Nutrition analysis and food safety evaluation of green tide algae in 2010

Successive green tides that happened in South Yellow Sea in recent years have caused widespread concern.In order to provide the basis for making integrated use of green tide algae,and according to national standards,this study analyzed basic nutrients,chlorophyll,amino acids,mineral elements and heavy metals of green algae collected from Jiangsu and Shandong in 2010.The results indicated that:carbohydrates were the main nutritional components of these green tide algae,accounting for 35.82%-52.43%;the crude protein contents varied greatly,from 31.04% to 12.11%;the fat contents were low and all less than 1%;there was a significant difference in the contents of chlorophyll,the contents decreased significantly when the collection dates delayed;the amino acid contents were high and the percent age of essential amino acids was up to 37.45%,the flavor amino acids aspartic acid,glutamic acid,glycine and alanine were considerably high;these algae contained abundant mineral elements,the contents of Ca,Fe,Zn were distinctly high,but the heavy metals Pb,Hg and Cd were all lower than the limited requirements in national standards.The composition of attached samples did not change significantly.