Effect of Processing Methods on Nutritive Value of Catfish (Clarias gariepinus)

This study was carried out to determine the effect of processing methods on catfish ( Clarias gariepinus). A total of fifty four catfish ( Clarias gariepinus) were used for the experiment. The average weight of the fish used was 500g.  The experimental design was Complete Randomized Design (CRD) with the treatments been the processing methods (smoking, frying and boiling) all replicated thrice. The adopted indices of fish quality assessment of the samples collected were organoleptic assessment, proximate composition and microbial analysis. There was significant difference (P < 0.001) among the group respondent over a period of 5 days with the chi-square statistics test (? 2 = 51.436 xxx ) for boiled fish, (? 2 = 54.464 xxx ) for fried fish and (? 2 = 77.348 xxx ) for smoked fish samples. The result suggested that protein quality will be better retained from smoked fish samples than fried fish samples left at ambient over days as there was no significant difference (p < 0.05) in the crude protein of the smoked fish samples between day 1 and the day 5 of the experiment while significant difference (p < 0.05) existed between day 1 and day 5 in fried fish samples. The microorganisms found on the fish samples included Bacillus spp, Staphylococcus spp and Pseudomonas spp. Keywords: smoking, frying, boiling and catfish