True retention of nutrients upon household cooking of farmed portion-size European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax L.)

Four equally numbered (n=5) subsamples of specimens were drawn out of each of ten freshly caught batches of farmed portion-size European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax L.), one of them representing the raw reference, the others being allotted to oven broiling (OB), baking in aluminium foil (BF) or microwaving (MW), in order to ascertain: 1) the ensuing contents of several macro and micronutrients in the separable flesh, both raw and cooked; 2) to what extent a 150-gram serving of cooked flesh might fulfil pertinent daily requirements of an adult male; 3) the practicality of such an approach (the ‘reference batch’) to gain knowledge on true retention values (TRVs) of nutrients in the separable flesh. BF emerged as the blandest cooking method, leaving the nutrient profile of raw flesh mostly unaffected, although in the general context of quite mild techniques, as requested by seafood. Cooked sea bass flesh proved to be an excellent source of protein, EPA and DHA, phosphorus and niacin, and a good source of potassium, riboflavin and vitamin B6. The ‘reference batch approach’ generated plausible TRVs for all the nutrients examined, most of which were significantly higher in BF than in OB, with MW data in between.