Meat, Poultry & Seafood

Fish as a food describes the edible parts of freshwater- and saltwater-dwelling, cold-blooded vertebrates with gills. Shellfish, such as mollusks and crustaceans, are other edible water-dwelling animals that fall into the broadest category of fish. more...

Consumption

Fish is consumed as food all over the world; with other seafoods, it provides the world's prime source of high-quality protein: 14-16% of the animal protein consumed world-wide; over 1 billion people rely on fish as their primary source of animal protein. Fish is among the most common food allergens.

Iceland, Japan and Portugal are the greatest consumers of fish per capita in the world.

Common species

There are over 27,000 species of fish, making them the most diverse group of vertebrates. However, only a small number of the total species are considered food fish and are commonly eaten.

Some common food fish species are listed below:

Perishability

Fish is a highly perishable product. The fishy smell of dead fish is due to the breakdown of amino acids into biogenic amines and ammonia.

Live food fish are sometimes transported in tanks at high expense for an international market that prefers its seafood killed immediately before it is cooked. Delivery of live fish without water is also being explored. While some seafood restaurants keep live fish in aquaria for display purposes or for cultural beliefs, the majority of live fish are kept for dining customers. The live food fish trade in Hong Kong, for example, is estimated to have driven imports of live food fish to more than 15,000 tonnes in 2000. Worldwide sales that year were estimated at US$400 million, according to the World Resources Institute.

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