| Summary: | Climbing perch (Anabas testudineus) is commonly eaten by Malaysians due to its tender
flesh, tasty flavor and its benefit to human health. Larger size climbing perch is much
preferred by consumers due to its size as it is more tedious to process small sized
climbing perch. Despite of the high demand on this fish, comparative study on
nutritional composition such as mineral and fatty acids content in different sizes of
climbing perch are still deficient due to lack of cientific research on thi specie in
Malaysia. Hence, this study was done to determine and compare proximate, mineral and
fatty acids composition in large and small sizes of climbing perch. Subsequently, the
data was used to determine the correlation between fish size - proximate composition,
fish size - mineral composition and fish size - fatty acid composition. Fish were
randomly sampled from fish market in Terengganu, Selangor and Perak. Fish samples
were killed according to hypothermia method before categorized into two groups: large
and small climbing perch based on average body weight and total body length. Average
body weight and total body length of large climbing perch were 73.18 ± 1.04 g and
15.93 ± 0.08 cm while average body weight and total body length of small climbing
perch were 27.13 ± 0.83 g and 11.72 ± 0.14 em respectively. Proximate, mineral and
fatty acid analy i w r arried out using Association of Official Analytical Chemists
(AOAC) method, Inductively Coupled Pia rna-Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP
OES) and Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GCM ), re pectively. Results
from the analyses were compared and analyzed using two-way ANOV A, while
Pearson's correlation test was used to check the relationships between fish size -
proximate composition, fish size - mineral concentrations and fish size - fatty acid
content. The study found that small climbing perch showed higher protein and a h
(45.00% and 30.35%) while large climbing perch showed higher lipid content (17.19%).
On the other hand, concentrations of minerals (mg/kg) were higher in small climbing
perch, yet, mineral content per tail of large-sized Anabas testudineus was higher than
small-sized Anabas testudineus. Nevertheless, large and small climbing perch had
similar fatty acids content. Based on Pearson's correlation analysis, there was
significant negative correlation between ash content and fish size. All analysed minerals
were negatively correlated to fish size, while none of fatty acid groups were
significantly correlated with fish size. In conclusion, proximate, mineral and fatty acids
composition in both fish categories were determined and compared. The correlation
between fish size - chemical composition was also determined. Both fish sizes are
found suitable for use to fulfil the nutritional expectations of consumers.
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