Nutritional Profile and Heavy Metal Content of Cultured Milkfish (Chanos chanos)

Abstract

Nutritional profile of fresh cultured milkfish (Chanos chanos) revealed that the fish had good quantity of protein, amino acids and poly-unsaturated fatty acids. Essential amino acids formed 49.49% of the total amino acids of milkfish meat. Leucine (8%), lysine (7.3%), phenyl alanine (6.7%) and histidine (6.1%) were the predominant essential amino acids. Glutamic acid (18.2%) was the dominant nonessential amino acid. The fish was rich in unsaturated fatty acids (50.74%) of which mono unsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and poly unsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) constituted 34.47 and 16.27%, respectively. The predominant MUFA, PUFA and saturated fatty acids were oleic acid C18:1 (26.1%), linoleic acid C18:2 (10.9%) and palmitic acid C16:0 (29.82%). Heavy metals such as zinc, copper, cadmium, cobalt, mercury and lead in different body organs of cultured milkfish were within the acceptable limit. The cultured milkfish can be considered as important fish for human nutrition.