Frozen krill - Cooked?

[Miles]

The 'best' way to thaw is in a fridge for a few days - which takes planning in advance in order to feed frozen/thawed foods to our fish. Using cold water to thaw is frownd upon, but isn't TOO bad. Using hot water more or less eliminates all nutritional value and you're better off fasting the animal. The draw back to water thawing is that most of the nutriants you are wanting to keep in the food are water soluble - so they are leaching into the water and not being fed.

The freezing process actually breaks down the 'meat' material that holds the nutrition of the food source. I don't know how deep you want to get - pretty much it's in the way ice crystals form in the food. From that standpoint, warming it to thaw give proper growing conditions for microbacteria that results in the parasitic loss of nutritional value as well. Not to mention exposing your animals to that same bacteria. I translate that to "the quicker something is thawed, the more damage is done to the nutrional source".
Thawing at room temp actually hurts your food source as well. USDA actually has set regulations for thawing food in institutions holding animals (something I've learned working in this industry). I'd have to go look up the exact temps the state - but it's just above freezing point (water freezing, that is).

Most places I've work pull frozen food to thaw in a fridge two or three days prior to feeding, depending on the size of the frozen block. Larger blocks were broken down so that it thawed evenly. Thawed meat doesn't last long, so you don't want the outter edges to be fully thawed while the core is still solid.


Krill is a great food source for many fish/inverts. I don't know of a single zoo/aquarium that doesn't have a rather large stock of it.

GREATEST POST OF ALL TIME AWARD

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[kev82]

The 'best' way to thaw is in a fridge for a few days - which takes planning in advance in order to feed frozen/thawed foods to our fish. Using cold water to thaw is frownd upon, but isn't TOO bad. Using hot water more or less eliminates all nutritional value and you're better off fasting the animal. The draw back to water thawing is that most of the nutriants you are wanting to keep in the food are water soluble - so they are leaching into the water and not being fed.

That's the most ridiculous thing I've read on these forums today. Sure it reduces the nutritional value, but saying it eliminates it is just wrong. There's plenty of proteins, fats and vitamins left, just a few percent less than if the food was thawed without water.
If this was true, then why do humans cook food - Should we just skip the cooked (boiled/grilled/fried/microwaved/whatever) food altogether since we're not getting any nutrients anyway?

A lot of the stuff you state in your post is true, but I just had to comment the part in bold, because that's just incorrect.


On another note:
You know how they say steaming food keeps almost all nutrients in and cooks the food? That's one way of thawing quickly that's guaranteed to keep the food fresh - if your pets will eat it.

 

[Miles]

That's the most ridiculous thing I've read on these forums today.

I'm sure I can find something more ridiculous than one of the most informational posts I've seen in a while..

Sure it reduces the nutritional value, but saying it eliminates it is just wrong. There's plenty of proteins, fats and vitamins left, just a few percent less than if the food was thawed without water.

What Zoo do you work for? What college degree do you have? How many hundreds of thousands of aquatic species do you have husbandry priority of?

ya k thx bubye.

If this was true, then why do humans cook food - Should we just skip the cooked (boiled/grilled/fried/microwaved/whatever) food altogether since we're not getting any nutrients anyway?

Since when do humans eat healthy?

We boil and cook our food for flavor and texture.. not nutrition. Is Mongolian BBQ nutritional? No. Does it taste better cooked than raw? Yes.

Do health nuts eat organics, unprocessed, raw fruits and vegetables because of their incredibly valuable nutritional content in comparison to processed foods? Yes.

I have a friend who is a nutritionist.. He explained to me if you buy an apple at Wal-mart, it has been processed so poorly and improperly, you only get about 5% of the nutrition. If you buy an Apple from an organic road-side produce stand, your body will absorb 10x the amount of nutrition in comparison.

A lot of the stuff you state in your post is true, but I just had to comment the part in bold, because that's just incorrect.

