Nutritional and safety implications of consuming melon seeds and impacts on international trade: A review

Abstract

Melon seed is a critically important oil seed consumed by diverse populations in Nigeria and has potential to boost nutrition. A review of nutritional and anti-nutritional qualities of melon seed, as well as its safety with respect to aflatoxin contamination was carried out in this study, with a view to understanding the implications to human nutrition and health. Secondary data revealed that melon seed is nutritious with 26.26–39.96% protein, 26.56–55.0% fat, 1.11–49.54 mg/100 g iron, 0.26–18.58 mg/100 g copper, 0.75–22.09 mg/100 g zinc and 12.2 µg/100 g selenium. Essential amino acids such as arginine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, methionine and phenylalanine are present in levels comparable to those in soybean. In addition, tryptophan and tyrosine which are not sufficiently present in soybean are found in melon seed. The seed contains saturated (21.2%), monounsaturated (16.1%) and polyunsaturated (62.7%) fatty acids, with linoleic acid (an essential sn-3 fatty acid) accounting for 62.42%. The aflatoxin B1 and total aflatoxin contents ranged from 2.8 to 147 µg/kg and 3.6–214.2 µg/kg in whole melon seeds; and 5.4–166 µg/kg and 6.8–190 µg/kg in dehulled melon seed flour, respectively, which are considered significant in terms of health hazard implications. The study has revealed the need to provide evidence-based knowledge that can be applied to eliminate or reduce mycotoxin contamination thereby enhancing the utilization of melon seeds to boost food and nutrition security.