Tilapia: The flip side of the perfect factory fish

Tilapia is traditionally regarded as the fish in the biblical story of Jesus feeding a multitude of five thousand. The question is the price we pay for farmed tilapia as part of the contemporary food supply. It is fish, to be sure, but it doesn't offer the same nutritional value as species far richer in omega 3 fatty acids. Tilapia is also one of the world's most destructively invasive fish species. What makes tilapia so destructive is its rapid feeding and growth cycle and its adaptability to a wide variety of habitats. Those are also the perfect traits for a factory fish.

As global aquaculture in tilapia booms, the words of Danilo Sosa, a technician with Nicanor Fish Farms in Nicaragua, bear remembering: “Nature is for maintaining species; what we do is make fillets.”