Studies on the Chemical Composition of Some Natural Foods of Aquatic Animals

Some natural foods, including planktonic algae and animals, of youngs of aquatic animals were analyzed for chemical composition of the whole and for amino acid composition of the proteins (Tables 1 and 2). The samples of diatoms which were cultured in a laboratory were rich in crude protein and ash, indicating that the main component in organic matters of the algae was protein. Based on the ten essential amino acids for growth of fish15), the essential amino acid index (EAA index) of the proteins were calculated by OSER's method13). As shown in Table 2, the values of EAA index of animal proteins were superior to those of cultured diatoms. The diatoms analyzed, however, were characteristic in considerably high contents of protein which had relatively high values of EAA index.