CALORIE DENSITY AND NUTRIENT CONTENT OF COMMONLY CONSUMED SWEETMEATS OF JASHORE DISTRICT IN BANGLADESH

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to analyze the nutrient content of some commonly consumed sweetmeats of Jashore district in Bangladesh and calculation of the their calorie densities. The selected samples for the study were as follows: Rosogolla (sponge, white), Kalojam, Laddu (mewa), Chomchom (black, brown, white), Shondesh (para, chinir, cake), Doi (mishit, tok, tok-mishti). Sweetmeats were collected from three different popular shops of Jahsore Sadar in Jashore district during the period of October, 2019 to December, 2019. Proximate analysis of the samples was conducted in triplicate by various standard methods and calorie densities were calculated by amount of energy per gram of food. Ash content ranged from 2 to 5.33%, moisture content ranged from 25.66 to 69.3%, protein content ranged from 2.19 to 4.05%, fat content ranged from 0.64 to 2.55%. In case of dietary fiber, highest fiber content was found in laddu (1.37%) and lowest fiber content was found in kalojam (0.73%). However, carbohydrate content was measured by subtraction method and highest carbohydrate content was found in chinir sondesh (64%) and lowest carbohydrate content was found in tok doi (22.68%). Afterwards, Sweets were ranked in descending order according to their calorie densities. It was seen that chinir sondesh was the most calorie densed foods and tok doi was the least amongst the studied samples. KEYWORDS: Calorie density, nutrient, sweetmeats, Jashore, Bangladesh.