Eat healthy fish at Easter

At Easter, fish are on the table in many households

04/16/2014

Fish is traditionally favored by consumers at Easter, but there is also a trend towards increasing fish consumption in the rest of the year. For the health of the fish consumption brings quite some benefits with it and the fish wholesalers are happy about the good sales. Bottlenecks are not expected despite the dramatic increase in demand at Easter and so the price remains stable, reports the Bremen fish wholesaler Uwe Koch-Bodes to the news agency „dpa“.

Good Friday is a Christian fasting day traditionally pretreated the fish, which causes annually at Easter significantly increased demand from the fishmongers. Koch-Bodes explained that while cooking fish such as cod and haddock are the classics for Easter, but also game fish such as sole and Limandes would sell well since „you have something special on holidays“ begrudge. The Fischmanufaktur Deutsche See in Bremerhaven reports that the sales volume in the Holy Week is more than 50 percent above the average. According to company spokesman Tammo Schäfer, special shifts have been made at the plant this year to cover extreme demand. The salmon at Easter is especially popular with the Germans. „Good Friday, which is on many fish day, is eaten salmon“, reports the company spokesman. Today, a considerable proportion of salmon comes from aquaculture, whose importance in fish farming is increasing worldwide.

Germans eat 15 kilograms of fish per year
In recent decades, fish has undergone a remarkable renaissance in the face of scams about rotten meat, BSE and the like. The health benefits also play a role here, whereby the high proportion of omega-3 fatty acids in particular causes the German Society for Nutrition (DGE) to recommend two fish meals per week. Currently, the Germans statistically come to a fish consumption of around 15 kilograms per capita on average. The fishmongers record extreme increases in demand at Christmas, New Year's Eve and Easter, explained the operator of the state pond management in Ahlhorn, Friedrich von Heidebrandt „dpa“. In general, the trout farms in Germany would benefit from rising fish consumption.

Organic fish especially popular
At present, it is also at the state pond economy high season and the „Fish from the ponds runs very strong“, because „The customers know that the fish is fresh and they want to know where the fish comes from“, so the operator continues. His farm used around 20 tons of trout every year. In conversation with the news agency, Carsten Wilke from the Forellenhof Wilke in Horneburg, who switched his family business to organic almost five years ago, is also pleased about the high fish demand. Organic trout are currently very much in demand among consumers, emphasized Wilke, who also sells his smoked and frozen fresh trout through wholesale in Germany.

Healthy ingredients of the fish
In addition to omega-3 fatty acids, fish can also boast many other healthy ingredients. For example, this is a good source of protein and vitamin D. Also the mineral selenium and the trace element iodine are contained in fish. Overall, from a health point of view, fish consumption has some advantages over meat consumption, so at least occasionally meat meals should be replaced with a portion of fish. Easter is a good occasion for Christians as Good Friday traditionally marks the day of Jesus' death. (Fp)