Annual variations in the mineral element content of five fish species from the Portuguese coast

The most consumed fish species in Portugal do not correspond to the most caught fish species on the Portuguese coast. From the point of view of ocean sustainability and economics, it is important to study unexploited or underexploited fish species that have the potential to be introduced into the food market. This potential can be reflected by their nutritional value, where mineral elements are often overlooked despite their importance in human health. Therefore, it is important to study the elemental concentration of those fish species, which should also include seasonal variations of essential mineral elements such as Ca, P, Mg, Na, K, Fe, Cu, Mn, Zn, and I, and non-essential elements such as As, Ni, Cd, and Pb. This work is part of a project that studied five fish species with the potential to be brought to the market: three species with low commercial value (Trachurus picturatus, Spondyliosoma cantharus and Trigla lyra) and two species with no commercial value (Serranus cabrilla and Capros aper), caught over a year in the coast of Portugal. Mineral elements were quantified by ICP-OES (ICP-MS for I). The results showed that the studied fish species present significant elemental concentrations, similar to those found in the most caught fish species in Portugal. Trachurus picturatus was found to be a source of Fe, and all species are sources of I. Overall, Spondyliosoma cantharus proved to be the most element-rich species. Sensorially, Cu was related to “metallic odour” and Fe to “metallic flavour”, and I was related to “seaweed odour” and “seawater flavour”. Additionally, toxic elements such as Cd, Pb, Ni and As were not detected. The corresponding Hazard Quotients (HQ) show the safety of the consumption of these fish species concerning the content of potentially toxic elements.

Description

Authors are very grateful to FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) for the financial support of this work through projects UIDB/MAR/04292/2020 and UIDP/MAR/04292/2020, attributed to MARE - Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, Polit´ecnico de Leiria, Portugal, and for the finantial support atrubuted to A.R.V. and V.S. (CEECIND/01528 and CEECIND/02705/2017). This work was also partially funded by the Integrated Programme of SR&TD “SmartBioR” (reference Centro-01–0145-FEDER-000018) cofunded by Centro 2020 program, Portugal2020, European Union, through the European Regional Development Fund and by project VALOREJET (16–01-03-FMP-0003), Operational Program Mar 2020, Portugal.

Keywords

Low commercial value Discards Mineral profile Trachurus picturatus Spondyliosoma cantharus Trigla lyra Serranus cabrilla Capros aper

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.8/8754

Citation

Filipa R. Pinto, Ana M. Duarte, Frederica Silva, Sonia Barroso, Susana Mendes, Edgar Pinto, Agostinho Almeida, Vera Sequeira, Ana Rita Vieira, Leonel Serrano Gordo, Maria Manuel Gil, Annual variations in the mineral element content of five fish species from the Portuguese coast, Food Research International, Volume 158, 2022, 111482, ISSN 0963-9969, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2022.111482