INFOTERRA: News: Designing Food Fish for Nutrition
http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2003/2003-01-07-09.asp
Designer Diets Produce Fish Packed with Nutrients
WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana, January 7, 2003 (ENS) - Farm raised fish eating
designer menus could help people obtain their recommended daily allowance
of fatty acids.
Purdue University researchers say fish that eat diets high in fatty acids
could be beneficial to the health of the people eating the fish. Fatty
acid feed supplements for fish may help people get government recommended
amounts of macronutrients, said Paul Brown, a Purdue forestry and natural
resources professor.
The additive Brown is testing is a type of omega-6 fatty acid called
conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which researchers have found is a weapon
against cancers and diabetes.
Researcher Paul Brown says people's health could be improved by eating
farm-raised fish fed designer diets high in certain fatty acids. (Purdue
Agricultural Communications photo/Tom Campbell)
"We found by adding CLA to fishes' diets we can get more of these fatty
acids into the fishes' tissues than is found in any other animal," said
Brown, a nutritional aquaculturalist. "Meat and milk from ruminant animals
are good sources of CLA, but these fish retain even higher levels." The
National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine has recommended that
people increase their consumption of food containing alpha-linoleic acid
(an omega-3 fatty acid) and linoleic acid (an omega-6 fatty acid). The
institute set the daily requirements, or Dietary Reference Intakes, of
these macronutrients necessary to maintain health, and noted that cold
water fish, such as swordfish, tuna and salmon, are prime sources of
omega-3.
Omega-3 and omega-6 are essential fatty acids, meaning they are important
for health, but the human body can not produce them. Fish and shellfish
are good sources of omega-3 fatty acids important for building cells, for
brain, nerve and eye function, and for lowering risks of high cholesterol,
cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
"Fish have always been the original and standard measure for good sources
of omega-3," Brown said. "But now we find that we can introduce other
fatty acids into fish. Next we must determine if there is an optimum ratio
of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids that is healthy."
Special fish diets using additives, such as CLA, and grains, such as
soybeans, can be formulated to produce designer fish that are high in
beneficial fatty acids, Brown said. The research team is studying
different fish species to chronicle their development on specialized diets
and determine how much of the nutrients they retain.
The ability to raise more nutritional fish of a variety of species should
encourage growth of the aquaculture industry, Brown added. But most fish
are still obtained from the wild.
"The wild fish supply just isn't sufficient to provide us with the amount
necessary for human consumption," Brown said. "That was decided in 1989
when we hit maximum sustainable yield from the world's oceans, yet the
world population is still increasing."
"We have to develop new aquaculture production that rivals global
production of soybeans, pigs and chickens if we want to keep eating fish
and shellfish," concluded Brown.
* * *
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002. All Rights Reserved.
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