1United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Kagoshima University, Kagoshima 890-0056, Japan,2Faculty of Fisheries, Kagoshima University, Kagoshima 890-0056, Japan
The effect of press treatment (PT) on the post-mortem of fish before killing was examined. The PT was carried out by increasing the air pressure from 2 to 5 ata (absolute pressure) underwater with living fish for 50 minutes. In the case of eels and tilapia, they consumed as much oxygen as 203.0, 88.3mL/kg·h at 4.5 ata respectively, and the average of these values was 2.1 times as much as the value of the control at 1.0atm. Their initial content of ATP in dorsal muscle after killing increased an average of 1.4 times as much as 6.9 and 4.1μmol/g of the control, and then the ATP content was held at a high level during storage at 5°C. As a result, the times to full rigor-mortis became 78.0h and 12.5h, so that times were delayed 23.0h and 6.0h respectively, compared to the control values.