Many women do not particularly like to spend time preparing fish dishes. Indeed, for this, first, you need to clean the fish from a dense layer of scales, gut it, and even to protect the skin of your hands from pricking against the sharp bone spikes that many species of fish possess. However, all these not very attractive characteristics of these food products will more than compensate for the high degree of usefulness of fish products for our body. Inclusion of fish dishes in the menu is simply necessary for proper nutrition. What characteristics of fish products make them so important for our diet?
The fact is that the nutrients contained in the fish give this food a high dietary quality. Edible parts of fish are characterized by a high content of high-grade proteins (their number on the average reaches 17-19% of the mass of tissue), and in these proteins, in an optimal way, in accordance with the needs of our body, the amino acid composition is balanced. For example, in comparison with meat, in the tissues of fish there is much more essential amino acid methionine. Another important characteristic of fish products is a small amount of connective tissue. In this regard, after the heat treatment, the consistency of the cooked fish becomes soft and gentle, which ensures a good digestion of fish dishes in the human gastrointestinal tract.
The content of fats in fish tissues ranges from 0.5 to 30%. This indicator is characterized by strong differences, depending on the species of fish, their age, nutrition, seasons. The use of fish products for actively trained people and for those who want to lose extra pounds is largely determined by the fact that many species (for example, pollock, crucian carp, burbot, perch, pike perch, pike) contain very little fat, but simultaneously have a large amount of easily digestible protein needed for our muscles. In an acceptable amount of fat contain such fish as pink salmon, carp, bream, Baltic herring, catfish, horse mackerel, sprat. But in fish dishes made from salmon, sturgeon, halibut, sardine, stellate sturgeon, eel, mackerel for those who want to lose weight, the fat content will be unacceptably high. If your figure is already in good order, eating a small amount of high-fat fish products will only benefit your body. The fact is that the composition of fish oil includes essential unsaturated fatty acids. These substances are characterized by the fact that they have a beneficial effect on cholesterol metabolism, provide a normal level of blood clotting and arterial pressure in atherosclerosis and hypertension. In addition, the fat contained in fish products is rich in fat-soluble vitamins A and D.
Fish products made from marine species contain a large number of mineral elements necessary for the normal work of our body - zinc, copper, fluorine, iodine. But there are fewer extractives in the tissues of fish than in meat, but they are more effective in the work of the glands of digestive secretion. Despite the health benefits and high dietary qualities that are inherent characteristics of fish products, these foods are still unequally digested by our digestive organs. For example, dried and dried fish is digested much more difficultly than fried or boiled.
The use of fish products for your health is also determined by how fresh the products you have purchased. In order to choose the right fish in the store for the subsequent preparation of really useful dishes from it, you should pay attention to the following characteristics of this product. In fresh fish, the eyes should be convex, with a transparent cornea. Muscular tissue of benign fish has a dense consistency and grayish-white color, it is difficult to separate from bones. When cooking fish broth should be caught a pleasant aroma, and the broth turns transparent. If the acquired fish has such characteristics as sunken reddened eyes, easily detached from the bones of the muscle, greyish-red gills and an unpleasant putrefactive smell, then the usefulness of fish dishes that can be prepared from such a product clearly should be questioned.
Fish eggs also have high nutritional value. For example, caviar of salmon and sturgeon fishes contains about 30% of high-grade proteins, a large amount of lecithin, vitamins A, D, E, phosphorus, iron, other minerals. Caviar is considered a fish product from the category of delicacies with the highest dietary qualities.
But canned fish or preserves are much less useful for our body than fresh fish. The fact is that with the technological processes used in the manufacture of these fish products, inevitable losses of nutrients occur. Natural canned food is produced from mackerel, salmon, horse mackerel, herring. Canned food in tomato sauce is made from both fried and unroasted fish. Canned fish in oil is prepared from hot smoked fish or pre-fried. Pates and pastas are obtained not only from whole fish, but also from its caviar, liver, milk and other valuable food waste. When making canned fish, ingredients such as minced fish, fried vegetables, cereals, marinade, spices, tomato sauce are used.
A distinctive characteristic of preserves in comparison with canned food is that the process of their manufacture does not include the stage of sterilization. To obtain these fish products use preservatives, most often acetic acid or sodium benzoate. Sometimes in the manufacture of preserves, spicy and marinated pouches or fruit and berry sauces are used.
Fresh fish bought on the market should be stored frozen, and in no case should it be allowed to repeatedly freeze-thaw (this creates favorable conditions for the multiplication of bacteria, leads to a decrease in the degree of nutritional value of the product and its deterioration). Such fish products as canned food are stored at temperatures from 0 to 5 ° C and relative humidity of air no higher than 75% for the period indicated on the package (sometimes even for 2 to 3 years). Preserves should be stored at a temperature of no higher than 6 ° C for no more than 45 days.