Why we add fat to a fish that doesn't have any

This episode covers oven-baked tilapia served over a Mediterranean salad — and organizes the argument around a practical fish hierarchy: good is tilapia, better is salmon, best is wild Alaskan sockeye. The framing is a more clinically useful way to think about what each fish is doing and what the rest of the plate needs to contribute.

Chad Larson, NMD walks through the SMASH framework — salmon, mackerel, anchovy, sardines, herring — as the oily fish category delivering 1,500 to 2,500 mg of EPA and DHA per 100 grams, versus tilapia's roughly 100 to 200 mg. That gap is structural: farmed tilapia's omega-6 to long-chain omega-3 ratio averages around 11:1 (Chilton et al., Wake Forest, 2008), a feature of corn- and soy-based aquaculture feed that hasn't materially changed. What tilapia does contribute — 26 grams of protein per 100 grams, selenium, B12 — earns it a place as a legitimate weeknight protein source. The omega-3 case has to come from elsewhere in the week. The episode also covers sourcing: nearly all tilapia sold in US retail is farmed, with domestic producers (Regal Springs, Blue Ridge Aquaculture) operating under tighter feed standards; Trader Joe's frozen tilapia is flagged as a practical default.

The cardiometabolic argument rests on the olive oil, not the fish. Tilapia has roughly 2 grams of total fat per 100 grams. The butter and high-polyphenol EVOO used in cooking, and the additional olive oil added at the end, are filling in what the fish doesn't bring. Oleuropein and hydroxytyrosol, the active phenolic compounds in early-harvest EVOO, carry the mechanism. A 2023 meta-analysis of 33 trials in the Journal of Nutrition found meaningful improvements in insulin sensitivity associated with high-polyphenol extra virgin olive oil. The Mediterranean salad — Kalamata olives, chickpeas, pepperoncinis, romaine, Pecorino Romano — is built around the same framework.

This episode is part of the ongoing Kitchen Video series. The full video version is available on YouTube.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to our kitchen. Today we're going to make another metabolically healthy and aligned meal. So today we're going to have tilapia. Tilapia is a very simple fish. It's cheap. It's, you know, we always talk about good, better, and best. Good is tilapia. Better would be maybe salmon. I'll talk about the high sort of omega-3 rich fish. Best would probably be sake Alaskan wild salmon because it has the highest omega-3 content. But the reason why we're going with tilapia, first of all, it's it's cheap and easy. We're all about demonstrating um metabolically healthy foods that aren't aren't necessarily perfect. We're not going for perfection, we're going for metabolic alignment. Like I've said before, you can only serve so many masters at the same time. And tilapia is very low in omegas, but it's actually pretty rich in a high-quality protein. And we also like to mix it up. We've had quite a bit of uh beef this week, and so we're chicken, and so we're mixing it up with a little fish tonight. So when it comes to um fish in general, probably the top five best fish to get are what we call smash, S-M-A-S-H, salmon, mackerel, anchovy, sardines, herring. Um a lot of those fish are just really not in our culture. Maybe some people eat salmon every now and again, but from an omega-3 standpoint, it's those fatty fish that are really the best. But what we get from tilapia is we get a great source of protein. It's a very, very mild fish. There's other people eating with us tonight. So it's it's it's one that is kind of a crowd pleaser for a whole variety of people that might be eating. So we're gonna have tilapia. What can I have in a sort of Mediterranean theme? We're also gonna have uh a Mediterranean sort of a Greek salad. You want to you want to say a little bit more about what comes on the salad?

