Frozen Fish and Seafood from Alaska
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Nearly 60% of all seafood harvested in the U.S. comes from Alaska. Known for its wild salmon, crab and whitefish varieties, including Alaska pollock, Alaska preserves much of the fresh catch immediately after it leaves the icy water by rapidly chilling the catch, then commercially flash freezing at well below zero, ensuring Alaska seafood is kept at the peak of freshness locking in the best quality and flavor. The seafood is held or transported at or below -18 degrees Celsius until it is ready to be eaten, preventing dehydration and preserving nutritional value and flavor.
Alaska seafood fisheries harvest their catch at the peak of freshness and they work with different freezing practices to deliver a quality product to consumer that still has the fresh flavor, delicate texture and packed nutrient content. The best way to do it is to utilize new freezing technologies that Alaska Seafood industry has. The quality cannot be improved it can only be maintained, that is why to keep the quality as high as possible it is essential to freeze seafood directly after it is captured.
When you put a fish into the freezer, the water in the fillet expands it from crystals and those crystals then break the cell walls. When thawed the cell walls actually leak out liquid and flavor. Alaska seafood industry utilizes technologies to decrease the cell wall breakage, therefore there is less damage to the fish in the freezing process. The technology is called the cryogenic flash freezing. It helps bring just harvested fish just out of the water to a solid frozen state within a few hours.
Flash freezing can stop or prevent the damage of proteins and lipids, limits the cell damage and it does not provide any room for crystal formation. After being flash frozen, the fish is glazed, that means that the water glazes the outside of the fish which protects the fish from oxidation process.
Most of the exported Alaska fish is frozen, that is one of the reasons why Alaska industry invests money and resources into developing better ways of freezing the fish and seafood. So, despite the fact that most fish harvest is seasonal, it is possible to enjoy high quality fish all year round.
Prepared by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.
More information: eeu.alaskaseafood.org and alaskaseafood.org
More information: eeu.alaskaseafood.org and alaskaseafood.org
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