Basic and functional nutrients in the muscles of fish: a review

Abstract

Fish can be a valuable element of the human diet. Consequently, it is recommended in preventive and therapeutic diets. The subject of this review is a presentation of the nutritional value of fish species commercialized globally on a large scale. The content of nutrients important in terms of nutritional value was compared, and significant individual interspecies and intraspecies differences were highlighted. In addition, potential variability factors affecting the chemical composition of fish muscle tissue were shown. The presented data clearly indicated that in the case of food fish, available food nutrition tables cannot be used as universal reference data for planning a balanced diet and the current recommendations for frequency and amount of fish consumption are too general. Variability factors may substantively change the nutrient content in fish muscle tissue, even causing differences between specimens of the same species.