Are tilapia inflammatory?

Image: Michael Rupert HayesSo, you started eating Paleo? You’re browsing the blogs trying to figure out just what the Paleo diet is. But one thing you know for sure, fish is Paleo. Indeed, 70 to 80 thousand years ago our ancestors living  in Blombos Cave, South Africa were catching fish in the Indian Ocean. They also created the first clear symbolic image, a block of ochre engraved with cross-hatched lines bordered above and below by parallel lines. This stunning find suggests the importance of fish to the development of the human mind. After all, seafood has plenty of omega-3 fatty acids, right?  

At the fish counter of your grocery store you pick up a couple of tilapia. The fish are small, bland, and can easily be incorporated into a variety of meals. They are just the right size to serve as the main course. Only one problem - well, probably more than one - tilapia have minimal, if any, omega-3 fatty acids (n-fatty acids) and are high in omega-6 fatty acids: a recipe for inflammation. (We need both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids; what is important is the ratio of the two.) As a primarily vegetarian fish, tilapia, even wild-caught as in the image above, are very low in omega-3. Unfortunately,

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