Tímarit Verkfræðingafélags Íslands - 01.12.1967, Page 295

TlMARIT VFl 1967
293
In this field something interesting is happen-
ing which we have to watch.
In the years 1948-52 I did some experiments
on the preservation and solvent extraction of
fresh wet herring in the laboratory of The Ice-
landic States Herring Factories.
I was not thinking of fish protein concentrate
for human consumption, but just meal and oil
production.
I did try several solvents and solvent mixtures.
I came to the conclusion that minced herring
could be stored in several of the solvents, but
in order to stop the autolysis it has to be cooked.
Herring thus treated could be stored for months
with 7% isopropylalcohol. With methyl-ethyl-
ketone, only 2% were necessary.
I found that the oil could be extracted with
a mixture of hexane containing 10-15% iso-
propylalcohol and also with methyl-ethyl-ketone.
I did try isopropylalcohol but did not find it
a good solvent so I did not work with it further
as a single solvent.
In the last weeks I have tried in the Icelandic
Fisheries Laboratories to make fish protein
concentrate from capelin (loðna) with the
Bureau of Commercial Fisheries method by using
isopropylalcohol, but with poorer results than
Dr. Pariser.
I do not know the explanation but it may lie
in that the capelin is with ripe roes, the oil has
an unusually low iodine value or the oil may be
so much more difficult to extract from capelin
than from the American hake.
Vilhjálmur Guðmundsson:
We certainly are very grateful for having you
here, Dr. Pariser, and I feel very much more
accomplished after listening to your report on
FPC. The so called fish flour for human con-
sumption is one of the topics today for the
protein solution of world hunger problems. And
the fishmeal industry is very much interested
in this thing. And we are all looking forward
to further advancement in this field. I under-
stand that after many years of struggle with
the U.S. Food- and Drug Administration this
Agency now at last has approved the use of
whole fish for the production of FPC, this of
course is of vital importance. In your paper you
state that the isoprophylalcohol, used as solvent
for the extraction of the red hake, promises to
be equally suitable for the processing of more
fatty fish. I wonder how far research has been
done on fish like menhaden or, for example,
herring. The processing cost estimates are based
on a raw material price of 1 cent per pound of raw
fish which equals about 1 Icelandic krona per
kg. This price corresponds to approximately 7
cents per pound of the finished product or half of
the calculated processing costs of about 14 cents
per pound, or y3 of the total processing costs
as estimated in your paper at 20 cents. I just
wonder whether this raw-material price of 1
cent per pound is really obtainable for the raw-
material in the U.S.? I want to join the other
speakers in thanking you again for your very
interesting speech on this urgent matter. Thank
you.
Dr. Jakob Sigurðsson:
Mr. Páll Ólafsson has made some of the com-
ments which I had thought worth while, that
is in regard to what has been done elsewhere
in the production of FPC or fish flour. I am one
of those apparently rather many people who
have for some time now expected that signifi-
cant and possibly explosive developments would
take place in the consumption of this or similar
material for human consumption. And I am, of
course, glad to see that major objectives have
been reached now, not only by the approval of
the Food- and Drug Administration, which, of
course, is significant in itself, although it has
more significance in the U.S.A. than elsewhere,
but also, in particular, of seeing that an improve-
ment in the product itself has been reached and
which is apparently significant. Now, of course
I have not had the chance to compare this new
and more sophisticated product of the Americans
with the earlier American products — Canadian
ones — and those from Sweden and elsewhere.
But from all the available evidence it seems that
an improvement, a rather significant one, has
been reached. It is of course essential to have
good quahty, and let us hope that the twofold
benefit can thus be reached, that of reducing
the protein deficiency amongst the suífering
peoples of the world, and of improving the
economic lot of the fishing industry. The prime
question now seems to be: How long will it
take, through present methods of approach, to
get some of these products out, where they are
needed, in a volume sufficient to alleviate, to a
significant extent, the human suffering, about
which we have been talking in this context for
at least some twenty years? There have been
made a great number of surveys of the over-
whelming problems of malnutrition, semi-starva-