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Yeah, but we all we did we always talk about, I think if you're cooking at home, you're winning. So again, like I think sometimes we put this pressure on ourselves, like we have to make this amazing meal. But I again, I think if you're cooking at home, again, that's that's the best. Um the tilapia, I usually get it at Trader Joe's. Again, we have no affiliation with anyone, but um they didn't they were out today, but I do feel like they're a little thicker. I ended up having to go to sprouts and I always get it frozen. Another thing I always have in our freezer a bunch of shrimp, tilapia, so I can pull it out and and make it pretty quickly. Um for the salad, yes, we're doing a Mediterranean salad and my kids love it. So if you want to pan over here, we can just look real quick. Um so I do cut up some salami. I get this just no nitrates and stuff. Um, and then I do put some Kalmada olives tonight. I have not done this, but I'm gonna put some chickpeas, scarbonzo beans, um, definitely peppercinis, and then some cucumber. There's our daughter Julia in the background. And then I we do a little bit of um parm on it, and we get the percornio romano cheese. I think this is easier to tolerate on your gut, possibly.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Yeah, typically the AIDS cheese is first of all, you're gonna get away with less. We've talked about before that this cheese has uh a nice flavor profile called umami, which actually comes with its own health benefits. And uh you just have a little bit. Uh for those of us who are cow dairy sensitive, um, some of us can get away with a little bit of that. I can handle a little, I can get away with a little goat cheese, but I can't have like ice cream and milk and those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

And again, I we I use romaine, but I I took a little bit of time, not a lot, to cut up a bunch of romaine and I put it in a baggie. So um, okay, so I'm gonna do the tilapia. I just um I do I love this crushed garlic. It is from Trader Joe's and comes in these cubes, but I throw it in everything. So I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

If you're you know, if you're super natural level, you're gonna take the garlic and you're gonna chop it up and mince it and all that kind of stuff. And we do that for sure. But this little um, you know, kind of frozen garlic squares are just they work really good. It gives you a nice garlic uh kind of flavor in the butter. And it's super simple if you're a little low on time.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

And I add some olive oil too.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

So I just kind of And that's really key. Since this type of fish is actually very low in high-quality fats, we're basically adding our own fat to it. We're using extra virgin olive oil, and we know all the awesome polyphenols and different compounds in that. So again, it's kind of sticking with our Mediterranean theme. We're having some fish, we're having uh we're actually cooking it in some butter and some olive oil. When it's all done and I put it on my plate, I'm actually gonna flatter a little more fresh uh olive oil on top of it and then have that coffee with the salad. Yeah, we're gonna put some brush cheddar on. Whoever wants that. Um, we're also cooking some white rice. Um, we've got, you know, a teenage girl and we have uh two boys in their 20s. I think they're coming by today, and they love having white rice along with this, and they can handle those kind of carbs. We might have a little bit. I'm probably skipping it tonight, but um, but yeah, you know, it's an option. So I thought I'd mention a little bit about what I had today for my overall, you know, kind of three-made meal today. So this morning I had pretty much what I have every morning. I had um turkey burger patties. I just kind of make the patties myself. They are half-pound patties. I just throw that in a castor iron skillet, uh, cook that. Um, you know, it's like maybe 12 minutes aside, something like that. And then I cook a couple eggs with that, and I put the eggs over the top, and I had some kimchi on the side for lunch. Um, so basically last night we had we had uh burger bowls, so hamburger meat, and then we had sort of the fixings and things that you typically have on a hamburger. We'll do that another time. Yeah, we'll we'll show that one some other time. We just had bowls with all the you know, lettuce and pickles and on the different stuff on top with the primal kitchen special sauce. So we had leftovers, surprisingly, and I had that for lunch today. And then today we're having the tilapia. So protein forward, metabolically healthy. That's the point.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Doing a video. So everything's done, and instead of rice, I'm gonna have coleslaw. I usually make a citrus slaw, but again, I didn't want to feel like doing that tonight, so it's coleslaw from Jimbo's. Um, and here's the finished product: uh the tilapia, paprichetta, some coleslaw, and then a nice big salad.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Tell me a little bit more about the salad.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

There's olives, peppercinis, salami, barbanzo beans, and some cucumber, and a little bit of parm.