Research Progress on Nutritional Evaluation of and Processing and Preservation Technologies for Channa argus

As one of the high-quality freshwater fishes in China, Channa argus has high nutritional and medicinal value. This paper reviews recent progress in research on the nutritional composition, medicinal effects of C. argus and the technologies for its processing and preservation. C. argus is rich in proteins, especially albumin and contains a variety of amino acids including all the essential amino acids required by the human body. The amino acid composition of C. argus is close to the FAO/WHO reference pattern, and it has abundant umami amino acids, such as Glu, Asp, Gly, Ala and Arg. The muscle of C. argus contains high contents of n-3 fatty acids, with the representative ones being eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). As a health food high in K and low in Na, the ratio of K to Na in the muscle of C. argus was much greater than 1, and the ratio of Ca to P was less than 0.5. The muscle of C. argus has many functional properties, such as antioxidant activity, promoting wound healing, regulating cardiovascular diseases, treating osteoarthritis and antidepressant activity. C. argus composite capsules that can promote wound healing and C. argus composite oral liquid that has antidepressant activity have been developed based on the medicinal effects of C. argus. C. argus is mainly processed into fillets and fish head soup. Low-temperature storage is most commonly used to preserve C. argus. Preservation of C. argus by packaging, coating or chemical treatment can reduce microbial growth, thereby prolonging the shelf life of C. argus. Based on the existing research on the processing of C. argus, this article proposes that researchers should explore comprehensive processing of C. argus to provide a basis for fully utilizing C. argus resources, developing new products and realizing the high-value utilization of C. argus.