TOCOPHEROL CONTENT OF COMMERCIAL FISH SPECIES AS AFFECTED BY MICROWAVE COOKING

Abstract

Alpha(a)-,beta(b)-,gamma(g)-anddelta(d)-tocopherolincommonlyconsumed fish species and also the effects of microwave cooking on tocopherol content of fish wereinvestigated. a-Tocopherolwasfoundtobethemajorformof vitaminEinfish muscle.Golband goatfish (47.81 mg/kg),anchovy (40.84 mg/kg),striped sea bream (34.31 mg/kg) and bogue (33.86 mg/kg) had the highest tocopherol content among the samples, whereas the lowest tocopherol levels were observed for silver fish (16.06 mg/kg) and gurnard (18.01 mg/kg). The total tocopherol contents of the cooked fish ranged from 67.78 to 72.875 mg/kg due to the loss of water content in fish muscle. The result of this study showed that fish species had good tocopherol levels for raw and cooked samples. Stability of tocopherol content to microwave cooking infish muscle was observed. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS It is important to achieve a successful determination of the vitamin E constituents thatarequantitativelyextractedfromthefood.Althoughthetocopherolcontentsof fish vary with different species, a-tocopherol is the major form of vitamin E in fish muscle. However, various storage temperatures, cooking process and storage time may affect vitamin E levels of fish muscle. Thus, the contents of a-, b-, g- and d-tocopherol of commercially important fish species were investigated.In addition, the effects of microwave cooking on the tocopherol content of different fish species were investigated. The research findings are important in order to know which fish species has high content of tocopherol and to consider whether cooking process affects tocopherol content infish.