likely high levels of mercury, lead, and PCBs in their blood. PCBs, synthetic chemicals that pollute water and are concentrated in fish flesh, act like hormones, wreaking havoc on the nervous system and contributing to a variety of illnesses beyond forgetfulness and vertigo, including cancer, infertility, and other sexual problems.

9. Trout Suffer Immense Pain When They’re Pulled From the Water

The fishing industry kills more fish each year than all other animals used for food combined. Trout and other fish killed for food are often pulled from the water and forced to slowly die from air asphyxiation as they panic and gasp for breath. According to one study, killing rainbow trout by removing them from water often causes 10 excruciating minutes of pain as they slowly suffocate.

When they’re chilled on ice—commonly used to “stun” fish before slaughter—their suffering can last even longer because trout can live in cold temperatures. One trout in the study was still moving 25 minutes after being removed from the water. The study found that each pound of fish causes roughly 11 minutes of pain. Since the fishing industry kills more than a trillion fish each year, the amount of suffering humans force fish to endure is almost unfathomable.

10. You Can Eat Seafood Without Killing Fish

With delicious options like fishless tuna, crabless cakes, and salmon-free sashimi, it’s easy to be reeled in by vegan seafood. Plus, fish-free seafood is full of ocean flavor without the toxins, cholesterol, or fish suffering.