Quality criteria of freshness, morphological species recognition and risk for human food consumption of the species belonging to the order Scorpaeniformes

Introduction Order Scorpaeniformes includes thousand species, they are marketed fresh, frozen, filleted. In Italy gurnard are fished for a total of 1579 t (2005). The rockfish are caught in smaller quantities due to overfishing and a slow growth of young fish. Aim of the study is to identify characteristics of recognition (RC) and freshness (FC), as well as the possible risks for human consumer of the species belonging to the Scorpaeniformes present on the Italian market. Materials and methods Ten species are identified and high-resolution photographed. Results and Discussion FC gurnard and northern rockfish fall within the group of white fish in the Reg. CE 2406/96 that describes the caratteristics of freshness, in this norm are given the minimum marketing sizes for gurnard. The Reg. CE 2074/2005 fixed volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N) for Sebastes spp., Helicolenus dactylopterus to 25 mg of nitrogen/100 g of meat. In a study by Hilling et al. (1960) have measured 1.06 mg/100 g TVB-N in Sebastes sp. after 2.4 days of ice storage and was estimated levels of 36.6 mg/100 g TVB-N to 14 days of ice storage. For Sebastes marinus and Chelidonishthys lucernus has been developed a Quality Index Method (QIM), that estimated a shelf life at 16 - 19 days at 4-5 ° C of storage. RC: Scorpaeniformes species have some peculiarities that make them identifiable, in doubtful cases are available Isoeletrophoretic tracks. Fraud for substitution between gurnard and pangasius has made it important the recognition of the fillet as described recently by Malandra and Coll. Finally there is two types of risks for human consumer, the first risk is represented by Anisakis sp. (16% of prevalence in Trigla lira ), second type of risk is the presence of heavy metal (mercury) in redfish that exceeds the limits imposed by Reg CE 1881/2006.