A preliminary survey of fish consumption at district Charsadda, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Abstract

Present survey was conducted at District Charsadda Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from early January 2010 to November 2011 to know Fish Consumption on the basis of, 1) Fish consumption in relation to educational level, 2) Fish consumption in relation to age and gender, 3) Per Head consumption of fish, 4) Fish consumption on the basis of species liking, 5) Fish consumption on the basis of size, 6) Fish consumption in relation to time duration, 7) Order of preference given by people to meat, 8) Reasons for avoiding fish eating. The spectrum of the survey of this work was the district Charsadda, Khyber Palhtunkhwa, Pakistan in 2012.For this purpose a Questionnaire was made, 305 Questionnaires were distributed of which only 266 samples were taken from the district Charsadda while the rest of 29 Questioners were unfilled as no one responded. So according to this survey results obtained were like this: 1) That fish eating habit was not much effected by educational level. 2) Among males consumption ratio was less than females and the consumption of fish was lowest among people having age group 46-55 years where as high among people having age group 26-35 years respectively. 3) per head consumption of fish in lower class was 0.40kg, while in middle class it bears 0.65kg but chased by 0.94kg in upper class. 4) Species liked by the people mostly were Silver carp, Rohu and Mahasher . 5) 20.37% people like small size fish and about 59.24% people like medium size fish and 20.68% consumes large sizes fish. 6) The percentage of people who consume fish once a week were 13.4% and similarly number of consumers who use fish twice a week were 6.5% and percentage of people consuming fish once a month were 22.95% while those serving fish bimonthly were 18.36% and yearly consumers of fish were 16.72% and 14% people use fish occasionally in parties and other recreational programmed. 7) It was concluded that 9.4% peoples use beef as meat, the result for mutton and fish were 20% and 33.96% respectively and chased by chicken as 36.98%. Reason for avoiding fish eating were smell, taste, spines, fear of leucoderma and high price. Overall, 87% respondents believed that there were health benefits from eating fish as reducing heart disease and high B.P. The main purpose of this study was to know approach and thinking of people at that area on different level toward the consumption of fish.