Originally published October 25 2005
Aquaculture may have found a solution to dioxins problem
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Caroline P. Baron of the Danish Institute for Fisheries Research in Lyngby found that exposing fishmeal to sunlamps helps to break down the dioxins that pollute the diets of farmed fish.
Because many of the tastiest and most-profitable farmed fish are carnivores, their prepared diets usually include flakes or powders made from low-value fish, from fish processed for their oil, or from scraps of fish prepared for restaurants and supermarkets.
One problem: Fishmeal can contain significant quantities of dioxins, which are toxic industrial pollutants.
The process still requires substantial tinkering before it's ready to go commercial, notes Caroline P. Baron of the Danish Institute for Fisheries Research in Lyngby.
However, the food chemist adds, it holds promise for minimizing the risk that farmed fish will serve as a substantial source of dioxins in people's diets.
The incomplete combustion of plastics, certain chemicals, or other hydrocarbon-based products can create pollutants with a distinct double-ring structure to which chlorine atoms are attached.
Because they're fat soluble, dioxins tend to build up in the body fat of animals and can travel from there throughout the body via the blood system.
Creatures highest on the food chain---people and carnivorous fish, for example---tend to acquire the highest concentrations of dioxins, mostly through their diets.
The Danish scientists reasoned that solar ultraviolet rays might be the triggers, so they monitored dioxin in fishmeal before and after they irradiated it with high-intensity lightbulbs designed to emit wavelengths in either the UV-A spectrum (320 to 400 nanometers) or UV-B spectrum (280 to 320 nm).
"UV light did not seem to significantly affect the amino acid composition of the fishmeal, inferring preservation of its full nutritional value," the scientists report.
However, both types of UV light triggered a comparable and potentially detrimental oxidation of fatty substances in the fishmeal---chemical changes that give rise to rancidity and off flavors.
In tests where Baron's team added a chemical antioxidant to the fishmeal prior to irradiation, UV-triggered oxidation of fat was greatly diminished.
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