Fatty acids profiling of goose barnacle (Pollicipes pollicipes) tissues to evaluate nutritional quality and confirm harvesting location

In the Iberian Peninsula, illegal harvesting and mislabeling of geographic origin of goose barnacle (Pollicipes pollicipes) poses serious socio-economic risks, including food safety issues, product depreciation, and depletion of natural stocks. In the present study, we assess the fatty acid (FA) profiles of two soft tissues (the edible peduncle and the adductor muscle) of P. pollicipes originating from six locations over the Atlantic NW and W Iberian coasts of mainland Portugal to demonstrate their suitability to confirm the geographic origin of this species and shed light on the nutritional value of the edible peduncle. Random forest models exhibited high accuracy in allocating samples to their original location (91.7% for the edible peduncle and 86.7% for the adductor muscle). Moreover, the edible peduncle possessed a high nutritional quality, as revealed by the following indices: fish lipid quality (FLQ, %): 44.3-53.6; atherogenic index (AI): 0.32-0.48; thrombogenic index (TI): 0.14-0.20; and hypocholesterolemic/hypercholesterolemic ratio (HH): 2.65-4.64. Overall, the traceability approach employed in the present work can assist in the fight against illegal harvesting and the mislabeling of P. pollicipes geographic origin, thus contributing to the added value of this nutritious bioresource, along with its conservation and sustainable management in the Iberian Peninsula and elsewhere.