Investigation of quantity and chemical characteristics of bighead carp (Aristichthys nobilis) by-products

Abstract

Bighead carp (Aristichthys nobilis) successfully grow in polyculture with carp, feeding on plankton. It has good quality of meat for both consumption and industrial processing. The quantity of by-products obtained during primary processing of bighead carp and chemical characteristics of internal organs were investigated in this paper. Th e total average weight of by-products was 760.45 g (42.31%) in relation to live body weight, which was cca 1797.5 g. Th e by-product contributing to the largest quantity to total live body weight was the head with 529.39 g (29.45% of live body weight), followed by complete internal organs and tail and fins, which weighed 137.67 g (7.66%) and 68.82 g (3.83%), respectively Chemical composition of internal organs of bighead carp was mostly water (60.99%), following by crude fats and crude proteins (21.20% and 10.61%, respectively). The low collagen content (15.25% of total crude protein) indicates the high nutritional quality of protein content from internal organs. Nitrogenous complexes from the internal organs were predominantly proteins. Digestible nitrogen was approximately equal to total nitrogen (92.04%), indicating that all proteins of the internal organs had high biological value. Based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that bighead carp internal organs could be important sources of proteins and fats, and thus, could be used in Serbia as a raw material for feed and technical fat production.