Sure, if you want to consider all of the nutritionally voided byproducts of the food to be 'proteins, fats, and vitamins.'.. Similar how I can go to the grocery store and buy a bag of Alpo dog food. Sure it still has proteins, fats, and vitamins but my dogs have disgusting oily coats, dander, take huge dumps, and have a shortened life-span.. but it still has proteins, fats, and vitamins! or.. I could feed a premium dog food and have the complete opposite outcome.

It makes perfect sense as to why using hot water is bad practice. Not only are most vitamins water soluble, so you are going to lose some nutrition either way.. but more the fact that the bacterias that consume these vitamins and nutrients thrive and proliferate in warm water. The warmer the water, the faster it increases the metabolism of these nutrient consuming bacterias.. ever taken a food handlers class? in Iceland?

So yeah when you get some resourceful links and post some factual information we can continue this discussion.. because I think if you start to do some research you will realize you are wrong, and the Zoologist was right.

On another note:
You know how they say steaming food keeps almost all nutrients in and cooks the food? That's one way of thawing quickly that's guaranteed to keep the food fresh - if your pets will eat it.

That's the most ridiculous thing I've read on these forums today.

 

[Zoodiver]

GREATEST POST OF ALL TIME AWARD

bump for awesomeness

Wow, thanks.
(Too bad after re-reading it I can't spell/type worth a crap!)

 

[Zoodiver]

On another note:
You know how they say steaming food keeps almost all nutrients in and cooks the food? That's one way of thawing quickly that's guaranteed to keep the food fresh - if your pets will eat it.

Steaming and thawing are very different processes. I wouldn't feed steamed food to my animals either.

Also, people nutrition and fish nutrition are very different as well.

 

[kev82]

ok I'll back off with most of what I said because I don't have the same background as zoodiver has - but I will stand by this:

Thawing food using hot (or cold) water is by many orders of magnitude better than not feeding your pets at all. It's not the best way to thaw food, but the food still retains a good amount of important nutrients that stingrays (and other creatures) need. Just look at how many people thaw their food exclusively like this and have outstanding specimens in their collections.

I take food out of the freezer 1-2 days in advantage and just take enough out to cover 1-3 days. It thaws in the fridge and is ready to be fed the day after.

 

[Zoodiver]

I would like to see a real medical run down of fish fed exclusively in this manner.
Based on what I've seen, they probably aren't in top shape when it comes to over all health, and I bet they show a shortend lifespan.

 

[skynoch]

Great post changed the way I fed my rays. Thanks for the info

 

[Zinq]

In terms of the argument against warm water thawing, bacterial growth is really negligible. It is true that many bacteria grow faster in warmer environments but they will not suddenly explode in population within the span of an hour or so. The population may increase slightly but the food won't suddenly become infested with bacteria if you use warm water to thaw something versus cold water and feed this food within an hour or two.

Granted if you thaw it over the course of the day in warm water then it's probably not a great idea but a quick warm water thaw before feeding probably won't make a huge difference in terms of bacterial population. Especially considering that bacteria are not instantaneously replicating either since they need time to adapt to a changing environment and the sudden change in temperature from frozen to warm will take a bit of time to adjust.

Secondly, I don't understand why warm water would reduce the quality of protein in the food. I can see it could solubilize some of the water soluble vitamins and such. Particularly those on the edges of the food versus the core. But in terms of the protein quality why would it decrease? Sure the heat will denature some of the protein but it's not like the protein disappears when that happens, it's just not in the same conformation as it was before. (conformation = 3d shape)

Just so people don't start saying I'm making random non-factual statements, these statements are coming from someone with a university degree in Microbiology and Immunology. I'm not saying that "I'm right and You're wrong" at all but I just wanted to see your point of view on this.

 

[Nic]

i used to thaw out about a half pound of shrimp in about 10 minutes under the cold water coming out of my faucet..... why use warm when cold is just as quick...