<b>Processing of pacu (<em>Piaractus mesopotamicus</em>) meat from net cage farming in the Itaipu reservoir</b> - DOI: 10.4025/actascianimsci.v29i4.1018

Abstract

This work was carried out to evalue the morphometric and chemical characteristics, as well as the meat cut yields from pacu (Piaractus mesopotamicus) reared in net cages. Forty-five specimens were used, distributed in three treatments and 15 replications. The treatments consisted of animals fed with commercial extruded ration (CER), vegetal by-products (VBP) and fishery by-products (FBP). Individual morphometric characteristics were measures in terms of standard length (SL), total length (TL), head length (HL) head height (HH), body width (BW), body lenght (BL), body height (BH), to evaluate the morphometric ratio of HL/SL, HL/HH, SL/TL, BW/BL, BW/BH and BH/BL. Next, the carcass (CARC), clean body (CB), dorsal muscle (DM), fillet (FL), ribs (RIB), fin (FIN), visceral fat (VISCF), skin with scales (SKIN), as well as the levels of moisture (M), ash (ASH), crude protein (CPB) and fat (FAT) from the different cuts were evaluated. Better results (p < 0.05) were observed for HL/HH and DM for CER, and of RIB and VISCF for VBP. FL, DM and RIB cuts featured higher (p < 0.05) rates of FAT and lower rates of M for the VBP treatment, and the RIB cut presented lower (p < 0.05) levels of CPB for the same treatment.