Meat quality of eight common commercial fish species found on the Romanian market.

Fish meat is an important source of nutrients, having organoleptic and dietary properties, especially important for human nutrition, in the form of essential and non-essential amino acids, and unsaturated fatty acids such as Omega 3, Omega 6, Omega 9 and Omega 12. They are essential for preventing and treating cardiovascular disease or various forms of cancer, like colorectal cancer. In the present study, characteristics and chemical properties of the meat were analyzed in eight different fish species: rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), common carp (Cyprinus carpio), silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix), European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax), golden grey mullet (Liza aurata), mackerel (Scomber scombrus), sea bream (Sparus aurata) and prussian carp (Carassius gibelio). The characteristics and chemical properties of the meat were analyzed, taking into account the anatomical muscle segments (epaxial muscles, hypaxial muscles and caudal peduncle muscles). The analyses of the chemical composition of the meat consisted of: water content (%), dry matter (%), crude protein (Pb%), crude fat (Gb%) and mineral content (Min.%). The proximate analysis results are influenced by many factors, such as the sex of fish, the age of fish, the catch season, the farming system used, the geographical region of catch, the time from harvest to analysis, the conservation method, and many others. The results offer important information regarding the structure and composition of fish meat available on the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]