Celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern claims America’s next health revolution is in the seafood section of the grocery store.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, the “Bizarre Foods” host and James Beard Award-winning chef said one of the most dangerous habits of Americans today is that they’re neglecting fish.
“Seafood is the healthiest protein in general … from digestion to brain health to brain growth for younger people and on and on,” Zimmern said.
The Minnesota-based chef said seafood is “extremely beneficial” to the body.
“It’s very low in fat, in general — and what fats that are there are very, very healthy ones.”
In Zimmern’s new “Blue Food Cookbook,” co-written with fellow chef Barton Seaver, he says a simple shift in American diets could have ripple effects for public health, the environment and the economy.
“I’d love it if people ate one more meal from the water every single week,” he said. “Just one.”
Zimmern has spent decades exploring what people eat and why.
He himself has eaten everything from tarantulas in Cambodia to fermented shark in Iceland, but his message now is simple: Seafood is the future.
“We export 75% of what American fisheries bring in,” he said. “That number’s topsy-turvy. We should be keeping more of that seafood here at home.”
By creating more demand for seafood, the price would drop, more people would eat it and “human beings would be healthier,” Zimmern said.
Part of the problem, he said, is the illusion of cheap meat.
“We have been almost hypnotized, in a way, in this country to assume that a steak of a certain size, individually portioned, wrapped in plastic in the supermarket, should cost $8 or $9,” Zimmern said. “And that was the case for 40, 50 years. That is no longer the case.”
The average retail price for 100% ground beef has risen from $4.63 in 2020 to $6.12 in 2025, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“The average family in America can’t afford that,” Zimmern said.
That said, Zimmern believes red meat and seafood can co-exist.
“I love red meat,” he said. “I’m eating less and less of it as every year goes by, but I love it.”
Zimmern also shot down one of America’s more persistent seafood snobberies: the so-called “garbage fish.”
“It’s a big myth,” he said. “At the end of the day, the important question isn’t, ‘Is it wild?’ ‘Is it farmed?’ … The question should be, ‘Where was it caught, and is it sustainable and regenerative?’”
He calls tilapia — a mild, inexpensive and farm-raised fish often dismissed by diners — one of his go-to meals.
“We eat it in our house once a week because it takes on flavors very well,” Zimmern said.
“If I made tilapia with lemon and capers — which is the way I choose to serve it most of the time to my family — not only does it take me about 12 minutes to make, I serve it to company … and they’re like, ‘Oh my God, what is this fish?’ And I’m like, ‘It’s tilapia.'”
