In aquaculture, there is high interest in substituting fishmeal protein with carbohydrate (CHO)-based substrates such as vegetable starch. Procurement of fishmeal protein remains highly dependent on overexploited wild fisheries (1); hence any reduction in its consumption by farmed fish would reduce the ecological burden and improve the sustainability of aquaculture (2). Furthermore, to the extent that dietary CHO replaces protein for systemic glucose and energy demands (3), it decreases waste ammonia generation from protein catabolism, thereby reducing nitrogenous effluents. For carnivorous fish such as the European seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax L.), the efficacy of this approach depends on the capacity of the fish to adapt from their natural diet that is high in both protein and fat, but lacking in CHO, to a regime where the proportion of dietary CHO to total caloric content is increased (4). The capacity to digest complex CHO varies widely between different fish species (5). Generally, carnivorous fish are poorly able to digest raw starch (RS). Cooking or gelatinizing the starch significantly improves its digestibility Abstract Farmed seabass have higher adiposity than their wild counterparts and this is often attributed to carbohydrate (CHO) feeding. Whether this reflects a reduction in fat oxidation, increased de novo lipogenesis (DNL), or both, is not known. To study the effects of high CHO diets on hepatic TG biosynthesis, hepatic TG deuterium ( similar hepatic TG levels to CTRL. DS-fed fish showed higher activity for enzymes that can provide NADPH for lipogenesis, relative to CTRL in the case of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PDH) and relative to RS for both G6PDH and 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase. This approach indicated that elevated hepatic adiposity from DS feeding was not attributable to increased DNL.-Viegas, I., I.