Quality Evaluation of Fish and Other Seafood by Traditional and Nondestructive Instrumental Methods: Advantages and Limitations

Abstract

Although being one of the most vulnerable and perishable products, fish and other seafoods provide a wide range of health-promoting compounds. Recently, the growing interest of consumers in food quality and safety issues has contributed to the increasing demand for sensitive and rapid analytical technologies. Several traditional physicochemical, textural, sensory, and electrical methods have been used to evaluate freshness and authentication of fish and other seafood products. Despite the importance of these standard methods, they are expensive and time-consuming, and often susceptible to large sources of variation. Recently, spectroscopic methods and other emerging techniques have shown great potential due to speed of analysis, minimal sample preparation, high repeatability, low cost, and, most of all, the fact that these techniques are noninvasive and nondestructive and, therefore, could be applied to any online monitoring system. This review describes firstly and briefly the basic principles of multivariate data analysis, followed by the most commonly traditional methods used for the determination of the freshness and authenticity of fish and other seafood products. A special focus is put on the use of rapid and nondestructive techniques (spectroscopic techniques and instrumental sensors) to address several issues related to the quality of these products. Moreover, the advantages and limitations of each technique are reviewed and some perspectives are also given.

Histological discrimination of fresh and frozen/thawed fish meat: European hake (Merluccius merluccius) as a possible model for white meat fish species

“…This has been accomplished by means of morphological, physiological, chemical and physical parameters (Duflos, Le Fur, Mulak, Becel & Malle., 2002;Uddin, 2010). However, the reliability of these methods is limited in case of fish with a long shelf life (Duflos et al, 2002) and in presence of processed products such as skinned and filleted fish (Hassoun & Karoui, 2017). More recently, alternative physical methods based on frontface fluorescence, near infrared spectroscopy, solid-phase gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, have been proposed as non-destructive methods for fresh-frozen product discrimination (Karoui et al, 2006;Uddin 2010, Fasolato et al, 2012, Leduc et al, 2012, Zhu et al 2013, Ottavian, Fasolato, Facco, & Barolo, 2013.…”

“…More recently, alternative physical methods based on frontface fluorescence, near infrared spectroscopy, solid-phase gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, have been proposed as non-destructive methods for fresh-frozen product discrimination (Karoui et al, 2006;Uddin 2010, Fasolato et al, 2012, Leduc et al, 2012, Zhu et al 2013, Ottavian, Fasolato, Facco, & Barolo, 2013. Although all methods have been shown to be effective for the analysis of whole and filleted products they require a large set of reference samples for the assay validation and the development of calibration models for each species (Ottavian et al, 2013;Hassoun & Karoui, 2017).…”

Influence of Freezing–Thawing Cycle on Water Dynamics of Turbot Flesh Assessed by Low-Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and Magnetic Resonance Imaging

“…Many works are focused on the measurement of physicochemical and nutrient parameters, sensory evaluation and microorganism examination by traditional methods of assessment of fish quality changes [9,10]. Non-destructive methods are required in evaluation of the freezing-thawing process.…”

Water dynamics of turbot flesh during frying, boiling, and stewing processes and its relationship with color and texture properties: Low-field NMR and MRI studies

“…Cooking methods, such as frying, boiling, steaming, stewing, and baking, are used in fish thermal food processing (Marimuthu, Thilaga, Kathiresan, Xavier, & Mas, ). Many published works are focused on the measurement of physicochemical and nutrient parameters, sensory evaluation and microorganism examination by traditional methods in the quality evaluation of fish (Cai et al, ; Hassoun & Karoui, ). However, these methods still suffer from time‐intensive sample‐destructive problems for real‐time and onsite evaluation during the cooking process.…”