I love fish. Rainbow trout, speckled trout, red fish, halibut, walleye, perch, croaker and sea bass are among my favorites. I love them fried in either flour or corn meal. Halibut thermidor, baked halibut with butter and cheese, is tough to beat. Fried sea bass coated with macadamia nuts….giddy-up!

These fish can also be cooked in a more nutritious fashion. A typically method is either baking or grilled the fish with some herbs and a little lemon juice. Though I can eat and enjoy any of these cooked a nutritious way, it isn’t my preference.

Recently I discovered Tilapia; a fish I love eating the nutritious way. Tilapia is great baked with a little salt and lemon juice on top. We buy it at Costco in individually frozen filets. I’ve never bought it fresh and had it be as good, so I’ll stick with the frozen. I’m so thrilled with the discovery of Tilapia that I want everyone to know about it. Hopefully a few details will get you excited about it.

Common names

• Tilapia (Blue, Nile and Mozambique)

• St. Peter’s Fish

• The Wonder Fish

• Nile Perch

Facts

• Excellent tasting, firm, white meat

• Protein rich

• Kosher

• Non-fishy taste

• Vegetarian eating only algae and plants

• Low on food chain so they don’t build up pollutants in their bodies

• Very strong digestive acids allow for efficient digestion

• Easily grown in third world for local consumption or cash crop

Aquaculture

• Hardy fish that like warm water

• Thrives in fresh, brackish, or salt water

• Great cleanup fish for wastewater

• Tilapia waste is good fertilizer

• When conditions are good, there are no diseases that cause significant population impact

• Can go from fry to harvest in six months

• Reproduce year round

• Can be grown in open ponds, submerged cages, aquariums or tanks on land

• Tolerant of environmental changes, water quality, temperature, salinity and population density

• Inexpensive to grow

History

• Tilapia is recorded in human history as far back as ancient Egypt

• Tradition holds that the Tilapia was the fish that Jesus used to feed the five-thousand on the Sea of Galilee

• Presumed to be the fish that carried a shekel coin in its mouth (see Matthew 17)

• First fish taken into space

If you don’t like fish….go get some tilapia. Trust me!