What are Fish Additives, and Why are They Necessary?
After slaughtering a cow or a game animal for the table, its meat tends to be overly tough and its taste somewhat lacking when cooked and eaten immediately. Consequently, it has become a standard practice for butchers to allow freshly slaughtered carcases to hang for several days to become more tender and develop their full flavour. By contrast, once landed, seafood tends to deteriorate rapidly without suitable precautions. However, treatment with appropriate fish additives can counter this tendency and preserve the characteristic appearance, texture, and taste of marine fare.
The effects of this post-mortem deterioration in marine species vary and will often begin to manifest soon after they are removed from their natural environment. Everything that lives in the oceans, from seaweeds to sardines, is home to a range of parasitic and commensal creatures that require some essential benefit from their hosts to survive. In most cases, the hosts remain unaffected by their uninvited guests whilst alive. However, after death, they could pose a health threat. The use of fish additives to free their surface of potential pathogens is essential to protect the consumer.
The most pressing need for such measures arises from the nature of the industry’s supply chain. An amateur angler can land a sea bass or kingklip and be back home in time to cook it for supper. However, commercial fisheries must operate vast fleets of trawlers that remain at sea for extended periods to ensure the high-volume catches essential for profitable operation. Onshore, their cargo faces further delays whilst it is distributed to retailers and processors. Without fish additives, most seafood would be inedible long before it could arrive in a supermarket freezer.
In practice, freezing or immersion in seawater and ice effectively delay the onset of deterioration in seafood species. However, more stringent preservative technology is critical to both the consumers and suppliers in light of the protracted delays inherent in the modern fishing industry. Furthermore, stocks of many species have become seriously depleted, prompting governments to impose quotas and other well-intentioned restrictions, causing further pressure on the industry. Given the need to make every fish count, additives and their preservative properties have become even more necessary.
Ironically, many of the post-mortem changes that affect marine species have little effect on their edibility. Unfortunately, when seafood items are frozen and packaged in plastic, a potential purchaser cannot smell the product to determine its freshness. Instead, the consumer must attempt to judge its quality by its appearance. For example, when buying prawns, one expects them to display the familiar pink and white colouration. Any sign of black streaks or spots on their bodies would be a guaranteed turn off for most crustacean fans. Antioxidants in fish additives can prevent this blackening, which, incidentally, does not affect the taste or safety of the affected prawns.
Hygiene regulations and packaging prevent consumers from prodding and sniffing our purchases as their grandparents once did. Today, customers must judge what they are getting by what they can see. Red roman is a favourite of many seafood lovers, but few would buy one that showed signs of fading. Fisheries worldwide strive to prevent these and other changes that could deter purchasers and rely on tried and tested fish additives from Tequisa.
