When does bloating indicate poor quality or old fish?
The sentence embolded below bewilders me.
Most rockfish share a certain characteristic: a swim or air bladder. This is a gas-filled organ that allows the fish to carefully control its buoyancy. When it deflates the bladder, the fish will descend, and it can reverse the process by inflating. This can give the fish a somewhat strange, bloated look if you happen to see it sold whole. This is not a sign of poor quality or old fish, though bloating can sometimes be an indicator of these problems. When cleaning the fish, simply remove that blad- der and it will return to looking normal.
John Bil's Ship to Shore: Straight Talk from the Seafood Counter (2018). p 192.
1 answer
Except for the special case of a swim bladder, bloating is caused by gasses produced by the decomposition process. In other words, it indicates that lots of bacteria and/or fungi are present, and have been for a while. Hopefully you understand why that is bad.
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