FISH IN NUTRITION. Edited by Eirik Heen and Rudolf Kreuzer.

1962 1st edition. Large 4to (217 x 282mm). Ppxxiv,447. B/w photographs, graphs and tables, bibliography. Blue boards, silver-gilt titles to spine.

"The FAO Conference on Fish in Nutrition was unique in so far as it brought together for the first time on an international platform people working in fisheries, in production as well as research, with specialists in nutrition and animal feeding. Its object was to evaluate some of the existing knowledge of the role of fish in human and animal feeding, and to stimulate further study and exploration. One such matter which emerged was the possible role of fish protein concentrates in human nutrition, a product which is not only needed now to relieve animal protein shortage in diets, but will become more and more necessary in nutrition as population density increases. It may be said that fish protein concentrates furnish a way of making directly available to man the richness of the multitudinous 'small fishes' which abound in the ocean but are only slightly used in contrast to the larger and more expensive forms of fish which at present mark consumer taste". This isn't about where your cod and chips come from, nor even fish fingers. These papers examine fish as a bulk industrial feedstock - lots of material on fish meal and flour, for instance. Lots on canning and so forth too. Dozens of papers by hundreds of researchers. The book begins with papers assessing how much fish was out there, trends over time and such things as the effects of removing predators. Subsequent parts include: Chemical components of fish and their changes under treatment; Contribution of fish and fish products to national diets; Fish and fishery products in animal nutrition; Demand for fish as human food and possibilities for increased consumption. This book has a very contemporary ring, except that now there aren't any fish left, the same sort of industries are saying the same sort of things about insects. Well worth a read.