Three alkane/alcohol/water-based lipid extraction systems were evaluated to determine which would be the best replacement for the frequently used chloroform/methanol/water system, nowadays known to be very toxic. All the methods were applied to samples of minced herring (Clupea harengus) differing in quality and composition. In addition to comparisons of total lipid yield, the extracted lipids were compared with respect to content of triglycerides, phospholipids, free fatty acids, ?-tocopherol, lipid hydroperoxides and conjugated dienes. The content of phospholipids was found to differ most between the lipids extracted by the four methods. Here, the chloroform/methanol/water system was the most efficient, followed by heptane/ethanol/water/sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) and then iso-propanol/hexane. However, by decreasing the level of SDS, the efficiency of the heptane/ethanol/water/SDS system in extracting phospholipids was increased to the same level as that of the chloroform/methanol/water system. This decrease in SDS also resulted in a higher recovery of free fatty acids. The lack of correlation between yields of phospholipids and yields of lipid oxidation products throughout this study was surprising because of the often-described susceptibility of phospholipids to oxidation.