Tímarit Verkfræðingafélags Íslands - 01.12.1967, Blaðsíða 297

TlMARIT VFl 1967
295
starvation and philosophical considerations
about the suffering of the human race and the
plight of the fishing industry.
Dr. Pariser:
I very much appreciate the remarks and all
the interest that has been shown in this sub-
ject. In reply to the subject matter raised by
the last speaker, I would like to point out that
the United States program has fully recognized
the important point that you have made. I
believe that the United States Department of the
Interior has set aside more funds than any
other similar agency has done at home, in order
to find out under what conditions and how,
different people in different parts of the world
would accept such a food supplementation. This
is one of the most important parts of the whole
F.P.C. program, a part that is recognized to be
far more complex than the purely technological
development. I quite agree that as far as F.P.C.
is concerned, this attempt to understand the
market requirements for introduction into a
foreign dietary situation has never been made
before. It is also true that as F.P.C. stands to-
day, it does not have a particularly attractive
image or sales appeal and this is another facet
that has to be improved. Somebody once
suggested to me that in order to make F.P.C.
sell anywhere to anybody at almost any price,
the only things that were necessary, were to
sell it as a liquid, bottle it in Coca-Cola bottles,
introduce an aphrodisiac and an oral contra-
ceptive, and then make it illegal. In spite of the
facetious nature of this remark, there is a great
deal of truth in the way that the public mind
has to be approached.
As far as the suggestion is concerned to utilize
as the raw material ordinary fishmeal and to
extract it with Iso-propanol, I do not believe
that this would be entirely satisfactory. Iso-
propanol, as far as I know, is a poor solvent
for some of the oil residues that are usually
found in fishmeal and so one would end up
with a product that is really quite insufficiently
extracted and deodorized. The cost of the raw
material, which was mentioned at one cent a
pound, was possible when the paper was
originally written; it depends, as you know, on
many factors but from time to time a cost in
this vicinity is possible, although by and large
2 og 2>4 cent per pound for hake may be more
realistic for much of the year. Fish that are not
used at all at the moment for any purpose but
that would be most attractive for the manu-
facture of F.P.C. (for instance, a number of
species in the Gulf of Mexico) can certainly be
obtained for one cent a pound during much of
the year. We are not considering these as yet,
simply because a great deal of work is still to
be done in order to obtain F.D.A. approval.