Flavor-Quality Control in Freshwater Aquaculture

Abstract

Maintaining the flavor quality of products produced in an aquaculture system is the most important technical challenge to the industry. Routine instrumental monitoring of flavor quality is difficult because the problematic compounds (geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol) can be detected by humans at concentrations that are not easily measured by instruments. In addition, many off-flavor compounds have not been identified. Although analytical sensory methods are more reliable and timely, they have their own set of problems, such as the expense of operating sensory panels. A seafood rating method is presented that has the advantage of being reliable, timely, and less expensive to operate; however this method can also fail to detect off-flavored fish.