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Received: 4 October 2012
Received in revised form: 31 January 2013
Accepted: 4 February 2013
Keywords
Dried fishes
Moisture
Microbial quality
Spoilage indicators
Shelf life
Abstract
The nutritional quality and shelf life of salted and sun dried fishes of Tuticorin coastal villages were assessed seasonally. The quality parameters varied with seasons and it was poor during monsoon season. The spoilage indicators TMA-N and TVB-N of the dried fish sample did not exceed the permissible limit. During monsoon season the dried fish showed visible fungal growth within one month of storage. During the second month of the post monsoon period dried fish showed slight visible fungal growth. In summer season, no visible fungal colonies even after 90 days of storage were recorded. During the storage period dried fishes absorbed moisture from the atmosphere which resulted in the increase of microbial load and in turn led to the increase of TVB-N value. The poor quality of dried fishes were mainly due to unhygienic processing, inadequate salting, unhygienic drying, use of spoiled fish for processing and lack of air tight packing of the dried fishes.
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Introduction
Fish is one of the most important sources of animal protein and has been widely accepted as a good protein source and other elements for the maintenance of healthy body (Ravichandran et al., 2012). It also provides a good source of high quality protein and contains many vitamins and minerals. It is an extremely perishable commodity and quality loss can occur very rapidly after catch (Khan and Khan, 2001; Musa et al., 2010; Dewi et al., 2011). Curing of fish is an ancient method of preservation in India that primarily involves two stages viz, salting and drying (Sanjeev and Surendran, 1996; Anon, 2001). Salted fish products have been shown to be safe for consumption. It decreases the water activity and consists of transporting salt into food structures and is governed by various physical and chemical factors such as diffusion, osmosis and a series of complicated chemical and biochemical processes (Turan et al., 2007). Sun drying of fishes is a simple and the oldest known method of fish preservation. Drying method is considered as the least expensive method of fish preservation (Balachandran, 2001). This traditional method...