-----------------+--------+------+-------------+-----+------+------- Food. |Protein.| Fat. |Carbohydrate.| Ash.|Water.|Food | | | | | |Value. -----------------+--------+------+-------------+-----+------+------- | | | | | | Cal. | | | | | |per lb. Haddock (fresh) | 12·0 | 0·2 | — | 0·9 | 51·6 | 232 „ (smoked) | 14·9 | 0·2 | — | 3·4 | 57·4 | 286 Herring (fresh) | 14·0 | 10·4 | — | 1·5 | 45·7 | 699 „ (salted) | 21·2 | 15·4 | — | 7·7 | 30·9 | 944 „ (bloater)| 15·7 | 9·6 | — | 1·5 | 52·0 | 697 „ (kipper) | 14·1 | 11·1 | — | 3·4 | 46·9 | 730 Sprats (fresh) | 12·6 | 10·7 | — | 1·3 | 49·4 | 686 „ (smoked) | 21·2 | 14·9 | — | 3·2 | 39·4 |1,023 -----------------+--------+------+-------------+-----+------+------- Thus, the food value of salted sprats or herrings per pound is 50 per cent more than that of the same fish when fresh. The original food value of a fish is generally diminished by the cooking process. The fish may be boiled or broiled for direct consumption, or it may be steam cooked in cans and sealed up for future consumption, as in the canning industry. When oily fishes, such as herrings, are cooked, the oil globules burst and some of the oil is lost, and the food value of the fish becomes correspondingly less. When salted fish is soaked in fresh water before being cooked, some of the gelatin and other coagulable proteins are extracted from the flesh. This loss of protein can be checked either by broiling the fish, when the protein near the surface becomes coagulated and so prevents the loss of protein from the interior of the fish, or by placing the fish that is to be boiled direct into boiling water, and not into the cold water before the heating has begun. In addition to this diminution of the food content of the fish, the process of cooking, contrary to general expectation, also diminishes slightly its digestibility.