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ends in world fisheri
T1 HE remarkable story of how Soviet scientists, technicians and fishermen have developed the Antarctic fishery for krill, the tiny crustacean which forms an important part of the feed of whales, is related in a paper to be presented at the Technical Conference on Fishery Products to be held in Tokyo next December under FAO auspices.
The Soviet paper is one of several disclosing the scientific advances being made in utilizing and processing marine resources for human consumption.
Entitled "Utilization of Krill for Human Consumption," the paper has been prepared by a group of scientists, L. L. Lagunov, M. I. Kryuchkova, N. I. Ordukhauyan and L. V. Sysoeva. It points out that the potential annual catch of krill is estimated at 100 million tons — compared with the present total world fish catch of about 69 million tons — so that the fishery provides a vast resource of animal protein.
Starting with the need to design a special pelagic trawl to catch the crustaceans, the Soviets have had to overcome difficult technical problems.
At first they made meal for animal feed from the catch, but this, they found, was uneconomic by itself, so they set about finding a way to use the krill for human food. They succeeded in doing this by designing a plant to crush the raw krill to extract the juice and, through a heat process, to coagulate the protein in the juice. The coagulate is packed and frozen for further processing.
The final product, known in the USSR as "ocean paste," is highly nutritive, with a protein content ranging from 13 to 20 percent.
The protein contains all the essential amino acids. The paste is also rich in essential elements, including phosphorus, iron, copper, zinc, titanium, chromium and molibden, as well as almost the whole complex of B-group vitamins.
The paste itself has the delicate flavor typical of the meat of all crustaceans.
The natural paste is in great demand in the USSR. It is also used to enrich a wide variety of traditional dishes such as salads, mayonnaise, pate, stuffed eggs and tomatoes, Siberian dumplings, pies and fish balls. It goes well with butter, cheese and vegetables.
New food items have also been prepared with the paste as the basic ingredient, such as "shrimp" butter and fish sausage with krill.
The paper reports that the paste has shown favorable results when used experimentally on patients undergoing dietary treatment. "The healing effect of the paste on patients suffering from ulcer of the stomach, for example, was reflected by a 60 percent increase in the number of patients cured by therapeutic means without surgical intervention", the paper states.
Major problems of quick handling and processing and of storage had to be overcome in developing the fishery. Because the krill are so small and delicate they need very careful handling. They spoil quickly, so the first essential processing in a plant specially designed for the purpose had to be done on board the fishing vessels. Conditions in the fishery and its vast distance from the USSR dictate an annual fishing expedition and this meant that special arrangements had to be devised for storage of the paste. It can now be kept in good condition for about a year if held in a temperature below minus 18 degrees Centigrade.
In addition to the food for human consumption, a meal for animal feed is made from the solid cake left after the pressing process. The cake is rich in protein and other nutrients and biological tests have shown its high value as an animal feed ingredient.
Other papers to be presented at the conference indicate how far scientists have advanced toward
man's dream of being able to farm sea fish as farmers have domesticated and bred cattle and other animals over the centuries.
One paper entitled "Studies on the Acceptability of Farmed Fish," prepared by staff members of the White Fish Authority, London, and Torry Research Station, Aberdeen, in conjunction with the British ministry of agriculture, fisheries and food, tells of experimental work being done in Britain.
The experimental farms where most of the work has been done by fish cultivation units are in the Scottish sea lochs at Ardtoe and elsewhere and in the warm outflow from the Hunterston power station.
Dover sole and plaice have been hatched and reared from egg to marketable size while turbot, lemon sole, cod, saithe and grey mullet have been reared from their juvenile stage after capture at sea to marketable size.
Although turbot and lemon sole have also been spawned and hatched they have not yet been reared beyond the early larval
stages in the farms although they have been in the laboratory.
Teams working on this fish farm program include veterinarians and pathologists looking into problems of health and disease control, nutritionists formulating a variety of wet fish feeds and, lately, moist and dry pelleted feeds, engineers concerned with the design and development of fish holding facilities ashore and at sea, and food science' market development experts who are working with the Torry Research Station staff in assessing the qualities of fish and determining their market and consumer acceptability.
The purpose of their efforts is to establish a commercially viable system of fish farming. This includes not only the ability to hatch and rear fish but to produce fish of acceptable appearance, texture and flavor. A series of flavor tests has shown that farm reared plaice and soles compare reasonably well with the wild fish.
However, tests relating to shape, and skin and flesh colors
• These coho were farm grown in the sea at a U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service research station near Manchester, Wash. When placed in saltwater pens they weighed one twentieth of a pound. Harvested 14 months later, they weighed over a pound.
have indicated some possible consumer resistance.
