Fish innards

[Odin]

Organs of animals seem to be fine to eat.
What do you do with the organs of fish, though?
I just had some nice sardines. I wasn't sure, so I cut out the innards and threw them away.

[TylerDurden]

I don't much like fish innards by themselves . I sometimes make a valiant effort to eat things like fish eyeballs or raw fish liver, but usually just eat the musclemeat of the fish if it's big and eat most(everything minus the head) or all of the fish if it's small enough.

[Hans89]

You can eat it if you can stand the taste. Just take out the gall bladder.

[Odin]

Alright.
Thanks

[goodsamaritan]

Organs of animals seem to be fine to eat.
What do you do with the organs of fish, though?
I just had some nice sardines. I wasn't sure, so I cut out the innards and threw them away.

When the fish is tiny enough I eat them all the time, head, bones, innards... the entire fish.

[RawZi]

    I don't like sardines that much, but I like eating the innards of bigger fish, no gall bladders though.

[bonebroth]

Found this interesting.

http://www.pskf.ca/sd/#ext

[nummytummy]

Found this interesting.

http://www.pskf.ca/sd/#ext

That's a nice link. Unfortunately the whole salmon I get comes pre-gutted. And the smaller fish like sardines and anchovies are more difficult to dissect properly. Does it matter if you eat the gallbladders of these types of smaller fish? I got a bunch of fresh anchovies but after eating a bunch of them realised they were giving me migraine headaches. Don't know if this would be from eating the gallbladders...

[bonebroth]

I'm no expert but the gall bladder in fish like anchovy would be tiny and would not pose a problem IMO. Re you getting migraine headaches, if you were patient enough to gut them totally and then eat them, you could perhaps narrow it down this way. It also depends on the amount I guess.

[nummytummy]

Re you getting migraine headaches, if you were patient enough to gut them totally and then eat them, you could perhaps narrow it down this way. It also depends on the amount I guess.

so it is the innards that are causing the migraines? i also had fresh sardines the same week and didn't seem to have a problem with them, maybe because i ate some whole, but then gutted the rest. the anchovies were smaller so i didn't gut them fully, just pulled out the dark strip of their intestines and ate the bones and heads and everything. but maybe it was just too much, because the migraines got much worse in intensity after maybe the 3rd meal of anchovies.

so i've given up on anchovies for now. too bad, because i quite like them. maybe the next time i eat them i'll fully gut and filet them and maybe have less problems that way. i just thought that if eating land animal innards is good for you, then fish innards must be good for you too. but maybe it was too much of a good thing. i also read that anchovies contain monoamines, which can cause migraines in sensitive people, especially if you have gut issues. so maybe it's just me.

[bonebroth]

''so it is the innards that are causing the migraines?''
nummytummy, I was suggesting you could try gutted anchovy to see if this also gave you migrains, because it would be too bothersome to try and remove just the gallbladder from such a small fish. Then depending on the outcome you could determine if it was something from the innards. The monoamines is interesting.

On a sidenote re: migraines/headaches I suffered daily for months on end even waking up with them, debilitating. Until the cause became apparent, bruxism. Once I became consciously aware that I was clenching my jaw and grinding my teeth the problem disappeared.

[goodsamaritan]

If you find fish innards hard to swallow.
Oysters, clams and mussels may be easier for you.

[nummytummy]

nummytummy, I was suggesting you could try gutted anchovy to see if this also gave you migrains, because it would be too bothersome to try and remove just the gallbladder from such a small fish. Then depending on the outcome you could determine if it was something from the innards.

Yes, I fully comprehended this. Thank you for the suggestion.


Migraines are a rather rare occurrence for me and seem to happen with particular protein foods; it has happened (rarely) with cooked chicken in the past, and now fresh anchovies/anchovy innards. The thing is that I've eaten loads of dried anchovies in the past with no problem, so I was a bit surprised to discover myself reacting badly to them fresh/aged a few days. The other thing I read about monoamines and migraines is that aged meats can also trigger migraines in those who are sensitive.

By the way, the best cure I've found for a migraine is massage, both of the head and neck and also of the point in the fleshy part of the hand between the base of the thumb and the knuckle of the index finger. This has gotten rid of even the most painful and debilitating migraines within a few hours at the most and usually even faster.

If you find fish innards hard to swallow.
Oysters, clams and mussels may be easier for you.

I do eat and enjoy oysters, clams and mussels, but found the last time I had oysters (a week or two ago) that they were not nearly as appetising to me as they were, for example, a few months ago, when I first started to add more animal foods to my diet. I also didn't feel the euphoric effects after eating them this time that I did then. I think that perhaps my body has already started to balance out more nutritionally; I find that I don't have as much of an appetite for meats and fats as I did when I first started eating them regularly, and that I am satisfied after much smaller portions. I do crave land animal fats if I haven't had enough in a while, but generally I think my body's balancing out its nutritional stores.

Also I don't know how it works in the Philippines, but in temperate climate countries, it's generally not recommended to eat shellfish in the hotter months because of their spawning season making the meat more stringy and flavourless and possible algae blooms causing bacterial infections. The recent oysters I got weren't nearly as tasty or full-fleshed as the ones I got in February, which is probably a reflection of this.