Pilot System Recovers Protein, Lipids From Fish By-Products

摘要

It is technologically feasible to recover functional muscle proteins and lipids from fish processing by-products using isoelectric solubilization/precipitation. Implemented at commercial scale, this technology could increase processing profitability as well as alleviate some environmental concerns associated with fish processing. (This article is a follow-up to an April 2005 Advocate article.) Fish-filleting operations generate significant amounts of by-products such as frames, heads, guts, and the like. In the United States, most of these by-products are sent to landfills, and only limited amounts are rendered for animal feeds due to the high polyunsaturation of fish lipids with a propensity to develop rancid off odors. Aquaculture production has quadrupled during the past two decades, yet the industrial methods to recover fillets from fish have not changed, and therefore, the amount of by-products has increased correspondingly.