The tilapia story is still bouncing around out there with misinformed journalists repeating the easily digestible but off-base, sound-bite science that continues to suggest eating doughnuts and bacon rather than tilapia because of their differing “health properties.”

I am not a doctor, and I don’t play one on TV, but I am alive on planet earth in the year 2008 and I just can’t imagine a journalist in good faith reporting on something that without context or scientific explanation might make people change their eating habits such that they would replace a healthy protein like tilapia with ground beef, bacon and doughnuts.

The root of all this is the amount of omega-6’s found in tilapia and some other fish but let’s take a moment and get some perspective on this. If products that are higher in omega-6’s are to be shunned for health reasons then the following should be taken off the menu along with tilapia: poultry, eggs, cereals, whole-grain breads, nuts and most vegetable oils.

When you see it in the context of that list it’s a little bit ridiculous isn’t it? Well, the fervor that has sprung up around this story is a little bit ridiculous too and the coverage is quite frankly disappointing and borderline reckless.