Fish as food product

Sin­ce the begin­ning of time, fish is a typi­cal food in coas­tal are­as. As fish is rela­tively easy to catch, its high-qua­li­ty pro­te­ins con­tri­bu­ting essen­ti­al­ly to a healt­hy nut­ri­ti­on of human­kind. But this is not the only reason why fish is an bel­oved pro­duct. Here is a quick gui­de to its ori­gin and what you should pay atten­ti­on to.

Fish are aqua­tic ver­te­bra­tes, who are not only caught off­shore, but are also cul­ti­va­ted in net cages by the shore or on land in aquacul­tures like ponds or RAS (recir­cu­la­ting aquacul­tu­re sys­tems). Nor­way is curr­ent­ly the trail­bla­zer for pro­du­cing sal­mon in the Euro­pean Uni­on (EU), which is the most eaten fish in Ger­ma­ny. Sal­mon is also the third most eaten one in the EU, with only tuna and cod­fi­sh excee­ding it.

In avera­ge, a citi­zen of the EU is con­sum­ing more than 25kg (around 55lbs) fish per year. Espe­ci­al­ly the count­ries Por­tu­gal, Spain, France and Luxem­bourg are pushing this avera­ge ahigh. A Por­tu­gue­se is sta­tis­ti­cal­ly eating the most fish and its pro­ducts; by near­ly 56kg per year, it is more than the dou­ble of an avera­ge EU citi­zen. Two thirds of the over­all con­sump­ti­on are mari­ne fish, thus salt­wa­ter fish. The­se are rich in iod­i­ne, essen­ti­al unsa­tu­ra­ted fat­ty acids as well as in a high con­tent of vit­amins A, B and D. Edi­ble fish like­wi­se pro­vi­ding important mine­ral nut­ri­ents and trace ele­ments. The main aspect though is the sup­p­ly of high-qua­li­ty ani­mal pro­te­in. Fish meta­bo­li­ze the feed bet­ter than endo­therms like catt­le or pigs and ther­eby are con­ver­ting it more effi­ci­ent into pro­te­in. That is why they do not need as many natu­ral resour­ces and have a low pro­por­ti­on of con­nec­ti­ve tis­sue, making them easier for humans to digest.

Howe­ver, also fish can have cer­tain health risks, hence it should be con­su­med as fresh as pos­si­ble or one to two days after defros­ting. Fresh fish is pri­ma­ri­ly reco­gnizable for not smel­ling unp­lea­sant­ly. A fishy smell is an indi­ca­ti­on for the ani­mal to be start­ing to dena­tu­re. This means, that micro­or­ga­nisms like bac­te­ria have alre­a­dy begun to decom­po­se the food and the­r­e­fo­re that the food has been dead for quite a while. Bes­i­des a non-exis­tent smell, clear eyes and metal­lic glo­wing skin with firm sca­les are more indi­ca­tors of fresh­ness. Kno­wing this, it is no sur­pri­se, that fresh caught fish is main­ly traded and eaten in coas­tal are­as. In indus­tri­al count­ries like Ger­ma­ny, fish is most­ly available as fro­zen food or in pre­ser­ved form, e. g. dried or salted.

A citi­zen of the EU is curr­ent­ly spen­ding a four­fold of money on meat (catt­le, chi­cken, etc.) than on fish. The reasons for this are the gene­ral pre­fe­rence for meat plus the com­pa­ra­tively high sel­ling pri­ces of fish. The­se pri­ces have risen within the last years, becau­se of the tigh­ten­ed envi­ron­men­tal mea­su­res and the decli­ne of fish caught on the open seas. While in 2016 the retail rate of avera­ge food rose only about 0.8%, the pri­ce of fish and its pro­ducts increased about 3.3%.