Vol. 11, Issue 10 (2022)

Author(s):
Diksha Singh, Rita Singh Raghuvanshi, Anuradha Dutta and Anil Kumar

Abstract:
The present work was undertaken to study the physicochemical and nutritional properties of hemp seeds. Hemp, a wild plant, is scantly cultivated for fibre and its seeds are an undervalued co-product resulting from the cultivation of industrial hemp. The underutilized seeds of hemp can be used to enhance the nutritional value of staple foods in terms of plant-based protein, good quality fat and fibre. Different physicochemical and nutritional characteristics of whole hemp seed were analyzed. The seed weight, seed volume, hydration and swelling capacity, bulk density and pericarp color were found to be 19.29 g, 18.66 ml, 0.03 g/seed, 0.07 ml, 0.56 g/ml, and light olive brown color respectively. The nutritional composition results revealed that whole hemp seed has good quality of crude protein (20.40%) and crude fat (28.70%). Whole hemp seed has good amount of dietary fibre (26.83 g/100 g) and fair amount of in vitro protein digestibility (66.69%) whereas, total phenolic content was very high (221.31 mgGAE/100 g) and a very little amount of a-tocopherol (0.05 mg/100 g) was present.