Chemical Analysis of Flesh and Some Body Parts of Different Fresh Fish in South West Nigeria

Fresh fish samples from major fish producing areas in South West, Nigeria were analyzed for their chemical composition in terms of their body parts and flesh. The three fresh fish samples; Mackerel, Croacker and Cat Fish were dissected into bone, flesh and skin parts under hygienic condition and analyzed for their proximate and mineral contents. Result obtained indicated that the bone and skin contrary to general believes contained higher distribution of nutrients like fat and protein as well as mineral content like calcium when compared to that of the flesh. The protein content was highly concentrated in the skin and least in the flesh. The skin contained 26.77%, 27.20% and 28.00% protein for cat, croacker and mackerel fish while the flesh contained 14.60%, 15.22% and 18.28% fish respectively. However, the mineral contents were uniformly distributed in the body parts except for calcium contents which are highly concentrated in the bone.