Scientists Designing Fish for Better Taste, Nutrition

Jan. 8 -- Researchers at Purdue University are creating designer diets for farm-raised fish that could make fish healthier and tastier for humans to eat.

That's good news, considering the avalanche of reports in recent years from organizations like the American Heart Association and the National Academy of Sciences showing that a regular diet of fish, even if it's just once or twice a week, could help stave off heart disease and several other crippling illnesses.

Don't get your hopes up too soon, though. They aren't even close to making a catfish taste like a hot fudge sundae, or a Big Mac, but according to Paul Brown, a "nutritional aquaculturalist" who is leading the research team at Purdue, they're figuring out how to make it much more palatable.

"If the consumer will tell us what they want in a fish, we can make it taste that way," says Brown, a forestry and natural resources professor at Purdue.

Fattier Fish

Of course, making fish taste better isn't the primary goal of the research. What Brown and his colleagues are putting the most effort into is enhancing the package of natural fatty acids that make fish so beneficial to the human diet.

Some fish, especially mackerel, lake trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna and salmon, contain two types of fatty acids called Omega-3s that protect against heart disease, according to a recent report by the American Heart Association. The acids make the blood less likely to form clots that cause heart attacks, and they protect against irregular heartbeats that cause sudden cardiac death, according to the study.

Omega-3 fatty acids also help bones grow, according to other research at Purdue.

Fish naturally have those acids, and in fact need them for their own survival, but they don't have another kind of fatty acid, called conjugated linoleic acid, which research has shown can help fight against certain cancers and diabetes.

Discovery of the health benefits of that particular fatty acid caused a stir a few years ago because it occurs naturally in cooked ground round, and health officials worried that might send the wrong message, leading to even greater consumption of beef. It does not occur naturally in fish.