Abstract
•Gurnard, ribaldo and snapper fish head and skin were analysed for lipids.•Lipid content varied significantly across the fish parts, species and lipid fractions.•All samples were found to contain considerable amounts of n-3 fatty acids.•Phospholipid content was found to be higher in head compared to skin.•Gurnard and snapper samples had high DPA and DHA in sn-2 position.
The present study investigated the lipid profile (fatty acid profile, positional distribution of n-3 fatty acids and phospholipid content) of head and skin of three lean fishes (gurnard, ribaldo and snapper). Gurnard head (GH) and snapper head (SnH) were found to contain a higher amount of total lipid (5.9–6.3%) than other samples (1.2–3.9%) including a considerable amount of bioactive n-3 fatty acids such as EPA (GH = 9.05%; SnH = 5.06%), DPA (GH = 2.78% ; SnH = 2.93%) and DHA (GH = 12.8% ; SnH = 7.72%) in the polar lipid fraction. DHA was found to predominate in the sn-2 position for gurnard head and snapper head. Partial least squares discriminant analysis showed that both gurnard and snapper samples were positively correlated with the n-3 fatty acids (EPA, DPA and DHA). Gurnard and snapper head had higher phospholipid content than the skin. Therefore, among the studied samples, GH and SnH are the best source of bioactive n-3 phospholipids.