Nutritional and biological evaluation of selected nuts of Himachal Pradesh for development of value added products

Abstract

The present study was conducted to determine the nutritional and biological quality of selected nuts of Himachal Pradesh viz. Pecan nut, Pine nut and Wild Apricot seed along with development of various value added products. Pecan nut, pine nut and wild apricot seed contained 20, 13 and 25 per cent crude protein, respectively. Pecan nut contained 68 per cent crude fat, 7 per cent total carbohydrates and 3 per cent crude fiber. Whereas, pine nut contained 50 per cent fat, 13 per cent protein, 25 per cent carbohydrates and 3 per cent crude fiber content. Wild apricot seed contained 55 per cent fat, 25 per cent protein and 14 per cent carbohydrate in addition to 4 per cent crude fiber content. When compared with pine nut and wild apricot seed, pecan nut was found to be a very rich source of total phenols (302.67 mg GAE /100g), simple phenols (47.05 mg GAE/100g), tannins (253.54 mg GAE/100g) and flavonoids (44.95 mg/100g),. Wild apricot seed contained hydrocyanic acid (HCN), which is toxic in nature. Thus, detoxification of wild apricot seed was carried out by soaking in 25 per cent salt solution for 2 days. Detoxification decreased HCN, responsible for toxicity and bitterness of wild apricot seed. After conducting biological trial, it was found that pecan nut, pine nut and detoxified wild apricot seed had appreciable protein quality. The effect of feeding selected nuts on blood lipid and blood glucose level of rats confirmed the hypocholesterolemic and hypoglycaemic effect of these nuts by lowering the total blood cholesterol, LDL, VLDL, triglycerides, blood glucose level and increasing HDL content. The results of storage study of selected nuts revealed that nuts can be stored for upto 1 year in PET containers at room temperature without major deterioration in their physico-chemical composition. Various value added products like biscuits, buns, chikki and nutribar were prepared by supplementing selected nuts with other nuts and cereals. The products were of high nutritional quality and were acceptable upto 50 per cent level of selected nut supplementation. newline