Nutritive values and dietary antioxidant of some under-utilized seeds and nuts from ethnic sources of North East India

Abstract

Food security and nutritional security are under increasing stress due to unabated surge in population growth, which is aggravated by global warming, climate change etc. In this context it is a growing necessity to evaluate non-conventional, lesser-known edible food plant for sustainable utilization. India is known for vast diversity of such edible plants, most of which are still unexplored, particularly the seed and nut category of edible plants. The present investigation was conducted during 2018-19 at Department of Biotechnology, Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam, India. The present study deals with seven unrelated and diverse type of non-conventional seeds and nuts, viz., Trapa natans, Nymphaea nouchali, Euryle ferox, Castanopsis argentea, Artocarpus heterophyllus, Nelumbo nucifera and Gnetum gnemon. It was revealed that all these were rich in nutritive values with wide variation and high in calorific values. Crude protein content varied from 4.40% to 32.08%; carbohydrate content varied from 38.66 to 77.50%. With calorific values in the range of 317.78 to 376.62 Kcal/100g, these are high calorie food with low lipid in the range of 0.93 to 6.74%. They are also rich in dietary antioxidant phenolics which varied widely from 1.0 to 17.6 mg/g; free amino acid content varied from 4.0 to 10.66 mg/g. This preliminary study showed that contrary to general perception that nonconventional seeds and nuts are nutritionally poor and unimportant; they were very promising and need further consideration for utilization.