What you did not know about Tilapia fish

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nevertellen35
nevertellen35 Posts: 13
in Food and Nutrition
I know many in this forum are huge fans of Tilapia fish so I did some looking up facts about what exactly it is how its produced where it comes from. ( I know many these practices take place on farms hormones given to animals)
Found this extreamly interesting after hearing a friend go off about how gross Talapia fish is. Her claim was they used the fish to clean waste in some areas then selling it as food think shes referring to a episode of dirty jobs on discovery channel.

what I found out online about the fish.

Commercially grown tilapia are almost exclusively male. Cultivators use hormones such as testosterone to reverse the sex of newly spawned females. Because tilapia are prolific breeders the presence of female tilapia results in rapidly increasing populations of small fish, rather than a stable population of harvest-size animals (CON)

Tilapia have very low levels of mercury (PRO)
Tilapia is a low total fat, low saturated fat, low calorie, low carbohydrate and low sodium protein source. It is also an excellent source of Phosphorus, Niacin, Selenium, Vitamin B12 and Potassium (PRO)

In the United States, tilapia can live only in extreme southern Florida and a few other isolated areas such as power plant discharge zones. (Con if eating it caught in usa wild)

Farm-raised Tilapia (the least expensive and most popular) has a high fat content and, according to a new study by researchers at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, suggests that farm-raised tilapia may be worse for the heart than eating bacon or a hamburger. (CON)

What are your thoughts?

Arizona stocks tilapia in the canals that serve as the drinking water sources for the cities of Phoenix, Mesa and others. The fish help purify the water by consuming vegetation and detritus, greatly reducing purification costs. (CON if it comes from that yuck)
So there sure not the only one to raise the subject however if we googled everything we ate we probably stick to veggies.

Replies

  • tiffanygil
    tiffanygil Posts: 478 Member
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    lol, well I still eat pork and well pigs eat anything......
  • catfan
    catfan Posts: 90 Member
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    lol, well I still eat pork and well pigs eat anything......

    My thoughts exactly!! Tilapia has to be better than all the crap I was eating before I started this process:)
  • aesoprok
    aesoprok Posts: 70
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    I commend you for taking the time to look this up. There is so much misinformation out there the best thing we can do is find out for ourselves. Thanks, i was wondering about this myself:wink:
  • barbdip
    barbdip Posts: 24 Member
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    I will not eat it either. I also stay away from any fish raised in the Asian countries. I have heard on GMA that the fish there are raised in areas of very poor . They swim and live in Human feces as well as shrimp. Stick with Gulf shrimp and fish from the Pacific , Atlantic .etc..Good old American fish!!!! Unless you do not mind. It takes time to look for stores that sell it but once you find it ..it is a piece of mind. They also said to ask the wait staff when dinning out where the fish is from. Hey if GMA is chatting about it I would assume it is a good thing to be aware of. I would rather eat a salad or something else healthy !! My opion
  • jkohan
    jkohan Posts: 184 Member
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    Very interesting information--and I'm quite disturbed by it and will be doing a bit more reading before removing tilapia from my menu...I've been eating it for years!
    I will not eat it either. I also stay away from any fish raised in the Asian countries. I have heard on GMA that the fish there are raised in areas of very poor . They swim and live in Human feces as well as shrimp. Stick with Gulf shrimp and fish from the Pacific , Atlantic .etc..Good old American fish!!!! Unless you do not mind. It takes time to look for stores that sell it but once you find it ..it is a piece of mind. They also said to ask the wait staff when dinning out where the fish is from. Hey if GMA is chatting about it I would assume it is a good thing to be aware of. I would rather eat a salad or something else healthy !! My opion

    i wouldn't be eating ANY fish from the Gulf these days.....
  • seemego
    seemego Posts: 10
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    aww, man,and this is the only type of fish i like,
  • nevertellen35
    nevertellen35 Posts: 13
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    Now don't stop eating it just try your best to always find out where your seafood comes from. Look into the nation it was either caught or raised in and do a little snooping into there typical hatchery situations. Now this topic raises another big thing on most peoples minds,that oil spill. I absolutely love shrimp and when possible I try to buy shrimp from my own nation however with our
    label rules it sometimes is very hard to know is it Canadian ? or is it partly Canadian? and from somewhere else. I know I certainly would be cautious of sales due to that gulf oil spill..nobody really knows the effects down the sea food chain in that area and most of our shrimp does come from the gulf coastal areas. When you read what kind of chemicals such as arsenic etc that oil is spewing out one wonders how safe our seafood will be for decades to come.

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