NUTRITIONAL ASSESSMENT OF AJWA DATE FLESH AND PITS IN COMPARISON TO LOCAL VARIETIES - S. Khalid; A. Ahmad; T. Masud; M. J. Asad; M. Sandhu (Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences, 2016)
The study was designed to characterize ajwa flesh and pits and make their comparison with locally available date cultivars. Correlation between proximate characteristics and within different minerals was analyzed while cluster analysis technique was used to evaluate similarity between sugar contents of date varieties. The results indicated ajwa flesh as richest source of moisture (22.8 %), ash (3.22 %), glucose (54.5%), fructose (52.03%), maltose (22.5%), and galactose (12 .2%) contents while ajwa pits have highest amounts of crude fat (7.8%), crude fiber(51%), TDF(53.9%), IDF(34.6), and SDF(19.5%). Highly significant correlation of crude fat with crude fiber and crude protein was observed while crude protein also exhibited positive correlation with crude fiber. Date flesh was found better source of mineral as compared to pits whereas potassium was found rich in both parts. Highly significant negative correlation of Na and positive correlation of Zn and Ca with all other minerals was observed. Cluster analysis of sugar suggests highest similarity of fructose, maltose and galactose and least similarity of sucrose under cluster III and cluster I. The work identifies variability among flesh and pits of ajwa date and local date varieties for their nutritional traits that can be used in fortification of different food products.
Keywords: journal article; Ajwa; HPLC; Dendogram; Glucose; Minerals