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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692
Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
Manamelkudi, located along the Palk Strait of East coast of Tamil Nadu serve as treasure houses for valuable marine resources like sea grass and seaweeds. A study was undertaken at Agricultural College and Research Institute, Kudumiyanmalai during 2016-17 to evaluate the nutritional composition of the seaweeds in order to use them as potential food ingredients. Seaweed samples were collected from Manamelkudi village of Pudukkottai district at different time intervals i.e. March, July and November and were identified as Gracilaria salicornia and Gracilaria edulis at Botanical Survey of India, Coimbatore. The identified seaweeds were assessed for their nutritional and mineral composition using standard methods. G.edulis was rich in carbohydrate (86.58%), protein (1.98%), lipid (0.86%) and fiber content (1.49%) when compared to G. salicornia (carbohydrates: 76.18%; protein: 1.86%; lipid: 0.51%; fibre: 1.41%). The ash content was found to be higher in G. salicornia (19.2%). The seaweeds G. salicornia and G.edulis contains fairly large amounts of N (0.29 and 0.32 mg/100g), P (15.10 and 5.90 mg/100g) and K (465.10 and 307.80 mg/100g) respectively. Both seaweeds also contained reasonable amounts of micronutrients except Cu which was found below detectable limit. Heavy metals namely lead, chromium, cadmium, nickel and mercury were found below detectable level in both the sea weeds. Hence, it may be concluded from the present study that the seaweeds G. salicornia and G. edulis may be utilised as value-added products in human nutrition.