Clarification of fish odor components and suppression by cooking

• Project/Area Number: 15500539
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Eating habits, studies on eating habits
• Research Institution: Nara Women's University
• Principal Investigator: TAKAMURA Hitoshi Nara Women's University, Faculty of life Science and Environment, Associate Professor, 生活環境学部, 助教授 (70202158)
• Project Period (FY): 2003 – 2004
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2004)
• Budget Amount: ¥3,700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,700,000); Fiscal Year 2004: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000); Fiscal Year 2003: ¥2,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,900,000)
• Keywords: fish / fish odor / lipids / carbonyl compounds / gas-chromatography / olfactometry / odor / amino compounds / アミン化合物

Research Abstract

Fish odor is thought to come from amines such as trimethylamine. However, other compounds also contribute to fish odor. In this research, fish odor components were analyzed by gas chromatography -mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and GC-olfactometry in order to clarify the structures, amounts, and formation mechanism of fish odor components. The cooking way to suppress the formation of fish odor was also developed.
Sardine was used as the sample fish. The odor components of fresh or deteriorated fish were trapped by solid-phase microextraction (SPME) fiber. Then, the fiber was injected to GC and the odor components were analyzed by GC-MS and GC-olfactometry. In the deteriorated fish, trimethylamine was detected only when the pH of fish sample was higher than 9, suggesting that trimethylamine is not the key compound of fish odor. In GC-olfactometry some carbonyl compounds and alcohols were found to have unpleasant odor. Especially, 2,3-pentanedione, hexanal, 1-penten-3-ol were major. Since these compounds were derived from lipids, it is thought that cooking with foods or seasonings containing antioxidant components can suppress the fish odor.