Let's talk about Tilapia (fish)

No, it's not high in mercury - those are pretty much all larger fish that have longer life cycles.

Tilapia is a garbage fish that is almost exclusively farmed in gross conditions and I think it tastes like it. I won't eat it. I avoid farmed fish whenever possible, and especially farmed fish from Asia. Lots of tilapia comes from China and... no thanks. ETA: I'm overstating it, apparently. After looking up Seafood Watch, it's not as bad as it used to be, environmentally. Nonetheless, I strongly dislike tilapia and don't choose it.

Here's a little something about it www.foxnews.com/leisure/2014/04/09/truth-about-tilapia/

Seafood Watch is actually not that down on Asian tilapia and ranks North American tilapia highly. I rarely see US/Canada tilapia in stores. 

I think tilapia tastes gross, personally, and I am a seafood fan. 

It eats a primarily vegetarian diet - so is NOT a concern for mercury. The only issue I've heard with tilapia was a few years ago regarding farm raised tilapia in China. I avoid food from China and it's relatively easy to find US raised tilapia.

We eat a ton of fresh seafood as we are fisherpeople in my family (redfish, grouper, snook, etc.) and talipia was never really on my radar as buying fish is not something I do very often. However, I have heard that talipia is a really mild fish, so I suppose if you know the source (not farm raised in one of the Asian countries) then I suspect I wouldn't mind it.

As a disclaimer though-any seafood that I do buy is from the US only. No Asian farm raised at all, ever.

We eat tilapia a couple of times a month - usually grilled for fish tacos.

The Truth About Tilapia from UC Berkeley Wellness April 2015


The Birdhouse Lady I was going to ask why you were eating tilapia when you have all that gorgeous Alaska salmon available  . DH took a sports fishing trip to northern BC last summer and we feasted on salmon & halibut for months.

It's a bottom feeder (like catfish) and to me it doesn't taste good. I don't eat farmed raised anything either so I stick to wild salmon for my fish choice each week.

It's the McDonalds of fish.

We do not eat Tilapia. I won't cook with it at home and I won't order it in a restaurant. I dislike that it is almost exclusively a farmed fish and have seen/read too much about the unsanitary conditions that much of it is farmed in. There are too many other choices of more desirable fish to settle for Tilapia.

I shall add this to the many things I've learned here at 2peas.

Have never had Tilapia that I know of, but isn't it just a carp? really all I know about carp is that when we would go fishing when I was a kid we didn't keep the carp. ever. I grew up being told you just don't eat them. so really I have no clue on the mercury thing

We call it POOP FISH!!!

I've eaten it. It's OK. Pretty much all of the fish that we eat has been pulled out of a local lake by my husband. I'm spoiled.

Well darn it. I have purchased the tilapia from Costco and we liked it. It wasn't fishy and it certainly didn't taste like mud. It was a fresh clean taste.

But now that I've read this post, I doubt I will ever be able to eat it again.

I originally started buying it when one of my cats stopped eating. She had lost over 4 pounds by this point and was looking just awful. The vet couldn't find anything wrong with her. Every test came back normal. He gave me medication to make her hungry, but if didn't seem to help.

Desperate, I worked through the majority of cat foods and treats from my pet health food store. I went to the butcher and bought small amounts of various kinds of meat. Nope. I drove down to the harbor and bought small amounts of the different fish they had that day. I bought a little piece of tilapia from somewhere and she ended up eating every single bite of it. She had refused fresh tuna, halibut, salmon, and shrimp. Costco carries individually packaged unbreaded filets and I made if for her three times a day until she started to put a little weight back on.

Both my mom and I have eaten it and thought it was good. It is certainly reasonably priced and convenient, which I guess should have told me it would be bad for me.