Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), particularly those of the omega-3 (n-3 or -3) family, provide important health benefits to consumers but also present the scientists and technologists with a difficult challenge in delivering the highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA) foods that are appealing and do not have off-flavours associated with their oxidation products [1]. Interest in n-3 fatty acids as health promoting dietary components/supplements has expanded dramatically in the last three decades or so [2][3][4]. There is a rapidly growing body of literature illustrating cardiovascular [5-7] and a myriad of other health benefits of HUFA, with respect to inflammatory diseases [8], certain type of cancer as well as type II diabetes [9], and mental health [10][11][12]. Evolutionary assessments suggest that most Western populations are consuming far less n-3 fatty acids than historically and much less than appears to be nutritionally desirable [13,14]. The best sources of n-3 fatty acids are the body of fatty fish, liver of white lean fish, blubber of marine mammals, as well as micro-and macroalgae. However, high oil fish are the best sources of n-3 fatty acids, but the consumption of fish is often too low to meet the requirements. Efforts to supplement foods with n-3 fatty acids have been slow because of off-flavours associated with the oils, especially during storage. The n-3 rich fish oils are extremely labile to oxidation, thus requiring control of oxidation and off-flavour development [15,16,25]. Fortunately, recent advances in the microencapsulation and coacervation technologies have allowed production of stabilized products that could be introduced into foods without being degraded, as the microcapsules that include the oils are fairly stable and some are able to release their content only after reaching the gastrointestinal tract [33]. This chapter provides a cursory account of the processing aspect of marine fish oils and their application into food products.
39.2 Marine oil processing
Crude fish oil is often a by-product of the fish meal industry [17]. The type of fish caught for the meal industry are white anchovy, black anchovy, sardine, mackerel (Chile and Peru), capelin, blue whiting, herring, menhaden, sandeel (Iceland and Norway), and sprat (Denmark).