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/ck/ - Food & Cooking

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File: 1.45 MB, 1280x960, Tilapia_zilli_Kineret.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4859185 No.4859185[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

yo /ck/,
/fit/ here,
I was wondering if anyone knows if Tilapia is truly unhealthy as everyone says it is. I've heard that it's "worse than eating bacon" in terms of fat apparently.
If so, whats a good alternative?

>> No.4859187

It's not, don't listen to them. It just tastes like muddy, dirty trash because it's a bottom feeder scavenger.

>> No.4859190

fatty fish is good for you ya dingus, why do you think cod liver oil is a supplement

>> No.4859191 [DELETED] 

>>4859185
>fat
>fish
/fit/ aren't all this meathead-y are they?

>> No.4859194

>>4859187
This.

>> No.4859199

>>4859187
/thread

>> No.4859201
File: 27 KB, 450x326, fatty fish.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4859201

>>4859191
not all fish are lean ya dingus

>> No.4859202

its easy to raise for fedora aquaponic guys that spend a shitload of money on their setup.

actually i have no idea, just an assumption using shit ive learned over the years

>> No.4859220

>>4859187
Alright then, so what's some better alternatives? Salmon?

>> No.4859240

>>4859220
Well what I was trying to say is that it's not bad for you at all. It just tastes really earthy. Like, imagine after a moderate shower, and you walk outside and you're hit with the smell of fresh mud. It's easy to mask with some spices, lemon and butter, but the hint'll still be there.

It's super cheap for the reason I listed above, it's not a premium fish at all. If you want some variety, learn how to fish and do some research of your local parks and lakes and rivers, get the respective bait and go to town.

It's cheap to do that if you're a poorfag or college student, plus it's nice to just get out for awhile, you know?

>> No.4859498

>>4859240
word i feel ya

thanks

>> No.4859575

>>4859240
It's cheap because it's one of the most popular fish in the world, it has dominated fish farming for a long time and is sold by the ton, it's a good fish, maybe a little tasteless but good

>> No.4860529

>>4859575
dominated my ass. they introduced tilapia to the market because they were using them to eat the catfish and salmon shit in the tanks to keep them clean. they ended up with a surplus of fish they wanted to sell. there you go.

it's not cheap because it's popular. it's cheap because it's shit, nearly literally. It's "popular" because it's cheap.

>> No.4860535

Farm fed tilapia tastes great.

>> No.4860544

>>4859185
Tilapia tastes like nothing. It was funny watching Iron Chef when they got Tilapia. They were all, "How the fuck are we supposed to make Tilapia stand out?"

>> No.4860548

>>4860544
Tilapia tastes like fish poo.

>> No.4860552

Is it strange at all that the best tilapia I've ever tasted was at Denny's?

Seems like people already have a low opinion of tilapia as it is, and Denny's doesn't always have the best reputation. But damn it, they can cook up a mean tilapia.

And I've had tilapia in many other ways. I've cooked it myself, I've had family cook it for me, I've had it served to me when I was visiting, and I've even ordered it at other restaurants. But somehow Denny's beats all of them.

>> No.4860557

>>4860552
probably salted and flash frozen? it seems even fresh tilapia has a window of only 15 minutes before it starts to get fishy.
I don't know? I've never had it at Denny's so I don't know what they season it with or anything.

>> No.4860734

Bacon isn't unhealthy, you dipshit, unless you eat a metric ton a day. God fucking damn it, you stupid sodding shits with no understanding of basic nutrition. You NEED some dietary fat. That's what houses fat soluble vitamins, that's what keeps our brain cushioned, it has uses. All this fat-free shit is just because the average person is a fatass and could use to eat less saturated fat from plastic cheese covered hotdogs. If you are a normal, healthy person, with a normal, healthy diet, then bacon is good for you.

Tilapia is a fish that eats fish shit. Crab and lobster are shellfish who eat fish shit and whatever refuse they can find. If you argue tilapia is bad because it eats shit, then you better not be eating crab and lobster.

It's a cheap fish for people who can't afford good fish. It doesn't taste like a good fish, but it's perfectly healthy and edible.

>> No.4860739

>>4860734
tl;dr

anyway, tilapia is garbage. it seems to be the preferred "health food" of idiots who shop at trader joe's because they think the brown paper display cases make everything moar healthy.

>> No.4860865

>>4859575
No, tilapia is cheap because they're relatively easy to farm-raise and most of the stuff sold in the U.S. is farmed in China, where they can feed them garbage and sewage.

Salmon pens are (for better or for worse) in the actual ocean (in protected bays), so their water gets replaced continuously (and fouls the area, and lets them catch and breed parasites, and ...). Tilapia are grown in huge tanks or pools where they swim in their own waste.

>> No.4860885

>>4860865

This guy is right. We use tilapia at the place I work, its from china, and its garbage. if you douse it in something flavorful (like Old Bay) it's palatable.

>> No.4860886

>>4860865
>Tilapia are grown in huge tanks or pools
Nope, they're farmed in rivers.

>> No.4860891

Why is cod the tastiest fish?

>> No.4860901

What's a good price for tilapia? If I were to buy one whole, what's the best way to cook it?

>> No.4860914

All the people in this topic who think it tastes like mud and extrement must be getting different tilapia because the ones I ate were just rather bland but certainly not offensive in any way.

>> No.4861643

>>4859187
>bottom feeder

Not sure what you're on about, bottom feeders are some of the tastiest fish. I loves me some shrimp and catfish when I can afford it!

>> No.4861644

>>4861643
>catfish when I can afford it!
If you're in a place where catfish is spendy then when you get it, it's farm raised (which you should always eat anyway) which has an amazingly strictly controlled diet to keep it from tasting like ass.

