i heart tilapia

and i used to consume tilapia by the freaking pound, specially when i used to live in hell-ey, where there are tons of fresh (and huuuge) tilapia sold for a dollar a pound. cheapo.

we used to go to the filipino market (or asian store if there are no filipino stores nearby) and buy pounds of tilapia, have them cleaned and deep-fried to crispy perfection. we would then buy salted eggs and some tomatoes. perfect. oh, how i miss those days.

some friends who are quite adventurous would buy tilapia, then cook them either as paksiw or sinigang or nilaga. i'm salivating as i type this post. seriously.

anyhow, i remembered when i was still in the philippines. i was assigned to cover mindanao intermittently between 1995-97 and i loved it. one time, we went to lake sebu where a restaurant served all-tilapia, all-the-time. imagine kinilaw na tilapia, adobong tilapia, paksiw na tilapia, pritong tilapia, nilagang tilapia...you get my point. i loved the place. it was tilapia heaven.

i haven't had tilapia in about a year. and i miss it.

then today, i read this. tilapia is worse than bacon, the report says.

i'm like, what the f? hahaha. doctors told us to consume fish, fish, fish. and now comes this report that this particular fish, of all fishes in the sea, is worse than bacon? what the hell? it could have been lapu-lapu or sea bass (on second thought, no) or mackerel...but tilapia? darn!

Wake Forest University School of Medicine researchers say their research revealed that farm-raised tilapia, as well as farmed catfish, "have several fatty acid characteristics that would generally be considered by the scientific community as detrimental."

Tilapia has higher levels of potentially detrimental, long-chain, omega-6 fatty acids than 80-percent-lean hamburger, doughnuts and even pork bacon," write the Wake Forest researchers in an article published this month in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.