Drying of Lake Tanganyika sardines in Zambia

Photo credit: Nathan Chama (Zambia)

Description: Nathan Chama and Abdel Rahman El Gamal (Founder of the website)

The inserted picture shows a woman while drying some Tanganyika sardine Stolothrissa miodon which is known in Zambia as “kapenta”. The sardine drying takes place on the beaches of Lake Tanganyika in Nsumbu area (Zambia). Dried kapenta fetches a good market price in the mentioned area.

These sardines are freshwater species that belong to the family Clupeidae. They are planktivorous,pelagic and characterized by their small size with average length of about 7cm. The species experienced high level of overfishing in the last two decades.The dried kapenta being made from whole fish was found to be a good source for minerals and trace elements such as calcium, iron and zinc. Added to that, the dried kapenta is rich in vitamin B12 and other bioactive substances. The overall nutritive merit of the dried sardines makes it a recommended supplement for the improvement of maize-based diets.

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