>> No.4861645

Tilapia is disgusting.

>> No.4861648

>>4861645
>Tilapia is disgusting.
If you think that, you need to just stop eating fish. Tilapia is the most averagely average fish. There's nothing remarkable about its flavor or texture in any way, shape, or form.

>> No.4861692

ITT: fat crybabies afraid of a little fish taste because they grew up eating purely cheeseburgers and easy mac

>> No.4861713

>>4861692
I grew up eating salmon, snapper, sole, tuna, halibut, and other good fish.

Tilapia wasn't even a thing when I was a kid, it first started showing up in supermarkets when I was in my early 20s, and it enjoyed a brief trend among "foodies" until the novelty wore off and people realized it wasn't actually good food. In Asia it's pretty much scorned as poor people's fish, and unsurprisingly it didn't take Americans very long to catch on.

From the sound of your post I'm thinking you can't get good fish where you live so you've trained yourself to tolerate tilapia because it's as good as fish gets wherever you are. You can't imagine why anyone would have a problem with tilapia because you don't know anything better.

>> No.4861720

>>4859185
>/fit/ here

Why would we care what board you came from? What is the relevance?

>> No.4861727

>>4861720

Because they think that it will make you imagine them as having an impressive physique even though it really makes you picture a sweaty fat neckbeard.

>> No.4861738
File: 268 KB, 1200x600, Walleye.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4861738

>>4859185
Tilapia isn't really bad for you, but tastes pretty much nothing.

Walleye is more expensive, but so fucking better. Very well worth the price.

>> No.4863671
File: 236 KB, 1200x1600, Swai-frozen-package-001.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4863671

>>4861738

I have never seen walleye for sale anywhere. I was under the impression that it's pretty much exclusively a game fish, enjoyed only by people who catch them.

Also, they're not native around here (Washington) and can only be found in a few lakes.

Back on the topic at hand, if you jumped on the anti-tilapia bandwagon and now you're regretting the lack of cheap utility fish in your freezer, try swai! It's cheap and Chinese, but hating it hasn't become popular yet!

>> No.4863700

>>4859185
>truly unhealthy as everyone says it is

I've never heard anyone claim tiliapia was unhealthy. It's certainly not fatty, as is obvious by frying a fillet of it--no fat rendered out.

What IS commonly stated is that it's nearly flavorless and is often raised in questionable conditions: tilapia is raised in small ponds, often fed chicken shit--no really, google it. It's also not unheard of for the ponds to be treated with various medications added to prevent disease.

>>4859187
muddy dirty trash I agree with, due to the aforementioned overfilled farm ponds and garbage that they get fed.

Tilapia is not a bottom feeder though, and wild tilapia that have a better diet are tastier, but are also a heck of a lot more expensive than what you usually find at the supermarket.

>> No.4863703

>>4859185
Tilapia can't have that much fat on it , it's bland as fuck. fatty fish like tuna for instance are usually more flavorful.

>> No.4863755

Tilapia was the first aquacultured animal and was farmed by the ancient Egyptians. It's been a staple of middle eastern cuisine for thousands of years and popular in Mexico and south america for decades.

It's typically pretty bland but takes to herbs and spices really well and if you can get it from a locally farmed source or catch it yourself from one of the man-made bodies of water it's been introduced to you'll find it's a lot better than the farmed Chinese shit.

The biggest problem is that they're finding farmed tilapia are typically fed way too much corn which results in the ratio of omega 3 to omega 6 being way off, making them a lot less healthy than wild-caught tilapia.

>> No.4863760

>>4863671
Not even lying, but I hate swai and basa. They are nothing but hipster catfish, and catfish is disgusting.

>> No.4863768

>>4860886
Depends on the fish farm. Google image-search "tilapia farm" and you will see both.

Not that a river in China is any better than a giant fishtank, and in fact, it's probably a lot worse. They dump industrial waste any time they feel like it, there's agricultural runoff, and housing sewage lines dump directly into rivers. At least with tanks, there's a chance the water got run through some filtration at some point. . . .

>> No.4863777

>>4863760
>Not even lying, but I hate swai and basa. They are nothing but hipster catfish

How is cheap Chinese farmed fish that's marketed as "catfish" to undercut sales of domestic catfish but a lot cheaper and less healthy make it "hipster"?

>> No.4863786

It's actually considered "unhealthy" because it lacks the omega-3s that other fish have. One source I'm looking at says salmon has ten times the amount that tilapia has.

>> No.4863796

>>4863786
It varies depending on the feed. Wild tilapia have more omega 3 than omega 6 but fish fed primarily on corn have extremely low amounts of omega 3. Some farmers in the U.S. have started reducing the amount of corn in the fish feed and replacing it with flaxseed and other ingredients to try and rectify it after all the bad publicity. Other farms that don't rely so heavily on corn as the U.S., like in Thailand and Egypt, don't have the same issue.

>> No.4863833

>>4863671
Oh, right. They're pretty easy to find in Montreal, but I guess it's because there are so many lakes in Quebec. Didn't think the supply would be different in the West Coast at the moment.

>> No.4863840

>>4863786

But that doesn't mean it's unhealthy. That just means it's not as healthy as a different fish. See the difference?

>> No.4863842

>>4863777
Maybe in your area, in mine it is never marketed as catfish, and everyone tries to talk about how it is some new great imported fish. Maybe hipster was the wrong description, more like selling snake oil to yokels.

>> No.4863873

Tilapia is not unhealthy, it's just bland as fuck, so people try to come up with ways to discredit it other than flavor. I personally just buy swai, as it's cheap, mild, nicer tasting than tilapia, and not too expensive.

>> No.4863891

Bottom feeders not a fresh water bath for a couple of days to remove the taste