Gelatin is widely used in processing food for a texture modifier to set the goodness of chewing feel. Fish gelatin has been produced since 1960s, however, its gel-strength was weaker than that of mammalian one. Furthermore the melting point of fish gelatin gel was lower than mammalian one. Therefore, most of food gelatins have been supplied from mammalian tissues until now. Recently, we have successfully obtained gelatin having higher gel strength from fish scale by pre-treatment with acid and alkaline solutions. In this review, we report the procedure of gelatin extraction by means of simple heat-extraction method combined by the pre-treatment and its rheological properties. The fish gelatin is supposed to be utilized widely for the texture modifier of chilled food in place of mammalian gelatin.

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