Why Do We Eat Tilapia But Not Carp If Carp Is the Most Farmed Fish on Earth?

Grass carp is the most farmed fish on Earth, about 6.2 million tonnes a year, and silver carp now make up as much as 70% of the fish in the Illinois River. Yet America imports roughly 400 million pounds of tilapia a year, about half of it from China, and grinds its own carp into fishmeal and fertilizer. So why won’t we eat carp? This video unpacks the hidden bones that keep a carp from ever becoming a clean fillet, where the “muddy” taste really comes from and who gets paid to taste it away, how the US government once mailed carp to farmers through their congressmen, how a 1953 fish stick slogan decided what American fish must be, why China farms tilapia for us while eating carp itself, why the silver carp leaping out of the Illinois River is not a mud fish at all, the “copi” rebrand, and the Chinese labs switching the bones off. SOURCES: FAO. (2024). The state of world fisheries and aquaculture 2024: Aquaculture production. Cao, D., et al. (2014). Comparative analysis of intermuscular bones in three strains of common carp. Journal of Applied Ichthyology. Grimm, C. C., et al. (2004). Instrumental versus sensory detection of off-flavors in farm-raised channel catfish. Aquaculture. Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. (n.d.). Cyprinus carpio species summary. NEMESIS. Illinois Department of Natural Resources. (2022). Choose Copi: Eat well and do good. Gan, R.-H., et al. (2023). Creation of intermuscular bone-free mutants in amphitriploid gibel carp by editing two duplicated runx2b homeologs. Aquaculture. #carp #tilapia #asiancarp #copi #invasivespecies #whydontweeat