Exploring the Micro-nutritional and Anti-nutritional Aspects of Azolla for its Application as Functional Food Ingredient

Abstract

Background: Aquatic plants are unexploited sources of bioactive and functional compounds having the potential as food ingredients for developing novel functional food and nutraceutical products. Azolla, an aquatic fern, is an excellent source of nutrients and secondary metabolites and hence finds application possibilities in the human diet. The goal of the current investigation was to expore the micronutrients as well as identify certain anti-nutritional elements in the water fern Azolla. Methods: In two species of Azolla viz., Azolla pinnata and Azolla caroliniana; the micro and anti-nutritional factors were determined using standard laboratory methods. Result: The findings demonstrated that both species of Azolla contained hydrocyanide, phytic acid, oxalate, tannin and saponin, all of which were below the critical level. Comparatively, saponin was found to be in the highest concentration of 9.13±0.012% and 7.52±0.031% and hydrocyanide was the lowest with the content of 0.0045±0.0004% and 0.0036±0.0002% for A. pinnata and A. caroliniana, respectively. Azolla caroliniana, however, outperformed Azolla pinnata in total caroteniod concentration, demonstrating its superior cardio-protective and anti-cancerous properties. Results indicated Azolla pinnata species to be more suitable for fortification as it contained lower anti-nutrients and was high in chlorophyll content when compared to the counterpart.