Use of dried kapenta (Limnothrissa miodon and Stolothrissa tanganicae) and other products based on whole fish for complementing maize-based diets

Abstract

Poor nutritional status both for children and adults is highly prevalent in those parts of sub-Saharan Africa where maize is a dominant staple. Maize is not a complete food, and if the child's diet is only based on white maize, it may be deficient in calcium, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin B 12 , vitamin E, vitamin K, folate, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, niacin, potassium and iron. Inadequate intake of essential amino acids, vitamins, minerals and trace elements is associated with reduced growth, weakening of immunological functions and enhanced morbidity and mortality from infectious diseases, including measles, diarrhoeal diseases, parasite infestations, tuberculosis and HIV disease. Pregnant women and people suffering from infectious diseases, including HIV and tuberculosis, need a diet rich in protein and micronutrients. During pregnancy, growth requirements for the foetus must be covered. Infections lead to significant metabolic changes with enhanced rates of degradation or excretion of several nutrients including total protein, essential amino acids and vitamins. The diet must now contain higher amounts of nutrients than required by a healthy child or adult person in order to prevent the development of protein malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies that will in turn easily lead to weakening of immunological functions. The purpose of the study was i) to analyse the nutrient composition of kapenta, and compare it to other animal products, and ii) to calculate the quantity of these products needed to cover the recommended dietary intake of several nutrients. Nutrient compositions of whole dried kapenta and Norwegian fish powder (fish protein concentrate type B) were found to be similar. It is shown that products made from whole fish are qualitatively superior to fish fillet and other animal products because they are much better sources of minerals and trace elements such as calcium, iron and zinc. They are also good sources of vitamin B 12 and other bioactive substances such as membrane lipids, taurine and nucleic acids. Calculations of the improvements in nutrient intake if a maize-based diet is supplemented with minor amounts of a micronutrient-and protein-rich food like dried kapenta, or fish meal, was shown to give a balanced diet covering most of the nutrient requirements. It should be noted that patients suffering from chronic infectious diseases such as AIDS and tuberculosis have higher nutrient requirements (for protein, essential amino acids and several micronutrients) compared to healthy persons.

Improving diets with wild and cultivated biodiversity from across the landscape

“…In Malawi, Kenya, and Tanzania, rural populations living close to lakes rely on small wild fish as the major ASF (Haug et al 2010). In parts of Latin America (Dufour 1992;daSilva and Begossi 2009) and Laos (Powell et al 2010), wild fish provided the large majority of ASFs in the diet.…”

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“…10 On the other hand the majority of Zambians have a preference for maize despite the fact that sorghum is highly similar to maize. 11,12 In fact sorghum and millets were among the preferred staple crops in Zambia before maize was introduced probably by the early European explorers in the 16 th century. 13 Since sorghum can also be processed using technologies of dry and wet milling applied to maize 3 sorghum and maize should be more or less treated the same in terms of consumption.…”

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“…food-grade fish meal not containing ethoxyquin or other toxic additives, about 50 g per day. FPC type B and fishmeal are good sources both for taurine and glycine, as well as of other substances with anti-inflammatory effects, such as selenium and the long-chain omega -3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) (550, 551), and it was because of the selenium content my mother started regularly to take high doses. The diagnosis is not entirely certain since mother was never examined by any rheumatology specialist before she was cured, but she had classical textbook symptoms with the basal finger joints being especially severely affected, which led to considerable deformation of the metacarpal bones that persisted after the active inflammatory process had stopped (and could be seen for all the rest of her life until she died).…”

“…In addition, it is possible that the antiischemic protective effects of taurine (209–265), glutathione and/or glutathione precursor amino acids (312–337), selenium (276–311), all found at high concentrations in the fish powder (550, 551), also may have played a role, helping to reduce the amount of necrotic cell death in the inflamed joints. Since the fish powder my mother took was produced from capelin ( Mallotus villosus ), it must also have contained much anserine, which perhaps may have had an antiischemic protective effect as well, similar to that reported for carnosine (338–346).…”