Because various kinds of raw materials and processing methods are used in the commercial production of the fish soluble, the quality and nutritive constituents of the products have wide variabilities.
In recent years HIGASHI et al. have reported on the vitamin contents and mineral compositions of commercial fish solubles, but it seems that their work dealt with amino acid composition only to a limit extent. In the present work, the authors have examined several commercial fish solubles with regard to amino acid composition as well as nitrogen distribution and vitamin contents.
The results of the analyses of seven samples are summarized as follows;
(1) As shown in Table 2, the proportion of volatile basic nitrogen to total nitrogen varied widely from sample to sample, ranging from 4.2 to 11.6%. Although both water soluble nitrogen and 5% TCA soluble nitrogen exceeded 80% of total nitrogen in every sample, 80% EtOH soluble nitrogen occupied only about 50% of total nitrogen.
(2) Contents of the vitamins of B group varied widely within the following ranges: vitamin B2, 0.8-21.5γ; vitamin B6, 0.4-8.1γ; pantothenic acid, 5.4-76.4γ; niacin, 149-1120γ; biotin, 19.4-2110mγ; B12 , 218-3930mγ and choline 331--6120γ per g. of dry matter.
(3) In general the content of free amino acid was considerably small, with the exception of sample C in which free amino acids occupied about 58% of TCA soluble fraction.
(4) Fish solubles can be classified into three classes, according to their amino acid composition:
(a) Amino acid compositions of TCA soluble fraction and precipitate fraction are respectively, quite alike to that of collagen and of fish muscle proteins; (b) amino acid compositions of both fractions are similar to that of collagen; (c) amino acid compositions of both fractions are similar to that of fish muscle proteins.