Nutritive and nutritional analyses of Chanda nama consumed by the Bodos of Kokrajhar District, BTAD, Assam

Abstract

The small indigenous food fishes are enriched in high quality nutrients. They are cheap sources of high grade protein. Due to the low price they are reachable to the poor communities and admired by the different classes of people of the country. Chanda nama is though small but popular food fish in Assam having good consumer preference. Proper measures must be taken for the better conservation of these fishes. In the present work, we report the nutrient profile of Chanda nama collected from ponds and wetlands in and around Kokrajhar Assam. The proximate analysis showed that the contents of moisture, ash, total protein, total carbohydrate and total lipids were 68.12 ± 0.06%, 5.59 ± 0.02%, 14.86 ± 0.04%, 0.33± 0.04% and 11.09± 0.07% respectively. The amino acid profile revealed the fair content of essential amino acid L-histidine (8.36 ± 0.05g/100g). The fatty acid profile documented that the fish is having a good content of palmitic acid (4.49 ± 0.01g/100g), oleic acid (1.94 ± 0.03g/100g) and stearic acid (1.43 ± 0.02g/100g) apart from various others. It was also found that Chanda nama may be a rich source of iron (3.90 ± 0.02mg/100g), zinc (3.18 ± 0.02mg/100g) and calcium (807 ± 0.02mg/100g) Phosphorus (2470 ± 0.02mg/100g). One of the macro mineral phosphorous was traced to be the most abundant one (2470 ± 0.02mg/100g). The good content of Vitamin A (378.96 ± 0.03µg/100g) was also reported in the present study. In conclusion, C. nama have plethora of nutritive