The present study, carried out with juvenile tilapia, showed that
a relatively short period of feeding (10 weeks), with a fish oil-based
diet, is sufficient to significantly modify the fatty acid profile of
tilapia fillets. Numerous beneficial health effects have been attributed
to n-3 fatty acids. Among these are: lower blood pressure, decrease
in triglicerides and improved learning ability in children.
Fish species, e.g. salmon, herring and sardines, are known to be
naturally rich in n-3 fatty acids, while tilapia normally contain
low levels of n-3. Further research, using ‘finishing diets’ containing
fish oil on market-sized tilapia, is necessary to examine the
potential to culture tilapia, as a n-3-enriched functional food. It
may be possible, in the future, to offset the additional feeding costs,
associated with the use of supplementing fish oil, by sales of
n-3-enriched tilapia fillets to specialised markets, where sales
strategies are based on the health-promoting levels of long chain,
n-3 fatty acids.