Nutritional analysis of Vietnamese seaweeds for food and medicine

Abstract

Vietnamese edible marine macro-algae (seaweed) are of interest because of their value in nutrition and medicine. Vietnamese living in the coastal have traditionally utilized seaweeds species as food supplement and herbal medicine. They consumed seaweed as food in various forms: raw as salad and vegetable, pickle with sauce or with vinegar, relish or sweetened jellies and also cooked for vegetable soup. As herbal medicine, seaweed is usually used for traditional comestics, treatments for cough, asthma, hemorrhoid, boils, goitres, stomach ailments, urinary diseases, reduce the incidence of tumors, ulcers and headaches. Although Vietnam has an abundance of algae floral with total number of species is estimated to be nearly 1000 spp. in which there are 638 species of marine algae identified. However, there have been no intense study regarding to changes in marine algal chemistry. The fifteen species of edible seaweeds studied in this paper include green, brown and red algae. The proximate compositions as ash, protein, lipid, carbohydrate, fatty acids, vitamins, pigments, macro and micro-elements were compared among different species examined and the genetic relationships among them by analyzing the species-specific differences in nucleotide sequences of ITS-1 region of the ribosomal DNA was identified.

Composition, nutritional aspects and effect on serum parameters of marine algae Ulva rigida

“…6 The high concentration of calcium (5.24 g kg −1 ) can be attributed to the greater accumulation of this than in terrestrial foodstuffs. 17 These results are similar to those obtained by Carrillo et al, 18 MacArtain et al 17 and Mabeau and Fleurence, 1 and are within the range reported by the same authors and by Hong and Hien 4 and Ruperez 19 for other algae. Seaweeds have been described as a good source of iodine, which is important in metabolic regulation and growth, although consumption of very large amounts may induce some negative toxic effects.…”

“…1 -3 Some of the major economically important seaweed groups can be used for human and animal consumption. 4 In general, seaweeds are rich in polysaccharides, vitamins and minerals, low in fat and have a high protein content. However, data on the bioavailability of these components are limited.…”

Functional and nutritional value of the Chilean seaweeds Codium fragile, Gracilaria chilensis and Macrocystis pyrifera

“…The values obtained in the carbohydrate investigation for the three algae are above the contents reported by several authors for fruits and vegetables daily consumed; they only resemble the carbohydrate content in dried fruit [32]. The high carbohydrate content is a very marked characteristic in most algae, comprising mainly soluble carbohydrates, sugars, including pectins, plus a lot of alginic acid in M. pyrifera and agar and carrageenan in G. chilensis [40][41][42].…”

Effect of irradiation on the protein profile, protein content, and quality of agar from Gracilaria asiatica Zhang et Xia (Rhodophyta)

“…The content of microelements in Gracilaria such as Fe, Mn, Zn, Co, Pb, and Mo were analyzed through the use of atomic absorption spectrometry. The content of I and B were analyzed by the color comparison method using UV-VIS, UV-160IPC (Shimadzu, Japan) (Hong and Hien 2004).…”