Analysis On Nutritional Components Of Cherry Seed Kernels

The cherry(Prunus avium L.) belongs to the Rosaceae family, subfamily of the prunoids and it is widely distributed in China. In addition, the fruit of cherry is very popular in China.Because of its good nutrition value and flavor, cherry not only as fresh fruit, but also it can be processed a variety kinds of food products. During these process, cherry seeds are usually directly abandoned as animal feed or waste, which cannot maximize the value of cherry seeds and resulting in a serious environmental pollution. This study will investigate the nutritional content of cherry seed kernels in order to determine its nutritional value and provide a theoretical basis for the high value-added of cherry seeds.In this thesis, the content of moisture, ash, crude protein, crude fat, crude fiber, minerals and vitamin were determined, the fatty acid composition and amino acid composition of cherry seed kernels were analyzed as well. Furthermore, polysaccharide was extracted and its antioxidant properties was studied. The results were as follows: the ratio of moisture in cherry seed kernels were 6.12%, and the ratios of crude fat, crude protein, total sugar, crude fiber and ash(dry weight) was 26.38%, 38.36%, 18.72%, 5.51% and 5.04%, respectively. Thirteen kinds of fatty acids were detected in cherry seed kernels oil. Among them, six kinds of saturated fatty acids which accounting for 12.15% of total fatty acids, seven kinds of unsaturated fatty acids which accounting up to 87.85% of total fatty acids, and the content of oleic acid and linoleic acid were 218.43 mg/g and 247.27 mg/g, respectively. Additionally,cherry seed kernels also contained conjugated linolenic acid, the content was 60.12 mg/g. The protein of cherry seed kernels were mainly composed of globulin, albumin, glutelin and prolamine. The protein of cherry seed kernels contained eighteen kinds of amino acids, of which eight kinds of amino acids were essential amino acids, the essential amino acids took up 27.94% of total amino acids. In addition, the content(dry weight) of K, Ca, Na, Mg, Zn,Cu, Fe in cherry seed kernels were 53.19, 2.79, 46.37, 604.59, 34.44, 24.78, 7.56 and 39.9μg/g, respectively. The content of vitamin C and vitamin E in cherry seed kernels were 61.44mg/100 g and 4.70 mg/100 g. Moreover, cherry seed kernels contained flavonoids and thecontent was 7.199 mg/g. And cherry seed kernels polysaccharides had certain antioxidant activity.The research showed that the cherry seed kernels were rich in nutrient elements,especially the content of protein and fat were high. The cherry seed kernels oil was rich in unsaturated fatty acid, the content of oleic acid and linoleic acid content were highest,especially it contained conjugated linolenic acid. Due to the amino acid composition was balance, the protein of cherry seed kernels was high quality protein. Meanwhile, the cherry seed kernels were rich in minerals, vitamins and also contained flavonoids, indicting that the cherry seeds had great development value.