Wild plaice, for example, have color on their top side and are white on their underside. Farm reared plaice may vary from no pigmentation on either side to the top side type of pigmentation on both  sides.   Such differences,
• For the first time, a squid has been reared from egg to maturity seen here at the age of 125 days being fed young fish by Edward University of Miami, who accomplished the scientific feat.
in the laboratory. The squid is T. Laroe, graduate student at
LETTERS to the EDITOR
Contract stand earns applause
Editor, The Fisherman:
As a believer that remuneration should be based on merit rather than sex, I wish to commend the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union for achieving equal pay for women and men doing the same sort of work.
To my knowledge, this is the first union to recognize that women are people too! It's to be hoped that other unions, businesses and government agencies will follow suit.
Most Canadians are not aware that on November 16, 1972, Canada finally ratified the International Labor Organization's Convention 100. When Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (with the assent of all 10 premiers) signed, he was signifying that Canadians believe women have "the right to equal remuneration with men and equality of treatment in respect to work of equal value"; also that sex or marital status should not preclude women from any training, vocation or advancement in the vocation chosen.
For the most part, the private and the public sectors are only giving lip service to Convention 100. Now the Fishermen's Union is leading the way to fair treatment for 34 percent of our labor
• The Fisherman welcomes letters to the editor, asking only that they carry the address from which they are written and be signed by the writer, although names will be withheld from publication on request. Opinions expressed are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect those of The Fisherman, which reserves the right to cut letters to meet space requirements.
•
force, i.e. women. On behalf of all Canadian women, I say many thanks for this decent action.
PATRICIA M. RUSSELL Vancouver, B.C.
This UIC stanza gets no bonanza
Editor, The Fisherman:
The enclosed lines were written out of frustration, anger, even despair. The period involved was from October, 1972, to the present.
I know many others who have experienced similar aggravation attempting to have insurance paid. We worked and paid premiums; in return we are often
treated with rudeness, suspieion, coldness, harrassment. No insurance company in this country would brook such manners, multiple errors, or inefficiency from its employees.
But thanks be — I can still laugh at them. Perhaps now that most of your readers are back to work they would like to share this with me.
*    * * OWEDTOTHE UNEMPLOYED
Six eight one
Four two one one
The line is always busy
I am out of work
So many other people
Must be the same as me
Must be dialing too
To the UIC.
Nine little numbers in my SIN Identify yourself And then begin
The long involved story, or the
short sad tale Of the error that has marred Your benefit card delivered Late in the mail.
I don't expect them to be servile
But civil would be nice
I tell my story once
And then I tell it twice
"The computer can't be rushed"
They snap, or "We'll see what
can be done" Is my file lost, I wonder, or
hidden under dust? Six eight one Four two one one.
E.J. ap HUGH THE FISHE
including the darker tinge of the flesh of farm fish, may call for a special marketing effort.
But, as the paper concludes "what will determine to a large extent whether farmed fish will be acceptable to the consumer are the method of presentation and the price, both of which could overcome any consumer resistance due to appearance or flavor."
The paper ends with the optimistic observation that within the next 10 years fish farms "will be producing perfectly acceptable fish on a viable commercial basis," although "the farmed fish of the future may not resemble closely any of the species which are at present on the market any more than domesticated cattle resemble wild cattle or deer."
The squid, sometimes known as "the devil fish" because of its repugnant appearance, may become a table delicacy if imaginatively processed and marketed. This is suggested in a paper on the "Utilization of Squid as Food" by Dr. T. Takahashi of the Tokyo University of Fisheries.
The squid is a popular food in Japan, served in a wide variety of ways. After describing how it is caught and the nutritious value of its meat, Dr. Takahashi says that "even in Japan where squid meat is widely consumed, many people underestimate its nutritive value and regard it as almost indigestible." Yet research has shown it to be an excellent souce of protein.
In Japan squid meat is cooked, roasted, fried, smoked — even eaten raw when in very fresh condition. It is produced in a variety of dried products, including one with the exotic name of "moonface".
Squid meat is also made into a variety of canned, frozen and other products, including a paste which is made "from squid meat and liver digested by their proteolytic enzymes". This is a traditional product generally used "as a delicacy at sake parties".
There are red, white and black pastes. The red is the main product. The white is made from skinned squid meat. The black is the same as the red with the "squid ink" added.
Dr. Takahashi feels there is a great future for squid because the resource is so extensive. He estimates that, by using Japanese squid fishing methods, the world catch could be raised from the present 700,000 or more tons to 4,000,000 tons a year.
The main problem is to overcome consumer resistance to squid, especially in many western countries.
Despite the fact that the average western consumer thinks of squid — if he considers it at all as a food — as "tough" and the flavor peculiarly sweet, Dr. Takahashi suggests that these drawbacks could be overcome if "food scientists and technologists developed new types of squid products" such as . "dried fibrous meat easily reconstituted, dried meat powder with the solubility of fresh meat and canned products of various types."
RMAN — JULY 27, 1973/ 5