Tilapia has a flavor that, even if you dislike the taste of fish in general, most people find enjoyable. The protein is also complete and has a density that is really attractive. Each gram of protein will cost you a mere 4.89 Calories.
Tilapia is also an excellent source of selenium and B vitamins. Let’s dive in.
Is Tilapia Protein Complete?
Tilapia protein is absolutely complete. I’m actually not aware of any fish source of protein that isn’t complete.
Tilapia Protein Density
Protein density here isn’t going to be grams of protein per volume as you might expect. We’re going to look at how many calories come with each gram of protein.
Pure protein would be roughly 4 Calories per gram of protein.
Tilapia is 4.89 Calories per gram of protein.
For comparison, chicken breast in 5.32, tuna is 5.42, turkey breast 4.88 and black beans 14.9.
Everyone has a daily caloric budget and a protein target. The higher the protein density relative to calories the lower the caloric cost of protein. Protein sources that have low caloric costs make hitting both targets almost trivially easy.
Other Nutrients and Minerals in Tilapia
The values below are for 100g of cooked tilapia. Divide by 100 (move the decimal place to the left two positions) to get the per gram values.
%DV
Selenium 78%
Vitamin B12 31%
Vitamin B3/Niacin 24%
Potassium 11%
Comparison with Soy and Lentils
Numbers in isolation are meaningless. Let’s compare tilapia protein with two great sources of protein from the plant world. We do this not to play a childish game of “which is better” but rather to see and understand the differences. For the soy protein source we’re going to use Tofu.
Comparison with Whey
Next we’ll look at our other benchmark, whey protein. Everyone in the fitness and health world knows about whey which makes it useful for comparisons. Whey is also a fantastic source of branch chain amino acids which also makes the comparison a little more interesting.
Conclusion
The high protein density of tilapia makes it a useful tool for meeting your daily protein needs. The high quality, in terms of essential amino acids, adds even more flexibility in the sense that one doesn’t need large amounts to get every essential amino acid in sufficient quantities.
As usual leave a comment in the space below. If you’re into elaborate recipes I’ll leave you with the following:
