Nutritional properties of fillets from tra catfish (Pangasius hypophthalmus) imported into EU

Pangasius (Pangasius hypophthalmus) is a catfish farmed in the Mekong delta region and commercialized in more than 70 countries as frozen or thawed fillet. The EU is the main market for pangasius from Vietnam, with about one third of imports in quantity and 40 per cent in value terms (225.000 tons in 2008). Within the EU, Spain is the biggest market. Pangasius has good marketing value also in Italy and it is rather appreciated by consumers due to its low price and low lipid content. Beside these benefits, few information about the real conditions of farming and the nutritional properties of its meat is available. The aim of the present work was to investigate the chemical and nutritional properties of pangasius fillets in order to provide a better information to the consumer. For this aim 83 samples of fillets were collected from the international fish market of Milan and from local retailers and were analyzed for their proximate composition, fatty acid profile, total phosphorus and additives content. Results showed that fillets were characterized by a high moisture (84.5±2.2%) and a low protein (12.6±2.2%) and lipid (1.4±0.7%) content. Moreover, the intramuscular lipids were characterized by a high percentage of saturated (43.0±2.1%) and monounsaturated (38.8±3.4%) fatty acids, and by a low percentage of polyunsaturated (18.2±4.5%) fatty acids. Among polyunsaturated, linoleic acid (18:2n-6) was the most representative fatty acid with a percentage of 8.9±1.6%. The chemical and nutritional properties of pangasius fillets differed from those of other farmed fish species, especially for their low content in n-3 fatty acids (4.0±1.8%).