Admit it, although you started the school year with a firm de-termination to put more thought in planning healthy lunch box meals for your children, you find that you’ve run out of ideas after a period of sustained effort. Your children clamor for sausages, hams and other processed meats, which are the mainstays of their classmates’ meals and it is so easy to buckle and relent to their demands. Soon enough, you find yourself back to square one, worrying about your family’s health and picturing a time when you will serve only healthy food.
The good news is that new products available on the market allow for healthier alternatives to processed meats. The sausages, bacon, ham and luncheon meat that come under the Fisher Farms label are made from fish, a low-cholesterol food source that is also rich in cardio-protective omega-3 fatty acids. The premium products have passed the stringent quality standards of North America, Japan and Australia, and have an added advantage of being are gluten and casein- free.
“Fish is naturally good, but we make it even better. This is because we want Filipinos to eat more fish and reduce health problems,” says Henry Uy, president of Fisher Farms. The company started in 2001 and supplies the widest range of quality fresh and frozen seafood. While milkfish (whole de-boned, marinated or smoked) and pomfret (pompano) are the primary seafood products distributed by the company, new “value-added” products that include fish sausages, bacons and luncheon meats have been developed and are gaining an enthusiastic following.
What makes the seafood distributed by Fisher Farms a notch above the rest? Perhaps, the company’s commitment to maintaining freshness is one factor that allows the seafood to retain their distinct farm-fresh, newly harvested flavors. Jaime Toh, general manager, explains that a “cold chain” is sustained from the time the seafood is harvested until the seafood is frozen using the Individual Quick Freeze (IQF) technology in the company’s plant. Culturing the fish in the cleanest environments and investing in technology for testing give reassurance that the seafood is uncontaminated by dangerous chemicals, and the excellent quality of aquaculture feeds is guaranteed. This is because Feed Mix, Fisher Farms’ sister company, manufactures the superior feeds without including potentially harmful antibiotics as additives to the formula. An environmental benefit of aquaculture is that it addresses ecological concerns about over-fishing and depleting the ocean’s fish stocks through trawling and other traditional fishing methods. Growing fish in deep-sea cages is a means of ensuring a steady and dependable supply.
The frozen milkfish and pomfret were undeniably tasty when we cooked them but we recognized that the “taste test” is the best means of ascertaining the palatability of the processed fish. The products were flavored so that “even meat lovers can’t tell,” but a lingering doubt persisted that they would still taste and smell fishy — albeit faintly — to die-hard meat lovers. Thus, while we sampled an excellently seasoned Hungarian fish sausage previously, the challenge was to test the products on the most adamant, most resolute carnivores.
Fortunately, my brothers were there to serve as unwitting test subjects. Did they detect a difference? They most certainly did. “What brand is this?” they demanded, as they plowed through the frankfurters, bacon and luncheon meat during breakfast. “This new brand is quite good!”
They thought it was a joke when I revealed that they were actually eating fish.
* * *
Fisher Farms Inc. (FFI) is the leading aquaculture food processor in the Philippines. For more information call (44) 676-2780 or e-mail Fisher Farms at sales@fisherfarms.ph; or visit http://fisherfarms.ph.