Scientists engineer vegetarian diet for carnivorous fish

Cobia, a fish with flaky,white meatand a sweet, rich flavour, could soon become all the rage at trendy dinner parties, following a discovery that could make it feasible to raise cobia on fish farms.

Cobia are meat eaters, which has made them unsuitable for aquaculture upuntil now. That's becausefeeding them large amounts of meat in the form of fish meal,producedbygrinding uphuge numbers ofsmaller fish,is neither sustainable nor cost-effective.

New research from the University of Maryland has developed a plant-based alternative to fish meal that makes the fish grow just as well, without the waste and the accumulation of toxic chemicals like mercury in fish meat thatoften happens when farmed fish are fed a diet based on fish meal.

This new plant-based protein and oil alternative has been specially formulated for cobia and even includes supplementation with taurine, the active ingredient in Red Bull and a known essential nutrient for these fish.

• Listen to CBCs science columnist, Torah Kachur, as she explains more about the new wave of seafood.