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A Method for Identification of Exogenous Formaldehyde in Bombay Duck (Harpodon nehereus)

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Abstract

Bombay duck (Harpodon nehereus) is a highly perishable fish species due to its unusually high moisture content. This has contributed to the use of formalin (water solution of formaldehyde) to extend aquatic products’ shelf life, which has brought great harm to consumers’ health. What’s more, the fish itself generates minute amount of formaldehyde through metabolism making it very difficult for the inspection authorities to distinguish the source of formaldehyde detected during quality inspection. Against such background, this paper established a reliable method to identify whether the fish has been artificially adulterated with formalin, by observing changes of formaldehyde and dimethylamine content in the flesh and the viscera of Bombay duck, along with sensory analysis. The results showed that the variation trend of endogenous formaldehyde resembled that of dimethylamine in the flesh and viscera during ice and fresh storage. The endogenous formaldehyde content in the viscera was always twice higher than that in the flesh. As to the formalin immersed samples, formaldehyde detected in the viscera and the flesh were very approximate to each other, additionally, formaldehyde content is much higher than dimethylamine content in the flesh and/or viscera with a ratio larger than five. Sensory analysis also exhibited attributes like stiff flesh, gray gill, and mouth corresponding to the presence of exogenous formaldehyde.

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Acknowledgments

This research project was financially supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China (31371800), National Science and Technology Planning Project (2012BAD28B05), Special Scientific Research Funds for Central Non-profit Institutes, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences (2014C05XK01).

Compliance with Ethics Requirements

We must include the following sentence to make sure that readers are aware that there are no ethical issues with human or animal subjects: This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects.

Conflict of Interest

Yu Shen declares that she has no conflict of interest. Wei Feng Wang declares that she has no conflict of interest. Yan Yan Wu declares that she has no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. South China Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, No. 231 Xingang West Road, Haizhu District, Guangzhou, 510300, People’s Republic of China

    Yu Shen & Yan Yan Wu

  2. Key Lab of Aquatic Product Processing of Ministry of Agriculture, Guangzhou, 510300, People’s Republic of China

    Yu Shen & Yan Yan Wu

  3. College of Food Science and Technology, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai, 201306, People’s Republic of China

    Yu Shen

  4. College of Life Sciences, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, People’s Republic of China

    Wei Feng Wang

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  1. Yu Shen
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Correspondence to Yan Yan Wu.

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Shen, Y., Wang, W.F. & Wu, Y.Y. A Method for Identification of Exogenous Formaldehyde in Bombay Duck (Harpodon nehereus). Food Anal. Methods 8, 2474–2481 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12161-015-0138-2

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